Beside a northern pine a boy
Is leaning fancy-bound. Nor listens where with noisy joy
Awaits the impatient hound.
Cool grows the sick and feverish calm,
Relaxed the frosty twine.— The pine-tree dreameth of the palm,
The palm-tree of the pine.
As soon shall nature interlace
Those dimly-visioned boughs, As these young lovers face to face
Renew their early vows.
From the German of HEINRICH HEINE.
Translation of RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON.
[SAID TO HAVE BEEN THE SUGGESTIVE ORIGIN OF SCOTT'S "KENILWORTH.">[
The dews of summer night did fall;
The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby.
Now naught was heard beneath the skies,
The sounds of busy life were still, Save an unhappy lady's sighs,
That issued from that lonely pile.
"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love
That thou so oft hast sworn to me, To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?
"No more thou com'st with lover's speed,
Thy once belovèd bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee.