LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER.

"Dost thou despise

A love like this! A lady should not scorn
One soul that loves her, howe'er lowly it be."

BARRY CORNWALL.

LORD IVON.

How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!

Is't not a face of most bewildering brightness?

ISIDORE.

The features are all fair, sir, but so cold

I could not love such beauty!

LORD IVON.

Yet, ev'n so

Her brow

Look'd thy lost mother, Isidore!

Lofty like this-her lips thus delicate,

Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads-
Her neck thus queenly, and the sweeping curve

Thus matchless, from the small and "

ear

'pearl-round

To the o'er-polished shoulder. Never swan
Dreamed on the water with a grace so calm!

LORD IVON.

Dost thou prate already

Of books, my little one? Nay, then, 'tis time That a sad tale were told thee. Is thy bird Fed for the day? Canst thou forget the rein Of thy beloved Arabian for an hour,

And, the first time in all thy sunny life,

Take sadness to thy heart? Wilt listen, sweet?

ISIDORE.

Hang I not ever on thy lips, dear father?

LORD IVON.

As thou didst enter, I was musing here
Upon this picture. 'Tis the face of one
I never knew; but, for its glorious pride,
I bought it of the painter. There has hung
Ever the cunning curse upon my soul

To love this look in woman. Not the flower
Of all Arcadia, in the Age of Gold,

Look'd she a shepherdess, would be to me

More than the birds are. As th' astrologer
Worships the half-seen star that in its sphere
Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily
That flings, unask'd, its fragrance in his way,
Yet both (as are the high-born and the low)
Wrought of the same fine Hand-so, daringly,
Flew my boy-hopes beyond me. You are here
In a brave palace, Isidore !
The gem

That sparkles in your hair imprisons light
Drunk in the flaming Orient; and gold
Waits on the bidding of those girlish lips

In measure that Aladdin never knew

Yet was I-lowly born!

ISIDORE.

Lord Ivon!

LORD IVON.

Ay,

You wonder; but I tell you that the Lord

Of this tall palace was a peasant's child!