[Stepping forward with DAVID.]
Story and comment alike are bad;
These little fellows are raving mad
With thinking what they should do,
Supposing their sunny-eyed sister had
Given her heart—and her head—to a lad
Like the man with the Beard of Blue.
Each little jacket
Is now a packet
Of murderous thoughts and fancies;
Oh, the gentle trade
By which fiends are made
With the ready aid
Of these bloody old romances!
And the little girl takes the woman's turn,
And thinks that the old curmudgeon
Who owned the castle, and rolled in gold
Over fields and gardens manifold,
And kept in his house a family tomb,
With his bowling course and his billiard-room,
Where he could preserve his precious dead,
Who took the kiss of the bridal bed
From one who straightway took their head,
And threw it away with the pair of gloves
In which he wedded his hapless loves,
Had some excuse for his dudgeon.
David.
We learn by contrast to admire
The beauty that enchains us;
And know the object of desire
By that which pains us.
The roses blushing at the door,
The lapse of leafy June,
The singing birds, the sunny shore,
The summer moon;—
All these entrance the eye or ear
By innate grace and charm;
But o'er them, reaching through the year,
Hangs Winter's arm.
To give to memory the sign,
The index of our bliss,
And show by contrast how divine
The Summer is.
From chilling blasts and stormy skies,
Bare hills and icy streams,
Touched into fairest life arise
Our summer dreams.
And virtue never seems so fair
As when we lift our gaze
From the red eyes and bloody hair
That vice displays.
We are too low,—our eyes too dark
Love's height to estimate,
Save as we note the sunken mark
Of brutal Hate.