She shriek'd, "It is his son!

The bridegroom is thy blood-thy brother!
Rodolph de Brevern wrong'd his mother!"
And, as that doom of love was heard,

My sister sunk and died—without a sign or word!

I shed no tear for her. She died
With her last sunshine in her eyes.
Earth held for her no joy beside
The hope just shatter'd-and she lies
In a green nook of yonder dell;
And near her, in a newer bed,
Her lover-brother-sleeps as well!
Peace to the broken-hearted dead!

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."

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, e'en so

Look'd thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow
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 "pearl round ear"

To the o'er-polish'd shoulder. Never swan

Dream'd on the water with a grace so calm!

ISIDORE.

And was she proud, sir?

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

Q

way,

That flings, unask'd, its fragrance in his
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!
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.

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

Alas!