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X

Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit,
Wildered and dark, despairingly alone;
Though many a shape of beauty wander near it,
And many a wild and half-remembered tone
Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it,
Yet still it knows that there is only one
Before whom it can kneel and tribute bring.
At once a happy vassal and a king. 80

XI

To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is,
To seek one nature that is always new,
Whose glance is warmer than another’s kiss,
Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to,
Nor feel deserted afterwards,–for this
But with our destined co-mate we can do,–
Such longing instinct fills the mighty scope
Of the young soul with one mysterious hope.

XII

So Margaret’s heart grew brimming with the lore
Of love’s enticing secrets; and although 90
She had found none to cast it down before,
Yet oft to Fancy’s chapel she would go
To pay her vows–and count the rosary o’er
Of her love’s promised graces:–haply so
Miranda’s hope had pictured Ferdinand
Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand.

XIII

A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom,
Unwedded yet and longing for the sun,
Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom,
Blithely to crown the virgin planet run, 100
Her being was, watching to see the bloom
Of love’s fresh sunrise roofing one by one
Its clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to be
For him who came to hold her heart in fee.

XIV

Not far from Margaret’s cottage dwelt a knight
Of the proud Templars, a sworn celibate,
Whose heart in secret fed upon the light
And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate
Of his close vow catching what gleams he might
Of the free heaven, and cursing all too late 110
The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in
And turned life’s crowning bliss to deadly sin.

XV

For he had met her in the wood by chance,
And, having drunk her beauty’s wildering spell,
His heart shook like the pennon of a lance
That quivers in a breeze’s sudden swell,
And thenceforth, in a close-infolded trance,
From mistily golden deep to deep he fell;
Till earth did waver and fade far away
Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay. 120

XVI

A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youth
Had shed its blossoms even in opening,
Leaving a few that with more winning ruth
Trembling around grave manhood’s stem might cling,
More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth,
Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring:
A twilight nature, braided light and gloom,
A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.

XVII

Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore
A wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall; 130
Who saw him alway wished to know him more,
As if he were some fate’s defiant thrall
And nursed a dreaded secret at his core;
Little he loved, but power the most of all,
And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knew
By what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto.

XVIII

He had been noble, but some great deceit
Had turned his better instinct to a vice:
He strove to think the world was all a cheat,
That power and fame were cheap at any price, 140
That the sure way of being shortly great
Was even to play life’s game with loaded dice,
Since he had tried the honest play and found
That vice and virtue differed but in sound.