Soon as the sun the glittering pane
On the red floor in diamonds threw,
His songs she sung and sung again,
Till the last light withdrew.
Every day, and all day long,
He mused or slumbered to a song.
But she is dead to him, to all!
Her lute hangs silent on the wall ;
And on the stairs, and at the door,
Her fairy-step is heard no more!
At every meal an empty chair
Tells him that she is not there;
She, who would lead him where he went,
Charm with her converse while he leant;
Or, hovering, every wish prevent;
At eve light up the chimney-nook,
Lay there his glass within his book;
And that small chest of curious mould
(Queen Mab's, perchance, in days of old),
Tusk of elephant and gold;
Which, when a tale is long, dispenses
Its fragrant dust to drowsy senses.
In her who mourned not, when they missed her,
The old a child, the young a sister?
No more the orphan runs to take
From her loved hand the barley-cake.
No more the matron in the school
Expects her in the hour of rule,
To sit amid the elfin brood,
Praising the busy and the good.
The widow trims her hearth in vain.
She comes not nor will come again.
Not now, his little lesson done,
With Frederic blowing bubbles in the sun;
Nor spinning by the fountain side
(Some story of the days of old,
Barbe Bleue or Chaperon Rouge half-told
To him who would not be denied);
Not now, to while an hour away,
Gone to the falls in Valombrè,
Where 't is night at noon of day;
Nor wandering up and down the wood,
To all but her a solitude,
Where once a wild deer, wild no more,
Her chaplet on his antlers wore,
And at her bidding stood.
THE day was in the golden west;
And, curtained close by leaf and flower,
The doves had cooed themselves to rest
In Jacqueline's deserted bower;
The doves that still would at her casement peck,
And in her walks had ever fluttered round
With purple feet and shining neck,
True as the echo to the sound.
That casement, underneath the trees,
Half open to the western breeze,
Looked down, enchanting Garonnelle,
Thy wild and mulberry-shaded dell,
Round which the Alps of Piedmont rose,
The blush of sunset on their snows:
While, blithe as lark on summer-morn,
When green and yellow waves the corn,
When harebells blow in every grove,
And thrushes sing "I love! I love!"*
Within (so soon the early rain
Scatters, and 't is fair again;
Though many a drop may yet be seen
To tell us where a cloud has been)
Within lay Frederick, o'er and o'er,
Building castles on the floor,
And feigning, as they grew in size,
New troubles and new dangers;
With dimpled cheeks and laughing eyes,
As he and fear were strangers.
St. Pierre sat by, nor saw nor smiled.
His eyes were on his loved Montaigne ;
But every leaf was turned in vain.
For in that hour remorse he felt,
And his heart told him he had dealt
Unkindly with his child.
A father may a while refuse;
But who can for another choose?
When her young blushes had revealed
The secret from herself concealed,
Why promise what her tears denied,
That she should be De Courcy's bride?
-Wouldst thou, presumptuous as thou art,
O'er Nature play the tyrant's part,
And with the hand compel the heart?
O rather, rather hope to bind
The ocean-wave, the mountain-wind;
*Cantando "Io amo! Io amo !"-TASSO.
Or, fix thy foot upon the ground
To stop the planet rolling round.
The light was on his face; and there
You might have seen the passions driven-
Resentment, Pity, Hope, Despair-
Like clouds across the face of Heaven.
Now he sighed heavily; and now,
His hand withdrawing from his brow,
He shut the volume with a frown,
To walk his troubled spirit down:
-When (faithful as that dog of yore*
Who wagged his tail and could no more)
Manchon, who long had snuffed the ground,
And sought and sought, but never found,
Leapt up and to the casement flew,
And looked and barked, and vanished through.
"'T is Jacqueline! 'T is Jacqueline ! "
Her little brother laughing cried.
"I know her by her kirtle green,
She comes along the mountain-side;
Now turning by the traveller's seat,-
Now resting in the hermit's cave,—
Now kneeling, where the pathways meet,
To the cross on the stranger's grave.
And, by the soldier's cloak, I know
(There, there along the ridge they go)
D'Arcy, so gentle and so brave!
Look up-why will you not?" he cries,
His rosy hands before his eyes;
For on that incense-breathing eve
The sun shone out, as loth to leave.
"See to the rugged rock she clings! She calls, she faints, and D'Arcy springs; D'Arcy, so dear to us, to all
Who, for you told me on your knee,
When in the fight he saw you fall,
Saved you for Jacqueline and me!"
And true it was! And true the tale!
When did she sue and not prevail?
Five years before it was the night
That on the village-green they parted,
The lilied banners streaming bright
O'er maids and mothers broken-hearted;
The drum it drowned the last adieu,
When D'Arcy from the crowd she drew.
"One charge I have, and one alone,
Nor that refuse to take,
My father-if not for his own,
O, for his daughter's sake!
Inly he vowed-'t was all he could ;
And went and sealed it with his blood.
Nor can ye wonder. When a child,
And in her playfulness she smiled,
Up many a ladder-path* he guided
Where meteor-like the chamois glided,
Through many a misty grove.
They loved — but under Friendship's name;
And Reason, Virtue fanned the flame,
Till in their houses Discord came,
And 't was a crime to love.
* Called in the language of the country Pas-de-l'Echelle.
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