Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/64

        Ah sweet Enthusiast! happier far for thee
        Had'st thou thy musing intellectual joy,
            Thro' life indulg'd without alloy,
                    In solitary sanctity,
        Nor dar'd Ambition's fearful shrift,
Nor laid thy shrinking hand on Edward's fatal gift.

    The Crown! The Crown! It sparkles on thy brow,
        I see Northumberland with joy elate,
            And lo! thy haughty sire doth bow
                Honoring thy high estate,
        She too, of royal Tudor's line,
        Who at her early bridal shone
        Resplendent on the Gallic throne
            Humbleth her knee to thine,
    She, the austerely beautiful, whose eye
        Check'd thy timid infancy
Until thy heart's first buds folded their leaves to die,
        Homage to her meek daughter pays,
        Yet, sooth to say, one fond embrace,
    One kiss, such as the peasant-mother gives
    When on its evening bed her child she lays,
Had dearer been to thee, than all their courtly phrase.

The Tower! The Tower! thou bright-hair'd beauteous one!
            There, where the captive's breath
        Had sigh'd itself in bitterness away,
    Where iron nerves have wither'd one by one,
    And the sick eye shut from the glorious sun
            Hath grop'd o'er those grim walls till idiocy
                    Made life like death,
                There must thy resting be?