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SONG FROM PIPPA PASSES:

I

GIVE her but a least excuse to love me!

When-where

How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,
There already, to eternally reprove me?
("Hist!" said Kate the queen ;

But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"T is only a page that carols unseen,
"Crumbling your hounds their messes !")

II

Is she wronged?-To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!

Is she poor?-What costs it to become a donour?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ("Nay, list!"-bade Kate the queen ;

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"T is only a page that carols unseen,
"Fitting your hawks their jesses !")

J

CRISTINA.

I

SHE should never have looked at me if she meant I

should not love her!

There are plenty . . men, you call such, I suppose . she may discover

All her soul to, if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found them:

But I'm not so, and she knew it when she fixed me,

glancing round them.

II

What? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I can't tell (there's my weakness)

What her look said-no vile cant, sure, about "need to strew the bleakness

"Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, that the sea feels "no "strange yearning

"That such souls have, most to lavish where there 's chance of least returning."

III

Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows! but not quite so sunk that moments,

Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, when the spirit's true endowments

Stand out plainly from its false ones, and apprise it if pursuing

Or the right way or the wrong way, to its triumph or undoing.

IV

There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fireflames noondays kindle,

Whereby piled-up honours perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,

While just this or that poor impulse, which for once had play unstifled,

Seems the sole work of a life-time that away the rest have trifled.

V

Doubt you if, in some such moment, as she fixed me, she

felt clearly,

Ages past the soul existed, here an age 't is resting

merely,

And hence fleets again for ages while the true end, sole

and single,

It stops here for is, this love-way, with some other soul to mingle?

VI

Else it loses what it lived for, and eternally must lose it; Better ends may be in prospect, deeper blisses (if you choose it),

But this life's end and this love-bliss have been lost here. Doubt you whether

This she felt as, looking at me, mine and her souls rushed together?

VII

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, the world's honours, in derision,

Trampled out the light for ever. Never fear but there's provision

Of the devil's to quench knowledge, lest we walk the earth in rapture!

-Making those who catch God's secret, just so much more prize their capture !

VIII

Such am I the secret 's mine now! She has lost me, I

:

have gained her;

Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder.

Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended:

And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended.

COUNT GISMOND.

AIX IN PROVENCE.

I

CHRIST God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 't was with all his strength.

II

And doubtlessly, ere he could draw

All points to one, he must have schemed ! That miserable morning saw

Few half so happy as I seemed,

While being dressed in queen's array
To give our tourney prize away.

III

I thought they loved me, did me grace
To please themselves; 't was all their deed
God makes, or fair or foul, our face ;

If showing mine so caused to bleed

My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped.

IV

They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen
By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean,
As I do. E'en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!

V

But no they let me laugh, and sing

My birthday song quite through, adjust
The last rose in my garland, fling
A last look on the mirror, trust

My arms to each an arm of theirs,
And so descend the castle-stairs-

VI

And come out on the morning troop

Of merry friends who kissed my cheek,
And called me queen, and made me stoop
Under the canopy—(a streak

That pierced it, of the outside sun,
Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)-

VII

And they could let me take my state
And foolish throne amid applause
Of all come there to celebrate

My queen's-day-Oh I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud!

VIII

However that be, all eyes were bent

Upon me, when my cousins cast

Theirs down, 't was time I should present

The victor's crown, but . . . there, 't will last

No long time. . . the old mist again

Blinds me as then it did.

How vain!

IX

See! Gismond 's at the gate, in talk

With his two boys: I can proceed.

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