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clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,

      Appeared to my half-closing eye

      The pageantry of monarchy;

      And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar

      Came hurriedly upon me, telling

      Of human battle, where my voice,

      My own voice, silly child!—was swelling

      (O! how my spirit would rejoice,

      And leap within me at the cry)

      The battle-cry of Victory!

      The rain came down upon my head

      Unsheltered—and the heavy wind

      Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

      It was but man, I thought, who shed

      Laurels upon me: and the rush—

      The torrent of the chilly air

      Gurgled within my ear the crush

      Of empires—with the captive’s prayer—

      The hum of suitors—and the tone

      Of flattery ’round a sovereign’s throne.

      My passions, from that hapless hour,

      Usurped a tyranny which men

      Have deemed since I have reached to power,

      My innate nature—be it so:

      But, father, there lived one who, then,

      Then—in my boyhood—when their fire

      Burned with a still intenser glow

      (For passion must, with youth, expire)

      E’en then who knew this iron heart

      In woman’s weakness had a part.

      I have no words—alas!—to tell

      The loveliness of loving well!

      Nor would I now attempt to trace

      The more than beauty of a face

      Whose lineaments, upon my mind,

      Are—shadows on th’ unstable wind:

      Thus I remember having dwelt

      Some page of early lore upon,

      With loitering eye, till I have felt

      The letters—with their meaning—melt

      To fantasies—with none.

      O, she was worthy of all love!

      Love as in infancy was mine—

      ’Twas such as angel minds above

      Might envy; her young heart the shrine

      On which my every hope and thought

      Were incense—then a goodly gift,

      For they were childish and upright—

      Pure—as her young example taught:

      Why did I leave it, and, adrift,

      Trust to the fire within, for light?

      We grew in age—and love—together—

      Roaming the forest, and the wild;

      My breast her shield in wintry weather—

      And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.

      And she would mark the opening skies,

      I saw no Heaven—but in her eyes.

      Young Love’s first lesson is—the heart:

      For ’mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

      When, from our little cares apart,

      And laughing at her girlish wiles,

      I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,

      And pour my spirit out in tears—

      There was no need to speak the rest—

      No need to quiet any fears

      Of her—who asked no reason why,

      But turned on me her quiet eye!

      Yet more than worthy of the love

      My spirit struggled with, and strove

      When, on the mountain peak, alone,

      Ambition lent it a new tone—

      I had no being—but in thee:

      The world, and all it did contain

      In the earth—the air—the sea—

      Its joy—its little lot of pain

      That was new pleasure—the ideal,

      Dim, vanities of dreams by night—

      And dimmer nothings which were real—

      (Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)

      Parted upon their misty wings,

      And, so, confusedly, became

      Thine image and—a name—a name!

      Two separate—yet most intimate things.

      I was ambitious—have you known

      The passion, father? You have not:

      A cottager, I marked a throne

      Of half the world as all my own,

      And murmured at such lowly lot—

      But, just like any other dream,

      Upon the vapor of the dew

      My own had past, did not the beam

      Of beauty which did while it thro’

      The minute—the hour—the day—oppress

      My mind with double loveliness.

      We walked together on the crown

      Of a high mountain which looked down

      Afar from its proud natural towers

      Of rock and forest, on the hills—

      The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

      And shouting with a thousand rills.

      I spoke to her of power and pride,

      But mystically—in such guise

      That she might deem it nought beside

      The moment’s converse; in her eyes

      I read, perhaps too carelessly—

      A mingled feeling with my own—

      The flush on her bright cheek, to me

      Seemed to become a queenly throne

      Too well that I should let it be

      Light in the wilderness alone.

      I wrapped myself in grandeur then,

      And donned a visionary crown—

      Yet it was not that Fantasy

      Had thrown her mantle over me—

      But that, among the rabble—men,

      Lion ambition is chained down—

      And crouches to a keeper’s hand—

      Not so in deserts where the grand—

      The wild—the terrible conspire

      With their own breath to fan his fire.

      Look

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