My heart was lock'd! The lip might stir, The frame might agonize-and yet, Oh God! I could not pray for her! A seal upon my brow was set My brow was hot-my brain oppress'd― And fiends seem'd muttering round, "Your bridal is unblest !" With forehead to the lattice laid, And thin, white fingers straining through, Oh, even in prayer that voice I knew! On lips that stole it at her breast! And ere the orison was done I loved the mother as the son ! And now, the marriage vows to hear, When, sudden, to my startled ear, "De Brevern! is it thou !" The priest let fall the golden ring, The bridegroom stood aghast, While, like some weird and frantic thing, The nun was muttering fast; And as, in dread, I nearer drew, She thrust her arms the lattice through, And held me to her straining view But suddenly begun To steal upon her brain a light That stagger'd soul, and sense, and sight, 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 LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER. "Dost thou despise A love like this? A lady should not scorn LORD IVON. How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter! ISIDORE. The features are all fair, sir, but so cold- LORD IVON. Yet, e'en so Look'd thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads-- Thus matchless, from the small and "pearl round ear" To the o'er-polish'd shoulder. Never swan 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 Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily ISIDORE. Lord Ivon! LORD IVON. Ay, You wonder; but I tell you that the lord 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? |