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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,
A nun the while had softly pray'd.

Oh, even in prayer that voice I knew!
Each faltering word-each mournful tone-
Each pleading cadence, half suppress'd-
Such music had its like alone

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,
The nun unveil'd her brow-

When, sudden, to my startled ear,
There crept a whisper, hoarse like fear,

"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,
And, with a mouth all ashy white,

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?

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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!
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?

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