And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,
Stoop to gaze on me, half-blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart-agony, all calmly sat beside.
V.
No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North-lights, rushing up my darkened soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false-hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.
VI.
How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:—Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?
Raised her high enough to scorn him—aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her—heart that I had died to gain!
VII.
Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit-monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned—
Lone and icy as an Alp-peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine-toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re-echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet-words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an Angelus to prayer.
VIII.
Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam—
As the palm-tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius-shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes—
With her rainbow-spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark-browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet-hymn.