A NEW MICHONNET
The foster-child forgets his nurse:
She doth but know what he hath been,
Took him for better or for worse,
Would pet him, though he be sixteen.
He helps to weave the soft quadrille;
Ah! leave the parlour door ajar;
Those thirsting eyes shall take their fill,
And watch her darling from afar.
It is her pride to see the hand,
Which wont so wantonly to tear
Her unblanched curls, control the band,
And change the tune, with such an air.
And who so good? she thinks, or who
So fit for partners rich and tall?
Indeed she's looked the ball-room through,
And he's the loveliest lad of all.
So to her lonesome bed: and there,
If any wandering notes she hear,
She'll say in pauses of her prayer,
"He dancing still, my child! my dear!"
His gladness doth on her redound,
Though hair be grey, and eyes be dim:
At every waif of broken sound
She'll wake, and smile, and think of him.
So, noblest of the noble, go
Through regions echoing thy name;
And even on me, thy friend, shall flow
Some streamlet from thy river of fame.
Thou to the gilded youth be kind;
Shed all thy genius-rays on them;
An ancient comrade stands behind
To touch, unseen, thy mantle's hem.
A stranger to thy peers am I,
And slighted, like that poor old crone,
And yet some clinging memories try
To rate thy conquests as mine own.
Nay, when at random drops thy praise
From lips of happy lookers-on,
My tearful eyes I proudly raise,
And bid my conscious self be gone.
SAPPHICS
Love, like an island, held a single heart,
Waiting for shoreward flutterings of the breeze,
So might it waft to him that sat apart
Some angel guest from out the clouded seas.
Was it mere chance that threw within his reach
Fragments and symbols of the bliss unknown?
Was it vague hope that murmured down the beach,
Tuning the billows and the cavern's moan?
Oft through the aching void the promise thrilled:
"Thou shalt be loved, and Time shall pay his debt."
Silence returns upon the wish fulfilled,
Joy for a year, and then a sweet regret.
Idol, mine Idol, whom this touch profanes,
Pass as thou cam'st across the glimmering seas:
All, all is lost but memory's sacred pains;
Leave me, oh leave me, ere I forfeit these.
A FABLE
An eager girl, whose father buys
Some ruined thane's forsaken hall,
Explores the new domain, and tries
Before the rest to view it all.
Alone she lifts the latch, and glides
Through many a sadly curtained room,
As daylight through the doorway slides
And struggles with the muffled gloom.
With mimicries of dance she wakes
The lordly gallery's silent floor,
And climbing up on tiptoe, makes
The old-world mirror smile once more.
With tankards dry she chills her lip,
With yellowing laces veils the head,
And leaps in pride of ownership
Upon the faded marriage bed.
A harp in some dark nook she sees,
Long left a prey to heat and frost.
She smites it: can such tinklings please?
Is not all worth, all beauty, lost?
Ah! who'd have thought such sweetness clung
To loose neglected strings like those?
They answered to whate'er was sung,
And sounded as the lady chose.
Her pitying finger hurried by
Each vacant space, each slackened chord;
Nor would her wayward zeal let die
The music-spirit she restored.
The fashion quaint, the time-worn flaws,
The narrow range, the doubtful tone,
All was excused awhile, because
It seemed a creature of her own.
Perfection tires; the new in old,
The mended wrecks that need her skill,
Amuse her. If the truth be told,
She loves the triumph of her will.
With this, she dares herself persuade,
She'll be for many a month content,
Quite sure no duchess ever played
Upon a sweeter instrument.
And thus in sooth she can beguile
Girlhood's romantic hours: but soon
She yields to taste and mode and style,
A siren of the gay saloon;
And wonders how she once could like
Those drooping wires, those failing notes,
And leaves her toy for bats to strike
Amongst the cobwebs and the motes.
But enter in, thou freezing wind,
And snap the harp-strings one by one;
It was a maiden blithe and kind:
They felt her touch; their task is done.