My Lady, you know, how nobly born!
Haughty of form, with a head that rose
Like a dream of empire; love and scorn
Made haunts of her eyes; and her lips were bows
Whence pride imperious flashed flower and thorn.
And I—oh, I was nobody: one
Her worshiper only; who chose to be
Silent, seeing that love alone
Was his only badge of nobility,
Set in his heart's escutcheon.
How long ago does the springtime look,
When we wandered away to the hills! the hills,—
Like the land in the tale in the fairy-book,—
Covered with gold of the daffodils,
And gemmed with the crocus by brae and brook!
When I gathered a branch from a hawthorn tree,
For her hair or bosom, from boughs that hung
Odorous of heaven and purity;
And she thanked me smiling; then merrily sung,
Laughingly sung, while she looked at me:—
"There dwelt a princess over the sea—
Right fair was she, right fair was she—
Who loved a squire of low degree,
But married a king of Brittany—
Ah, woe is me!
"And it came to pass on the wedding-day—
So people say, so people say—
That they found her dead in her bridal array,
Dead, and her lover beside her lay—
Ah, well-away!
"A sour stave for your sweets," she said,
Pressing the blossoms against her lips:
Then petal by petal the branch she shred,
Snowing the blooms from her finger-tips,
Tossing them down for her feet to tread.
What to her was the look I gave
Of love despised! though she seemed to start,
Seeing, and said, with a quick hand-wave,
"Why, one would think that that was your heart,"
While her face with a sudden thought grew grave.
But I answered nothing. And so to her home
We came in the twilight; falling clear,
With a few first stars and a moon's curved foam,
Over the hush of meadow and mere,
Whence the boom of the bittern would often come.
Would you think that she loved me?—Who can say?—
What a riddle unread was she to me!—
When I kissed her fingers and turned away
I wanted to speak, but—what cared she,
Though her eyes looked soft and she begged me stay!