An accident-the Priest was kind,
And masses said for the stricken soul;
The Philosopher talked of an unstrung mind,
And a spirit beyond its own control:
To neither perhaps occurred the thought
Of a wearied child who the Father sought.
Worn with sorrow and stained by sin,
Was he not wise to seek that shore, Where alone a new life might begin,
Where alone the past would be really o'er? Who knows? Like a child in the night he cried, And the storm and the darkness alone replied.
FROM THE "ETON MAGAZINE," 1848
O were I a cross on thy snowy breast,
Or were I a gem in thy raven hair;
O were I the soft-blowing wind of the west,
To play round thy bosom with cooling air.
O were I a bracelet upon thy arm,
Or a ring on thy taper hand to shine,
How blythe would I view each rising charm,
And grow bright in thy brightness, Caroline.
In vain! I may never see thee more,
Save through the dark glass of memory;
Yet my vows for thy welfare I still must pour,
And unburden my foolish heart to thee.
Fair offspring to stay thee when thou art old,
And a happy lot in life be thine;
And a grave with thy sires in the churchyard mould,
And a home in the heavens, Caroline.
IN THE JACQUERIE
Anstice and Amalie watching late,
Sat over Sir Raoul's castle gate,
And saw the rabble foam up in hate:
Raoul would fight and Amalie fly,
But Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
Raoul was beaten down to his knee,
They tore from his girdle the silver key
Of the postern where Amalie meant to flee;
He cast to the tower a warning cry,
Where Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
They bound his hands and they bound his feet,
They left him his shirt for winding-sheet;
They hung up Sir Raoul against the sky,
But Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
Amalie covered her golden head,
Hid her face from the noble dead,
But looking out with a tearless eye,
Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
Amalie slunk through the gate to flee,
She stumbled over the caitiff's knee
Who had taken Sir Raoul's silver key.
She swooned to earth, and no help was nigh,
But Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
The rabble sat drinking the wine and the mead,
And Amalie served them in Beggar's weed;
But she cast up a torch to avenge her shame,
And the roof fell down on their heads in flame,
And the beams of the tower fell down from high,
Where Anstice sat quietly waiting to die.
The tower has sunk in the castle moat,
And the cushat warbles her one clear note
In the elms that grow into the brooding sky,
Where Anstice sat long ago waiting to die.
Oft in the pleasant summer years,
Reading the tales of days bygone,
I have mused on the story of human tears,
All that man unto man has done-
Massacre, torture, and black despair;
Reading it all in my easy-chair.
Passionate prayer for a minute's life;
Tortured, crying for death as rest;
Husband pleading for child or wife;
Pitiless stroke upon tender breast.
Was it all real as that I lay there
Lazily stretched on my easy-chair?
Could I believe in those hard old times
Here in this safe luxurious age?
Were the horrors invented to season rhymes,
Or truly is man so fierce in his rage?
What could I suffer, and what could I dare?
I who was bred to that easy-chair.
They were my fathers, the men of yore,
Little they recked of a cruel death;
They would dip their hands in a heretic's gore ;
They stood and burnt for a rule of faith.
What would I burn for, and whom not spare?
I who had faith in an easy-chair.
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