So stands the premonition; and to-day
I look back on the words here written down,
Comparing them with what has happened since,
And find there is no flaw in any scene.
Always intending to tell Grace my fear
That some day I might be entombed alive,
I always failed, until it was too late.
But as the sod fell on the coffin-lid,
My trance was broken, and I called and screamed,
Until they drew me up from out the grave,
And breaking in my prison, set me free.
Gianni fled, fearing my face at last.
To-day I have his letter from his home,
Beneath the far-off skies of Italy,
Craving forgiveness for his wrongs to me;
Saying that he repents for all his past,
And with Christ's help, will lead a better life.
He found his wife and children overjoyed
To have him back again to their embrace.
To-morrow Grace Bernard and I shall wed.
The bell that tolled my bitter funeral knell,
Will ring, glad of my wedding and my bride—
Ring merrily round and round a jubilant peal.
There comes no premonition now to show to me
What the long future has in store for us;
But from my door I watch the sunset skies,
And see blue mountains tower o'er golden plains,
Clothed with pure beauty stretching far away.
So seems the future. I await the morn.
VEERA.
I.
THE KING'S SEAL.
While yet upon his couch our father lay,
Sick unto death, my brothers, with one mind,
Plotted abrupt destruction to my life.
I did not tell the king, because I feared
To lessen by one heat the throbbing of his heart.
Beside his couch I knelt, and bowed my head—
I, his first-born, whom all the people loved.
His hot, weak hand he laid upon my hair,
And blessed me with his blessing, then said on:
"Thou hast beheld in Spring the dark green blade
That stabs up through the unresisting earth;
At last the Summer crowns it with a flower.
So thou, when I am passed away, and gone to dust,
Shalt wear a crown, but grander than the shrubs—
The symbol of a kingdom, on thy brow.
But take thee now this lesson to thy heart,
And from the grass learn wisdom; wear thy crown
As meekly, and as void of all display,
As doth the shrub half hidden under leaves."
So he bent down with pain, and kissed my cheek,
As though, having issued a great law, he
Had set his seal upon it—the king's seal.
I cared not for the crown, save as a means
To give my soul a higher and a nobler life.
This my old tutor taught me—a strange man he,
With careless garb, and heavy hairy brows
Bridged over eyes that shone like furnace fire.
My will was lost in his. I grew like him.
I only cared to study and to dream.
And he it was who, standing in the night
Between two pillars on the palace porch,
Saw my two brothers pass, and overheard
The hateful whisper of their black design.