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;
Down the purple of this chamber, tears should scarcely run at will:
I am humbled who was humble I Friend,—I bow my head before you!
You should lead me to my peasants !—but their faces are too still.

There's a lady—an earl's daughter; she is proud and she is noble:
And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air;
And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble.
And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair.

She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers.
She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command,
And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres,
As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of her land.

There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence;
Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain:
She has sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;
What was / that I should love her—save for competence to pain!

I was only a poo, poet, made for singing at her casement,
As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things.
Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my ahasement,
In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings!

Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their door-ways;
She has blest their little children,—as a priest or queen were she.
Far too tender or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was,
For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on me.

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—
To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair:
Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we are wont to call the Muses—
And in nympholeptic climbing, poets pass from mount to star.

And because I was a poet, and because the people praised me,
With their critical deduction for the modern writer's fault;
I could sit at rich men's tables,—though the courtesies that raised me,
Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the salt.

And they praised me in her presence :—' Will your book appear this summer?'
Then returning to each other—' Yes, our plans are for the moors ;'
Then with whisper dropped behind me—'There he is! the latest comer!
Oh, she only likes his verses ! what is over, she endures.

'Quite low born ! self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature,—
And we make a point by asking him,—of being very kind;
You may speak, he does not hear you ; and besides, he writes no satire,—
All these serpents kept by charmers, leave their natural sting behind.'

I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them,
Till as fro;t intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched my brow;
When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced. overrung them,-
And a sudden silken stirring touched my mner nature through.

I looked upward and beheld her! With a calm and regnant spirit,
Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all—
• Have you such superfluous honor, sir, that able to confer it
You will come down, Mr. Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall?'

Here she paused,—she had been paler at the first word of her speaking;
But because a silence followed it, blushed somewhat as for shame;
Then, as scorning her own feeling, resumed calmly—' I am seeking
More distinction than these gentlemen think worthy of my claim.

'Nevertheless, you see, I seek it—not because I am a woman,'
(Here her smile sprang like a fountain, and, so, overflowed her mouth)
'But because my woods in Sussex have some purple shades at gloaming
Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth.

'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;
And I bowed—I could not answer! Alternate light and gloom—
While as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye serenely.
She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the room.

Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me,
With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind!
Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex! where the hunter's arrow found me.
When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and blind!

In that ancient hall of Wycombe, thronged the numerous guests invited,
And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet;
And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted
All the air about the windows, with elastic laughters sweet.

For at eve, the open windows flung their light out on the terrace,
Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow sweep;
While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the heiress.
Trembled downward through their snowy wings at music in their sleep.
And there evermore was music, both of instrument and singing;
Till the finches of the shrubberies grew restless in the dark;
But the cedars stood up motionless, each in a moonlight ringing.
And the deer, half in the glimmer, strewed the hollows of the park.

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,
Spread out cheery from the court-yard till we lost them in the hills;
While herself and other ladies, and her suitors left beside her.
Went a-wandering up the gardens through the laurels and abeles.

Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass—hareheaded—with the flowing
Of the virginal white vesture gathered closely to her throat;
With the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going.
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float,—

With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her.
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies,
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her.
And to worship the divinencss of the smile hid in her eyes.

Fcr her eyes alone smile constantly: her lips have serious sweetness,
And her front is calm—the dimple rarely ripples on her cheek:
But her deep blue eyessmile constantly,—as if they in discreetness
Kept the secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak.

Thus she drew me the first morning, out across into the garden:
And I walked among her noble friends and could not keep behind;
Spake she unto all atad unto me—' Behold, I am the warden
Of the song birds in these lindens, which are cages to their mind.

'But within this swarded circle, into which the lime-walk brings us—
Whence the beeches rounded greenly, stand away in reverent fear;
I will let no music enter, saving what the fountain sings us,
Which the lilies round the hasin may seem pure enough to hear.

'The live air that waves the lilies waves this slender jet of water
Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting saint!

So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush !—a fancy quaint!

'Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not a dream between them lingers!
And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the cheek:
And the right hand,—with the symbol rose held slack within the fingers,-.
Has fallen hack within the hasin—yet this Silence will not speak!

'That the essential meaning growing may exceed the special symbol,
Is the thought as I conceive it : it applies more high and low.
Our true noblemen will often through right nobleness grow humble,
And assert an inward honor by denying outward show.'