We read your little book of Orient lays, And half believe old superstitions true; No Saxon like ourselves, an Arab, you, Stolen in your babyhood by Saxon fays. That you in fervid songs recall the blaze Addressed to Bayard Taylor, whose volume, "Poems of the Orient,' was published by Ticknor and Fields in the Autumn of 1853. A quarter of a century later, just after the death of his friend, Stoddard wrote "Reminiscences of Bayard Taylor," for The Atlantic Monthly of February, 1879. Unknown to her the maids supplied And wooed her in his boorish way, But the hound woke, and stood at bay, Then for a little moment's space Without the morning dried the dews From shaven lawns and pastures green: Meantime the court dames and the queen Did pace the shaded avenues: And Cymbeline amid his train Rode down the winding palace walks, Behind the hounds that snuffed the plain, And in the track of wheeling hawks; 21 And soon in greenwood shaws anear They blew their horns, and chased the deer. But she nor saw nor heard it there, But sat, a statue of despair, The mournful Imogen. She shook her ringlets round her head, And clasped her hands, and thought, and thought, As every faithful lady ought, Whose lord is far away-or dead. She pressed in books his faded flowers, That never seemed so sweet before; Upon his picture gazed for hours, And read his letters o'er and o'er, Dreaming about the loving Past, Until her tears were flowing fast. 30 With aches of heart, and aches of The pale moon walked the waste o'erhead, And filled the room with sickly light; 80 Then she arose in piteous plight, Disrobed herself, and crept to bed. The wind without was loud and deep, The rattling casements made her start: At last she slept, but in her sleep She pressed her fingers o'er her heart, And moaned, and once she gave a scream, To break the clutches of a dream. Even in her sleep she could not sleep, The troubled Imogen. 90 Break thou my heart, ah, break it, 'T is more than mine to me. And if my life offend thee, But dream in her chamber, holding a flower, Or reading my letters - she'd better read me. 50 Even now, while I am freezing with cold, She is cosily sipping her tea. If I ever reach home I shall laugh aloud At the sight of a roaring fire once more; She must wait, I think, till I thaw myself, For the nightly kiss at the door. I'll have with my dinner a bottle of port, To warm up my blood and soothe my mind; Then a little music, for even I Like music-when I have dined. I'll smoke a pipe in the easy-chair, 60 And feel her behind me patting my head; Or drawing the little one on my knee, II Will he never come? I have watched for him Till the misty panes are roughened with I can see no more: shall I never hear I think of him in the lonesome night, I sit by the grate, and hark for his step, And stare in the fire with a troubled mind; The glow of the coals is bright in my face, But my shadow is dark behind. I think of woman, and think of man, The tie that binds and the wrongs that part, And long to utter in burning words What I feel to-night in my heart. 80 I should die if he changed, or loved me less, For I live at best but a restless life; Yet he may, for they say the kindest men Grow tired of a sickly wife. 120 O, love me, Arthur, my lord, my life, If not for my love, and my womanly fears, At least for your child. But I hear his step He must not find me in tears. A dream? What means this pageant, then? These multitudes of solemn men, Who speak not when they meet, The flags half-mast that late so high (The stars no brightness shed, The black festoons that stretch for miles, The cannon's sudden, sullen boom, The dreadful car that comes? Cursed be the hand that fired the shot, The frenzied brain that hatched the plot, Thy country's Father slain Be thee, thou worse than Cain! 80 |