LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP. A ROMANCE OF THE AGE.' A fioet writes to his friend—Place—A room in Wycombe Hall. Time—Ijitt in the evening. Dear my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit o'er you; There's a lady—an earl's daughter; she is proud and she is noble: She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers. There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence; I was only a poo, poet, made for singing at her casement, Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their door-ways; She has voters in the commons, she has lovers in the palace— And of all the fair court-ladies, few have jewels half as fine: Oft the prince has named her beauty, 'twixt the red wine and the chalice: Oh, and what was / to love her? my Beloved, my Geraldine! Yet I could not choose but love her—I was born to poet uses— And because I was a poet, and because the people praised me, And they praised me in her presence :—' Will your book appear this summer?' 'Quite low born ! self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature,— I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them, I looked upward and beheld her! With a calm and regnant spirit, Here she paused,—she had been paler at the first word of her speaking; 'Nevertheless, you see, I seek it—not because I am a woman,' 'I invite you, Mr. Bertram, to no scene for worldly speeches— Sir, I scarce should dare—but only where God asked the thrushes first— And if you will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches, I will thank you for the woodlands, ... for the human world at worst.' Then she smiled around right childly, then she gazed around right queenly; Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me, In that ancient hall of Wycombe, thronged the numerous guests invited, For at eve, the open windows flung their light out on the terrace, And though sometimes she would bind me with her silver-corded speeches, To commix my words and laughter with the converse and the jest. Oft I sat apart, and gazing on the river through the beeches. Heard, as pure the swans swam down it, her pure voice o'erfloat the rest. In the morning, horn of huntsman, hoof of steed, and laugh of rider, Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass—hareheaded—with the flowing With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her. Fcr her eyes alone smile constantly: her lips have serious sweetness, Thus she drew me the first morning, out across into the garden: 'But within this swarded circle, into which the lime-walk brings us— 'The live air that waves the lilies waves this slender jet of water So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush !—a fancy quaint! 'Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not a dream between them lingers! 'That the essential meaning growing may exceed the special symbol, |