That I dread to meet the eye,
Where my heart finds blessing.
Such a poem is beyond analysis. It was simply a gush of enthusiasm—the lyrical overflow of sentiment and passion, such as a song should be always. The reader will easily understand that the delicacy of the tune, the epigrammatic intenseness of the expression, is totally lost in the difficulty of subjugating our more stubborn language to the uses of the poet. A faint and inferior idea of what was said, sung at this moment of wild and almost spasmodical utterance, is all that we design to convey.
The spot in which this scene took place was amid the depth of umbrageous trees, in the beautiful garden of Chateau Roussillon. A soft and persuasive silence hung suspended in the atmosphere. Not a leaf stirred, not a bird chirruped in the foliage; and however passionate was the sentiment expressed by the troubadour, it scarcely rose beyond a whisper—harmonizing in the subdued utterance, and the sweet delicacy of its sentiment with the exquisite repose and languor of the scene. Carried beyond herself by the emotions of the moment, the feeling of Marguerite became so far irresistible that she stooped ere the song of the troubadour had subsided from the ear, and pressed her lips upon the forehead of her kneeling lover. He seized her hand at this moment and carried it to his own lips, in an equally involuntary impulse. This act awakened the noble lady to a just consciousness of her weakness. She at once recoiled from his grasp.
“Alas!” she exclaimed, with clasped hands, “what have I done?”
“Ah, lady!” was the answer of the troubadour, “it is thy goodness which has at length discovered how my heart is devoted to thee. It is thy truth, and thy nobleness, dear lady, which I love and worship.”
“By these shalt thou know me ever, Guillaume of Cabestaign,” was the response; “and yet I warn thee,” she continued, “I warn and I entreat thee, dear servant, that thou approach me not so near again. Thou hast shown to me, and surprised from me, a most precious but an unhappy secret. Thou hast, too, deeply found thy way into my heart. Alas! wherefore! wherefore!” and the eyes of the amiable and virtuous woman were suffused with tears, as her innocent soul trembled under the reproaches of her jealous conscience. She continued,
“I cannot help but love thee, Guillaume of Cabestaign, but it shall never be said that the love of the Lady Marguerite of Roussillon was other than became the wife of her lord. Thou, too, shall know me by love only, Guillaume; but it shall be such a love as shall work neither of us trespass. Yet do not thou cease to love me as before, for, of a truth, dear servant, the affections of thy heart are needful to the life of mine.”
The voice of the troubadour was only in his lyre. At all his events, his reply has been only preserved to us in song. It was in the fullness of his joy that he again poured forth his melody.
Where spreads the pleasant garden,