140 Then Nina, stooping down, embraced, And in the pearly shallop placed, The turmoil hushed, celestial springs Of music opened, and there came a blending Of fragrance, underived from earth, With gleams that owed not to the sun their birth, And that soft rustling of invisible wings Which Angels make, on works of love descending. And Nina heard a sweeter voice 150 Than if the Goddess of the flower had spoken: "Thou hast achieved, fair Dame! what none Awe-stricken stood both Knights and Dames Ere on firm ground the car alighted; Eftsoons astonishment was past, For in that face they saw the last, Last lingering look of clay, that tames All pride; by which all happiness is blighted. Said Merlin, "Mighty King, fair Lords, Away with feast and tilt and tourney! 200 Ye saw, throughout this royal House, Ye heard, a rocking marvellous Of turrets, and a clash of swords Self-shaken, as I closed my airy journey. Lo! by a destiny well known To mortals, joy is turned to sorrow; This is the wished-for Bride, the Maid Of Egypt, from a rock conveyed Where she by shipwreck had been thrown, Ill sight! but grief may vanish ere the And in my glass significants there are Of things that may to gladness turn this weeping. For this, approaching, One by One, Thy Knights must touch the cold hand of the Virgin; So, for the favoured One, the Flower may bloom Once more; but, if unchangeable her doom, If life departed be for ever gone, Some blest assurance, from this cloud emerging, May teach him to bewail his loss; Not with a grief that, like a vapour, rises And melts; but grief devout that shall endure, 261 And a perpetual growth secure Written at Rydal Mount. This dove was one of a pair that had been given to my daughter by our excellent friend, Miss Jewsbury, who went to India with her husband, Mr. Fletcher, where she died of cholera. The dove survived its mate many years, and was killed, to our great sorrow, by a neighbour's cat that got in at the window and dragged it partly out of the cage. These verses were composed extempore, to the letter, in the Terrace Summerhouse before spoken of. It was the habit of the bird to begin cooing and murmuring whenever it heard me making my verses. As often as I murmur here My half-formed melodies, Straight from her osier mansion near, I rather think, the gentle Dove If such thy meaning, O forbear, 'Mid grove, and by the calm fireside, Love animates my lyre That coo again! 't is not to chide. I feel, but to inspire. |