L'Envoi


    1

    You shake your head. A random string
    Your finer female sense offends.
    Well--were it not a pleasant thing
    To fall asleep with all one's friends;
    To pass with all our social ties
    To silence from the paths of men;
    And every hundred years to rise
    And learn the world, and sleep again;
    To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars,
    And wake on science grown to more,
    On secrets of the brain, the stars,
    As wild as aught of fairy lore;
    And all that else the years will show,
    The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
    The vast Republics that may grow,
    The Federations and the Powers;
    Titanic forces taking birth
    In divers seasons, divers climes;
    For we are Ancients of the earth,
    And in the morning of the times.


    2

    So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
    Thro' sunny decads new and strange,
    Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
    The flower and quintessence of change.


    3

    Ah, yet would I--and would I might!
    So much your eyes my fancy take--
    Be still the first to leap to light
    That I might kiss those eyes awake!
    For, am I right or am I wrong,
    To choose your own you did not care;
    You'd have 'my' moral from the song,
    And I will take my pleasure there:
    And, am I right or am I wrong,
    My fancy, ranging thro' and thro',
    To search a meaning for the song,
    Perforce will still revert to you;
    Nor finds a closer truth than this
    All-graceful head, so richly curl'd,
    And evermore a costly kiss
    The prelude to some brighter world.



    4

    For since the time when Adam first
    Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
    And every bird of Eden burst
    In carol, every bud to flower,
    What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes?
    What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?
    Where on the double rosebud droops
    The fullness of the pensive mind;
    Which all too dearly self-involved,
    Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;
    A sleep by kisses undissolved,
    That lets thee neither hear nor see:
    But break it. In the name of wife,
    And in the rights that name may give,
    Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,
    And that for which I care to live.

  Epilogue


    So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
    And, if you find a meaning there,
    O whisper to your glass, and say,
    "What wonder, if he thinks me fair?"
    What wonder I was all unwise,
    To shape the song for your delight
    Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
    That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light?
    Or old-world trains, upheld at court
    By Cupid-boys of blooming hue--
    But take it--earnest wed with sport,
    And either sacred unto you.

Amphion



  My father left a park to me,
  But it is wild and barren,
  A garden too with scarce a tree
  And waster than a warren:
  Yet say the neighbours when they call,
  It is not bad but good land,
  And in it is the germ of all
  That grows within the woodland.

  O had I lived when song was great
  In days of old Amphion,
  And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
  Nor cared for seed or scion!
  And had I lived when song was great,
  And legs of trees were limber,
  And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
  And fiddled in the timber!

  'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
  Such happy intonation,
  Wherever he sat down and sung
  He left a small plantation;
  Wherever in a lonely grove
  He set up his forlorn pipes,
  The gouty oak began to move,
  And flounder into hornpipes.

  The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
  And, as tradition teaches,
  Young ashes pirouetted down
  Coquetting with young beeches;
  And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
  Ran forward to his rhyming,
  And from the valleys underneath
  Came little copses climbing.

  The linden broke her ranks and rent
  The woodbine wreathes that bind her,
  And down the middle, buzz! she went,
  With all her bees behind her.
  The poplars, in long order due,
  With cypress promenaded,
  The shock-head willows two and two
  By rivers gallopaded.

  The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
  The bramble cast her berry,
  The gin within the juniper
  Began to make him merry.

  Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
  Came yews, a dismal coterie;
  Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
  Poussetting with a sloe-tree:
  Old elms came breaking from the vine,
  The vine stream'd out to follow,
  And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
  From many a cloudy hollow.

  And wasn't it a sight to see
  When, ere his song was ended,
  Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
  The country-side descended;
  And shepherds from the mountain-caves
  Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
  As dash'd about the drunken leaves
  The random sunshine lighten'd!

  Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
  And wanton without measure;
  So youthful and so flexile then,
  You moved her at your pleasure.
  Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!
  And make her dance attendance;
  Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
  And scirrhous roots and tendons.

  'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
  I could not move a thistle;
  The very sparrows in the hedge
  Scarce answer to my whistle;
  Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
  With strumming and with scraping,
  A jackass heehaws from the rick,
  The passive oxen gaping.

  But what is that I hear? a sound
  Like sleepy counsel pleading:
  O Lord!--'tis in my neighbour's ground,
  The modern Muses reading.
  They read Botanic Treatises.
  And works on Gardening thro' there,
  And Methods of transplanting trees
  To look as if they grew there.

  The wither'd Misses! how they prose
  O'er books of travell'd seamen,
  And show you slips of all that grows
  From England to Van Diemen.
  They read in arbours clipt and cut,
  And alleys, faded places,
  By squares of tropic summer shut
  And warm'd in crystal cases.

  But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
  Are neither green nor sappy;
  Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
  The spindlings look unhappy,
  Better to me the meanest weed
  That blows upon its mountain,
  The vilest herb that runs to seed
  Beside its native fountain.

  And I must work thro' months of toil,
  And years of cultivation,
  Upon my proper patch of soil
  To grow my own plantation.
  I'll take the showers as they fall,
  I will not vex my bosom:
  Enough if at the end of all
  A little garden blossom.

St. Agnes



  Deep on the convent-roof the snows
  Are sparkling to the moon:
  My breath to heaven like vapour goes:
  May my soul follow soon!
  The shadows of the convent-towers
  Slant down the snowy sward,
  Still creeping with the creeping hours
  That lead me to my Lord:
  Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
  As are the frosty skies,
  Or this first snowdrop of the year
  That in my bosom lies.

  As these white robes are soiled and dark,
  To yonder shining ground;
  As this pale taper's earthly spark,
  To yonder argent round;
  So shows my soul before the Lamb,
  My spirit before Thee;
  So in mine earthly house I am,
  To that I hope to be.
  Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,
  Thro' all yon starlight keen,
  Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
  In raiment white and clean.

  He lifts me to the golden doors;
  The flashes come and go;
  All heaven bursts her starry floors,
  And strows her lights below,
  And deepens on and up! the gates
  Roll back, and far within
  For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,
  To make me pure of sin.
  The sabbaths of Eternity,
  One sabbath deep and wide--
  A light upon the shining sea--
  The Bridegroom with his bride!

Sir Galahad



  My good blade carves the casques of men,
  My tough lance thrusteth sure,
  My strength is as the strength of ten,
  Because my heart is pure.

  The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
  The hard brands shiver on the steel,
  The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
  The horse and rider reel:

  They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
  And when the tide of combat stands,
  Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
  That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

  How sweet are looks that ladies bend
  On whom their favours fall!
  For them I battle till the end,
  To save from shame and thrall:
  But all my heart is drawn above,
  My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:
  I never felt the kiss of love,
  Nor maiden's hand in mine.
  More bounteous aspects on me beam,
  Me mightier transports move and thrill;
  So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
  A virgin heart in work and will.

  When down the stormy crescent goes,
  A light before me swims,
  Between dark stems the forest glows,
  I hear a noise of hymns:
  Then by some secret shrine I ride;
  I hear a voice, but none are there;
  The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
  The tapers burning fair.
  Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
  The silver vessels sparkle clean,
  The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
  And solemn chaunts resound between.

  Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres
  I find a magic bark;
  I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
  I float till all is dark.
  A gentle sound, an awful light!
  Three angels bear the holy Grail:
  With folded feet, in stoles of white,
  On sleeping wings they sail.
  Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
  My spirit beats her mortal bars,
  As down dark tides the glory slides,
  And star-like mingles with the stars.

  When on my goodly charger borne
  Thro' dreaming towns I go,
  The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
  The streets are dumb with snow.
  The tempest crackles on the leads,
  And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;
  But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
  And gilds the driving hail.
  I leave the plain, I climb the height;
  No branchy thicket shelter yields;
  But blessed forms in whistling storms
  Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

  A maiden knight--to me is given
  Such hope, I know not fear;
  I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
  That often meet me here.
  I muse on joy that will not cease,
  Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
  Pure lilies of eternal peace,
  Whose odours haunt my dreams;
  And, stricken by an angel's hand,
  This mortal armour that I wear,
  This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
  Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

  The clouds are broken in the sky,
  And thro' the mountain-walls
  A rolling organ-harmony
  Swells up, and shakes and falls.
  Then move the trees, the copses nod,
  Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
  "O just and faithful knight of God!
  Ride on! the prize is near".
  So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
  By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
  All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
  Until I find the holy Grail.

Edwad Gray


  Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
  Met me walking on yonder way,
  "And have you lost your heart?" she said;
  "And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"

  Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:
  Bitterly weeping I turn'd away:
  "Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
  Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

  "Ellen Adair she loved me well,
  Against her father's and mother's will:
  To-day I sat for an hour and wept,
  By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.

  "Shy she was, and I thought her cold;
  Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
  Fill'd I was with folly and spite,
  When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

  "Cruel, cruel the words I said!
  Cruelly came they back to-day:
  'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
  'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray'.

  "There I put my face in the grass--
  Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair:
  I repent me of all I did:
  Speak a little, Ellen Adair!'

  "Then I took a pencil, and wrote
  On the mossy stone, as I lay,
  'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
  And here the heart of Edward Gray!'

  "Love may come, and love may go,
  And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:
  But I will love no more, no more,
  Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

  "Bitterly wept I over the stone:
  Bitterly weeping I turn'd away;
  There lies the body of Ellen Adair!
  And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue

Made at the Cock



  O plump head-waiter at The Cock,
  To which I most resort,
  How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock.
  Go fetch a pint of port:
  But let it not be such as that
  You set before chance-comers,
  But such whose father-grape grew fat
  On Lusitanian summers.

  No vain libation to the Muse,
  But may she still be kind,
  And whisper lovely words, and use
  Her influence on the mind,
  To make me write my random rhymes,
  Ere they be half-forgotten;
  Nor add and alter, many times,
  Till all be ripe and rotten.

  I pledge her, and she comes and dips
  Her laurel in the wine,
  And lays it thrice upon my lips,
  These favour'd lips of mine;
  Until the charm have power to make
  New life-blood warm the bosom,
  And barren commonplaces break
  In full and kindly blossom.

  I pledge her silent at the board;
  Her gradual fingers steal
  And touch upon the master-chord
  Of all I felt and feel.
  Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
  And phantom hopes assemble;
  And that child's heart within the man's
  Begins to move and tremble.

  Thro' many an hour of summer suns
  By many pleasant ways,
  Against its fountain upward runs
  The current of my days:
  I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd;
  The gas-light wavers dimmer;
  And softly, thro' a vinous mist,
  My college friendships glimmer.

  I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
  Unboding critic-pen,
  Or that eternal want of pence,
  Which vexes public men,
  Who hold their hands to all, and cry
  For that which all deny them--
  Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
  And all the world go by them.

  Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,
  Tho' fortune clip my wings,
  I will not cramp my heart, nor take
  Half-views of men and things.
  Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
  There must be stormy weather;
  But for some true result of good
  All parties work together.

  Let there be thistles, there are grapes;
  If old things, there are new;
  Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
  Yet glimpses of the true.
  Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,
  We lack not rhymes and reasons,
  As on this whirligig of Time
  We circle with the seasons.

  This earth is rich in man and maid;
  With fair horizons bound:
  This whole wide earth of light and shade
  Comes out, a perfect round.
  High over roaring Temple-bar,
  And, set in Heaven's third story,
  I look at all things as they are,
  But thro' a kind of glory.

  Head-waiter, honour'd by the guest
  Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,
  The pint, you brought me, was the best
  That ever came from pipe.
  But tho' the port surpasses praise,
  My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
  Is there some magic in the place?
  Or do my peptics differ?

  For since I came to live and learn,
  No pint of white or red
  Had ever half the power to turn
  This wheel within my head,

  Which bears a season'd brain about,
  Unsubject to confusion,
  Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out,
  Thro' every convolution.

  For I am of a numerous house,
  With many kinsmen gay,
  Where long and largely we carouse
  As who shall say me nay:
  Each month, a birthday coming on,
  We drink defying trouble,
  Or sometimes two would meet in one,
  And then we drank it double;

  Whether the vintage, yet unkept,
  Had relish, fiery-new,
  Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,
  As old as Waterloo;
  Or stow'd (when classic Canning died)
  In musty bins and chambers,
  Had cast upon its crusty side
  The gloom of ten Decembers.

  The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is!
  She answer'd to my call,
  She changes with that mood or this,
  Is all-in-all to all:
  She lit the spark within my throat,
  To make my blood run quicker,
  Used all her fiery will, and smote
  Her life into the liquor.

  And hence this halo lives about
  The waiter's hands, that reach
  To each his perfect pint of stout,
  His proper chop to each.
  He looks not like the common breed
  That with the napkin dally;
  I think he came like Ganymede,
  From some delightful valley.

  The Cock was of a larger egg
  Than modern poultry drop,
  Stept forward on a firmer leg,
  And cramm'd a plumper crop;
  Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
  Crow'd lustier late and early,
  Sipt wine from silver, praising God,
  And raked in golden barley.

  A private life was all his joy,
  Till in a court he saw
  A something-pottle-bodied boy,
  That knuckled at the taw:
  He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good,
  Flew over roof and casement:
  His brothers of the weather stood
  Stock-still for sheer amazement.

  But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,
  And follow'd with acclaims,
  A sign to many a staring shire,
  Came crowing over Thames.
  Right down by smoky Paul's they bore,
  Till, where the street grows straiter,
  One fix'd for ever at the door,
  And one became head-waiter.

  But whither would my fancy go?
  How out of place she makes
  The violet of a legend blow
  Among the chops and steaks!
  'Tis but a steward of the can,
  One shade more plump than common;
  As just and mere a serving-man
  As any born of woman.

  I ranged too high: what draws me down
  Into the common day?
  Is it the weight of that half-crown,
  Which I shall have to pay?

  For, something duller than at first,
  Nor wholly comfortable,
  I sit (my empty glass reversed),
  And thrumming on the table:

  Half-fearful that, with self at strife
  I take myself to task;
  Lest of the fullness of my life
  I leave an empty flask:
  For I had hope, by something rare,
  To prove myself a poet;
  But, while I plan and plan, my hair
  Is gray before I know it.

  So fares it since the years began,
  Till they be gather'd up;
  The truth, that flies the flowing can,
  Will haunt the vacant cup:
  And others' follies teach us not,
  Nor much their wisdom teaches;
  And most, of sterling worth, is what
  Our own experience preaches.

  Ah, let the rusty theme alone!
  We know not what we know.
  But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone,
  'Tis gone, and let it go.
  'Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt
  Away from my embraces,
  And fall'n into the dusty crypt
  Of darken'd forms and faces.

  Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went
  Long since, and came no more;
  With peals of genial clamour sent
  From many a tavern-door,
  With twisted quirks and happy hits,
  From misty men of letters;
  The tavern-hours of mighty wits--
  Thine elders and thy betters.

  Hours, when the Poet's words and looks
  Had yet their native glow:
  Not yet the fear of little books
  Had made him talk for show:
  But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd,
  He flash'd his random speeches;
  Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd
  His literary leeches.

  So mix for ever with the past,
  Like all good things on earth!
  For should I prize thee, couldst thou last,
  At half thy real worth?
  I hold it good, good things should pass:
  With time I will not quarrel:
  It is but yonder empty glass
  That makes me maudlin-moral.

  Head-waiter of the chop-house here,
  To which I most resort,
  I too must part: I hold thee dear
  For this good pint of port.
  For this, thou shalt from all things suck
  Marrow of mirth and laughter;
  And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
  Shall fling her old shoe after.

  But thou wilt never move from hence,
  The sphere thy fate allots:
  Thy latter days increased with pence
  Go down among the pots:
  Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
  In haunts of hungry sinners,
  Old boxes, larded with the steam
  Of thirty thousand dinners.

  _We_ fret, _we_ fume, would shift our skins,
  Would quarrel with our lot;
  _Thy_ care is, under polish'd tins,
  To serve the hot-and-hot;
  To come and go, and come again,
  Returning like the pewit,
  And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
  That trifle with the cruet.

  Live long, ere from thy topmost head
  The thick-set hazel dies;
  Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
  The corners of thine eyes:
  Live long, nor feel in head or chest
  Our changeful equinoxes,
  Till mellow Death, like some late guest,
  Shall call thee from the boxes.

  But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
  To pace the gritted floor,
  And, laying down an unctuous lease
  Of life, shalt earn no more;
  No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
  Shall show thee past to Heaven:
  But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
  A pint-pot neatly graven.

To----

After Reading a Life and Letters


  You might have won the Poet's name
  If such be worth the winning now,
  And gain'd a laurel for your brow
  Of sounder leaf than I can claim;
  But you have made the wiser choice,
  A life that moves to gracious ends
  Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
  A deedful life, a silent voice:

  And you have miss'd the irreverent doom
  Of those that wear the Poet's crown:
  Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
  Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

  For now the Poet cannot die
  Nor leave his music as of old,
  But round him ere he scarce be cold
  Begins the scandal and the cry:

  "Proclaim the faults he would not show:
  Break lock and seal: betray the trust:
  Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just
  The many-headed beast should know".

  Ah, shameless! for he did but sing.
  A song that pleased us from its worth;
  No public life was his on earth,
  No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

  He gave the people of his best:
  His worst he kept, his best he gave.
  My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave
  Who will not let his ashes rest!

  Who make it seem more sweet to be
  The little life of bank and brier,
  The bird that pipes his lone desire
  And dies unheard within his tree,

  Than he that warbles long and loud
  And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
  For whom the carrion vulture waits
  To tear his heart before the crowd!

To E. L.,

On His Travels in Greece



  Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
  Of water, sheets of summer glass,
  The long divine Peneian pass,
  The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

  Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
  With such a pencil, such a pen,
  You shadow forth to distant men,
  I read and felt that I was there:

  And trust me, while I turn'd the page,
  And track'd you still on classic ground,
  I grew in gladness till I found
  My spirits in the golden age.

  For me the torrent ever pour'd
  And glisten'd--here and there alone
  The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown
  By fountain-urns;-and Naiads oar'd

  A glimmering shoulder under gloom
  Of cavern pillars; on the swell
  The silver lily heaved and fell;
  And many a slope was rich in bloom

  From him that on the mountain lea
  By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
  To him who sat upon the rocks,
  And fluted to the morning sea.

Lady Clare



  Lord Ronald courted Lady Clare,
  I trow they did not part in scorn;
  Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her
  And they will wed the morrow morn.


  It was the time when lilies blow,
  And clouds are highest up in air,
  Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
  To give his cousin Lady Clare.

  I trow they did not part in scorn:
  Lovers long-betroth'd were they:
  They two will wed the morrow morn!
  God's blessing on the day!

  "He does not love me for my birth,
  Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
  He loves me for my own true worth,
  And that is well," said Lady Clare.

  In there came old Alice the nurse,
  Said, "Who was this that went from thee?"
  "It was my cousin," said Lady Clare,
  "To-morrow he weds with me."

  "O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse,
  "That all comes round so just and fair:
  Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
  And you are not the Lady Clare."

  "Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?"
  Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild";
  "As God's above," said Alice the nurse,
  "I speak the truth: you are my child.

  "The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
  I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
  I buried her like my own sweet child,
  And put my child in her stead."

  "Falsely, falsely have ye done,
  O mother," she said, "if this be true,
  To keep the best man under the sun
  So many years from his due."

  "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
  "But keep the secret for your life,
  And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
  When you are man and wife."

  "If I'm a beggar born," she said,
  "I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
  Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold,
  And fling the diamond necklace by."

  "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
  "But keep the secret all ye can."
  She said, "Not so: but I will know
  If there be any faith in man".

  "Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,
  "The man will cleave unto his right."
  "And he shall have it," the lady replied,
  "Tho' I should die to-night."

  "Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!
  Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee."
  "O mother, mother, mother," she said,
  "So strange it seems to me.

  "Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,
  My mother dear, if this be so,
  And lay your hand upon my head,
  And bless me, mother, ere I go."

  She clad herself in a russet gown,
  She was no longer Lady Clare:
  She went by dale, and she went by down,
  With a single rose in her hair.

  The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
  Leapt up from where she lay,
  Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
  And follow'd her all the way.

  Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:
  "O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!
  Why come you drest like a village maid,
  That are the flower of the earth?"

  "If I come drest like a village maid,
  I am but as my fortunes are:
  I am a beggar born," she said,
  "And not the Lady Clare."

  "Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
  "For I am yours in word and in deed.
  Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
  "Your riddle is hard to read."

  O and proudly stood she up!
  Her heart within her did not fail:
  She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes,
  And told him all her nurse's tale.

  He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn:
  He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood:
  "If you are not the heiress born,
  And I," said he, "the next in blood--

  "If you are not the heiress born,
  And I," said he, "the lawful heir,
  We two will wed to-morrow morn,
  And you shall still be Lady Clare."