Page images
PDF
EPUB

Then Jacqueline the silence broke.
She clasped her father's knees and spoke,
Her brother kneeling too;

While D'Arcy as before looked on,
Tho' from his manly cheek was gone
Its natural hue.

"His praises from your lips I heard,
fond heart was won;

Till my

And, if in aught his Sire has erred,
Oh turn not from the Son!—

She, whom in joy, in grief you nursed;
Who climbed and called you father first,

By that dear name conjures

On her you thought-but to be kind!
When looked she
up, but you inclined?
These things, for ever in her mind,
Oh are they gone from yours?

Two kneeling at your feet behold;

One-one how young;-nor yet the other old.
Oh
spurn them not-nor look so cold-
If Jacqueline be cast away,

Her bridal be her dying day.

Well, well might she believe in you!—
She listened, and she found it true."

He shook his aged locks of snow;

And twice he turned, and rose to go.
She hung; and was St. Pierre to blame,
If tears and smiles together came?

"Oh no-begone! I'll hear no more." But, as he spoke, his voice relcnted.

"That very look thy mother wore

When she implored, and old Le Roc consented.
True, I have done as well as suffered wrong.
Yet once I loved him as my own!

-Nor can❜st thou, D'Arcy, feel resentment long;
For she herself shall plead, and I atone.
Henceforth," he paused awhile, unmanned,
For D'Arcy's tears bedewed his hand;
"Let each meet each as friend to friend,
All things by all forgot, forgiven.

And that dear Saint-may she once more descend
To make our home a heaven!—

But now, in my hands, your's with her's unite.
A father's blessing on your heads alight!
Nor let the least be sent away.

[ocr errors]

All hearts shall sing Adieu to sorrow!'

St. Pierre has found his child to-day;

And old and young shall dance to-morrow."

Had Louis* then before the gate dismounted,
Lost in the chase at set of sun;

Like Henry, when he heard recounted +
The generous deeds himself had done,

Louis the Fourteenth.

† Alluding to a popular story related of Henry the Fourth of France; similar to ours of " The King and Miller of Mansfield."

(That night the miller's maid Colette

Sung, while he supped, her chansonnette)
Then-when St. Pierre addressed his village-train,
Then had the monarch with a sigh confessed
A joy by him unsought and unpossessed,
-Without it what are all the rest?-

To love, and to be loved again.

[graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »