Christine [pp. 171-182]

Christine: A Tro.ubadour's Song.
Over the meadow the swift beams run
Lifting the flowers, one by one,
Sipping their chalices dry as they pass,
And kissing the beads from the bending grass.
The Dauphin's chateau, grand and grey,
Glows merrily in the risen day;
His castle that seemeth ancient as earth,
Lights up like an old man in his mirth.
Through the forest old, the sunbeams bold
Their glittering revel keep,
Tilly in arrowy gold, on the chequered wold
In glancing lines they sleep.
And one sweet beam hath found its way
To the violet bank where the Ladlye lay.
O radiant touch! perchance so shone
The hand that woke the widow's son.
She sighs, she stirs; the deathl-swoon breaks;
Life slowly fires those pallid lips
And feebly, painfully, she wakes,
Struggling through that dark eclipse.
Breathing fresh of Alpine snows,
Breathing sweets of summer rose,
Murmuring songs of soft repose,
The south winld on her bosom blows:
But she heeds it not, she hears it not
Fast she sits with steady stare,
The dew-drops heavy on her hair,
I-er fingers clasped in dumb despair,
Frozen to the spot:
While o'er her fierce and fixed as fate,
The fiend on his spectral war-horse sate.
A horrible smile thlrough the visor broke,
And, quoth he,
"I but watched till my Ladye woke.
Get thee a flagon of Shiraz wine,
For the lips must be red that answer mine!"
Cleaving the woods, like the wind he went,
His face o'er his shoulder ba(-ckward bent,
Crying thrice-"We shall meet at the Tournament!"
Clasping the cypress overhead,
Christine rose from her fragrant bed,
And a prayer to Mother MNary sped.
IHold not those gleaming skies for her
The same unfailing Comforter?
And those two white winged cherubim,
She onee had seen, when Christmas hymn
Chimed with the midnight mass,
Scattering light through the chapel dim,
Alive in the stained glass —
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