Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/147

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Lady Geraldine's Courtship.
A ROMANCE OF THE AGE.



A Poet writes to his Friend. Place—A Room in Wycombe Hall.
Time—Late 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! 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 and she has castles, and the resonant steam- eagles
Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand—
With a thundrous vapour trailing, underneath the starry vigils,
So to mark upon the blasted heaven, the measure of her land.