A question each dear transport to belie!
It is a pain to thirst and do without,
A pain to suffer what we deem unjust,
To win a joy, and lay it in the dust;
But there's a fiercer pain,—the pain of doubt:
From other griefs Death sets the spirit free;
Doubt steals the light from immortality!
Towering above the plain, proud in decay—
Her tendriled ivies, like a woman's hair,
Veiling her hurt and hiding her despair—
The monument of a departed day,
The shadow of a glory passed away,
Stands Kenilworth; stripped of her pomp and bare
Of all that made her so supremely fair
When Power with Love contended for her sway.
In this wide ruin, solemn and serene,
Where moved majestical a virgin queen,
The peacock struts, his ominous plumes out-spread;
And here, where casting an immortal spell,
A sad and girlish presence seems to dwell,
The wild bird nests and circles overhead.
PERDITA14
(On seeing Miss Anderson in the rôle)
She dances,
And I seem to be
In primrose vales of Sicily,
