But these will fade.
PRINCE HENRY.
Themselves will fade,
But not their memory;
And memory has the power
To recreate them from the dust.
They remind me, too,
Of martyred Dorothea,
Who, from celestial gardens, sent
Flowers as her witnesses
To him who scoffed and doubted.
ELSIE.
Do you know the story
Of Christ and the Sultan's daughter?
That is the prettiest legend of them all.
PRINCE HENRY.
Then tell it to me;
But first come hither.
Lay the flowers down beside me,
And put thy hands in mine.
Now, tell me the story."
This, whatever else it may be, has certainly no pretensions to the name of verse.
Occasionally, whilst retaining rhyme and the semblance of metre, Mr Longfellow is betrayed into great extravagance. What plea of justification can be urged in behalf of the construction of the following lines, which are put into the mouth of Lucifer?—
"My being here is accidental;
The storm, that against yon casement drives,
In the little village below waylaid me.
And there I heard, with a secret delight,
Of your maladies physical and mental,
Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.
And I hastened hither, though late in the night,
To proffer my aid!"