“Is that so?” Kirsteen raised her head and looked at him with a searching glance from head to foot: the young man instinctively squared himself, drawing up his head as under inspection. “Ye are well to look at, Major Gordon—but I cannot see into your heart.”
“No,” he said, “and how can I tell you what I think of her? It’s not her beauty—she’s just as sweet as the flowers. I wish I had the tongue of Robbie Burns—or some of those new poets that would wile a bird from the trees—“ and he began to murmur some words that were not so familiar to the ear as they have come to be since then.
“She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.
“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend.
Nor shall she fail to see
E’en in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
By silent sympathy.
“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face,”
The major paused a moment, and then he added, with a rising colour, another verse—
“Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.’”
Kirsteen, though she was in London where everything that is new should be best known, had little acquaintance with the new poets. She had heard part of the Ancient Mariner, which was to her like a great piece of music, thrilling her being, but imperfectly understanded of her intelligence. She had heard much of Byron, who was raved of by every apprentice, and whom consequently this high aristocrat in verse, as in all other things, held in a certain scorn. She listened surprised to the lines which Gordon stammered forth somewhat shamefacedly, finding himself embarked in a kind of recitation, which he had not intended.
“Who said it?—they are very bonny words. I am much beholden to him, whoever he is, for such a bonny picture of my little sister—if it is not yourself?”
“I!” cried the major. “Oh, be not profane! It is one Wordsworth that lives on the Borders—but she is like that.”