Verses (Baughan)/Dethroned, Rethroned
DETHRONED, RETHRONED
The pride of rooted majesty,
The splendid pride of lordliness
Stamp’d with the right imperial die—
Most royal in adversity,
Most radiant in distress—
To-day beside the sea-waves wild
I found it, in a beggar-child.
She sings upon the beach for hire;
The vivid mirth across her face,
Her Creole eyes of night and fire,
The boldness of her bright attire,
Daily suffuse the place;
Light the dull ground, re-light the air,
And lure a ring of gazers there.
To whom she croons a curious strain,
Lawless, outlandish, eerie, sweet;—
Not till she ends that wild refrain
Her thralls can catch their breath again,
And feel their bosoms beat.
So every day, with merry din,
Her revenues come clattering in.
And yesterday they did not fail
But ah! to-day Dolores found
A stranger, squalid, gaunt and pale,
Screaming a scrannel ditty stale
On her peculiar ground.
And just as thickly stood the ring
To hear the newer singer sing!
Then ’mid the ring, with face unstirr’d,
With unabash’d considerate mien,
Leaving the whisper’d jeers unheard,
Appraising but the sway preferr’d,
Stood she, the cast-off Queen;
Nor claimed again her wrested sway,
But listen’d—look’d—and turn’d away.
And climbing a near stairway steep,
There, O the wonder! poised clate,
With eyes that danced, and yet were deep
With secrets that they scarce could keep,
Alone, aloft, she sate;
And with serene contentment view’d
Poor rival and fond multitude!―
—She sees her gold and purple gay
Its undull’d flutter round her make;
She hears, within, her music play
Unmarr’d—and her whole soul can say,
“It is but a mistake!
Tho’ at her feet my pennies fall,
I am the right one, after all!”