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And, looking sometimes on his fair domain,
Thy sire bethinks him of a sickly boy,

Nursed by his mother on a mountain side,
His only wealth a book of poetry,

With which he daily crept into the sun,

To cheat sharp pains with the bewildering dream Of beauty he had only read of there

ISIDORE.

Have you the volume still, sir?

LORD IVON.

'Twas the gift

Of a poor scholar, wandering in the hills,

Who pitied my sick idleness. I fed

My inmost soul upon the witching rhyme

A silly tale of a low minstrel boy,

Who broke his heart in singing at a bridal.

Loved he the lady, sir?

ISIDORE.

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I never thought to pity him.

The bride was a duke's sister; and I mused
Upon the wonder of his daring love,

Till my heart changed within me. I became
Restless and sad; and in my sleep I saw
Beautiful dames all scornfully go by ;
And one o'er-weary morn I crept away
Into the glen, and, flung upon a rock,
Over a torrent whose swift, giddy waters
Fill'd me with energy, I swore my soul
To better that false vision, if there were
Manhood or fire within my wretched frame.

I turn'd me homeward with the sunset hour,

Changed-for the thought had conquer'd ev'n disease;
And my poor mother check'd her busy wheel,
To wonder at the step with which I came.

Oh, heavens! that soft and dewy April eve,
When, in a minstrel's garb, but with a heart
As lofty as the marble shafts upreared
Beneath the stately portico, I stood
At this same palace door!

A minstrel boy!

ISIDORE.

Our own! and you

LORD IVON.

Yes-I had wandered far

Since I shook off my sickness in the hills,

And, with some cunning on the lute, had learn'd

A subtler lesson than humility

In the quick school of want. A menial stood

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By the Egyptian sphinx; and when I came

And pray'd to sing beneath the balcony

A song of love for a fair lady's ear,

He insolently bade me to begone.

Listening not, I swept my fingers o'er

The strings in prelude, when the base-born slave

Struck me!

ISIDORE.

Impossible!

LORD IVON.

I dash'd my lute

Into his face, and o'er the threshold flew ;
And, threading rapidly the lofty rooms,
Sought vainly for his master. Suddenly
A wing rushed o'er me, and a radiant girl,
Young as myself, but fairer than the dream
Of my most wild imagining, sprang forth,
Chasing a dove, that, 'wilder'd with pursuit,
Dropt breathless on my bosom,

Was't so indeed ?

ISIDORE.

Nay, dear father!

LORD IVON.

I thank'd my blessed star!

And, as the fair, transcendent creature stood
Silent with wonder, I resign'd the bird

To her white hands: and, with a rapid thought,
And lips already eloquent of love,

Turn'd the strange chance to a similitude

Of my own story. Her slight, haughty lip
Curl'd at the warm recital of my wrong,
And on the ivory oval of her cheek

The rose flush'd outward with a deeper red;

And from that hour the minstrel was at home,

And horse and hound were his, and none might cross The minion of the noble Lady Clare.

Art weary of my tale?

ISIDORE.

Dear father!

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