University of Virginia Library

Above an ancient book, with a knight's crest
In tarnished gold on either cover stamped,
She leaned, and read—a chronicle it was
In which the sound of hautboys stirred the pulse,
And masques and gilded pageants fed the eye.
Though here and there the vellum page was stained
Sanguine with battle, chiefly it was love
The stylus held—some wan-cheeked scribe, perchance,
That in a mouldy tower by candle-light
Forgot his hunger in his madrigals.
Outside was winter: in its winding-sheet
The frozen Year lay. Silent was the room,
Save when the wind against the casement pressed
Or a page rustled, turned impatiently,
Or when along the still damp apple-wood
A little flame ran that chirped like a bird—
Some wren's ghost haunting the familiar bough.

With parted lips, in which less color lived
Than paints the pale wild-rose, she leaned and read.
From time to time her fingers unawares
Closed on the palm; and oft upon her cheek
The pallor died, and left such transient glow
As might from some rich chapel window fall
On a girl's cheek at prayer. So moved her soul,
From this dull age unshackled and divorced,
In far moon-haunted gardens of romance.
But once the wind that swept the palsied oaks,
As if new-pierced with sorrow, came and moaned
Close by the casement; then she raised her eyes,
The light of dreams still fringing them, and spoke:
“Tell me, good cousin, does this book say true?
Is it so fine a thing to be a queen?”

As if a spell of incantation dwelt
In those soft syllables, before me stood.
Colored like life, the phantasm of a maid
Who, in the savage childhood of this world,
Was crowned by error, or through dark intent
Made queen, and for the durance of one day
The royal diadem and ermine wore.
In strange sort wore—for this queen fed the starved,
The naked clothed, threw open dungeon doors;
Could to no story list of suffering
But the full tear was lovely on her lash;
Taught Grief to smile, and wan Despair to hope;
Upon her stainless bosom pillowed Sin
Repentant at her feet—like Him of old;
Made even the kerns and wild-men of the fells,
That sniffing pillage clamored at the gate,
Gentler than doves by some unknown white art,
And saying to herself, “So, I am Queen!”
With lip all tremulous, held out her hand
To the crowd's kiss. What joy to ease the hurt
Of bruisèd hearts! As in a trance she walked
That live-long day. Then night came, and the stars,
And blissful sleep. But ere the birds were called
By bluebell chimes (unheard of mortal ear)
To matins in their branch-hung priories—
Ere yet the dawn its gleaming edge lay bare
Like to the burnished axe's subtle edge,
She, from her sleep's caresses roughly torn,
The meek eyes blinking in the torches' glare,
Upon a scaffold for her glory paid
Her cheeks' two roses. For it so befell
That from the Northland there was come a prince,
With a great clash of shields and trailing spears
Through the black portals of the breathless night,
To claim the sceptre. He no less would take
Than those same roses for his usury.
What less, in faith! The throne was rightly his
Of that sea-girdled isle; so to the block
Needs go the ringlets and the white swan-throat.
A touch of steel, a sudden darkness, then
Blue Heaven and all the hymning angel-choir!
No tears for her—keep tears for those who live
To mate with sin and shame, and have remorse
At last to light them to unhallowed earth.
Hers no such low-hung fortunes. Thus to stand
Supreme one instant at that dizzy height,
With no hoarse raven croaking in her ear
The certain doom, and then to have life's rose
Struck swiftly from the cheek, and so escape
Love's death, black treason, friend's ingratitude,
The pang of separation, chill of age,
The grief that in an empty cradle lies,
And all the unspoke sorrow women know—
That was, in truth, to have a happy reign!
Has thine been happier, Sovereign of the Sea,
In that long-mateless pilgrimage to death?
Or thine, whose beauty like a star illumed
Awhile the dark and angry sky of France,
Thy kingdom shrunken to two exiled graves?
Sweet old-world maid, a gentler fate was yours!
Would he had wed your story to his verse
Who from the misty land of legend brought
Helen of Troy to gladden English eyes.
There 's many a queen that lived her grandeur out,
Gray-haired and broken, might have envied you,
Your Majesty, that reigned a single day!

All this, between two heart-throbs, as it were,
Flashed through my mind, so lightning-like is thought.
With lifted eyes expectant, there she sat
Whose words had sent my fancy over-sea,
Her lip still trembling with its own soft speech,
As for a moment trembles the curved spray
Whence some winged melody has taken flight.
How every circumstance of time and place
Upon the glass of memory lives again!—
The bleak New England road; the level boughs
Like bars of iron across the setting sun;
The gray ribbed clouds piled up against the West;
The window splashed with frost; the firelit room,
And in the antique chair that slight girl-shape,
The auburn braid about the saintly brows
Making a nimbus, and she white as snow!

“Dear Heart,” I said, “the humblest place is best
For gentle souls—the throne's foot, not the throne.
The storms that smite the dizzy solitudes
Where monarchs sit—most lonely folk are they!—
Oft leave the vale unscathed; there dwells content,
If so content have habitation here.
Never have I in annals read or rhyme
Of queen save one that found not at the end
The cup too bitter; never queen save one,
And she—her empire lasted but a day!
Yet that brief breath of time did she so fill
With mercy, love, and holy charity
As more rich made it than long-drawn-out years
Of such weed-life as drinks the lavish sun
And rots unflower'd.” “Straight tell me of that queen!”
Cried Edith; “Brunhild, in my legend here,
Is lovely—was that other still more fair?
And had she not a Siegfried at the court
To steal her talisman?—that Siegfried did
At Günther's bidding. Was your queen not loved?
Tell me it all!” With chin upon her palm
Resting, she listened, and within her eyes
The sapphire deepened as I told the tale
Of the girl-empress in the dawn of Time—
A flower that on the vermeil brink of May
Died, with its folded whiteness for a shroud;
A strain of music that, ere it was mixed
With baser voices, floated up to heaven.

Without was silence, for the wind was spent
That all the day had pleaded at the door.
Against the crimson sunset elm and oak
Stood black and motionless; among the boughs
The sad wind slumbered. Silence filled the room,
Save when from out the crumbled apple branch
Came the wren's twitter, faint, and fainter now,
Like a bird's note far heard in twilight woods.
No other sound was. Presently a hand
Stole into mine, and rested there, inert,
Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth,
So white and cold and delicate it was.
I know not what dark shadow crossed my heart,
What vague presentiment, but as I stooped
To lift the slender fingers to my lip,
I saw it through a mist of strangest tears—
The thin white hand invisible Death had touched!