Lucile By Owen Meredith [i.e. E. R. B. Lytton] |
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 | Lucile |  |
XV.
'Tis a fact, by all history placed beyond doubt,That there needs nothing more a whole army to rout
Than one coward that takes to his heels; for, with speed,
His fellows are certain to follow the lead.
Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune began
With a few modest thalers—away they all ran—
The reserve follow'd fast in the rear. As his purse
Grew lighter, his spirits grew sensibly worse.
186
'Tis an old law in physics—Natura abhorret
Vacuum—and my lord, as he watch'd his last crown
Tumble into the bank, turn'd away with a frown
Which the brows of Napoleon himself might have deck'd
On that day of all days when an empire was wreck'd
On thy plain, Waterloo, and he witness'd the last
Of his favourite Guard cut to pieces, aghast!
Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely tell why,
Within him the sudden strange sense that some eye
Had long been intently regarding him there,—
That some gaze was upon him too searching to bear.
He rose and look'd up. Was it fact? Was it fable?
Was it dream? Was it waking? Across the green table,
That face, with its features so fatally known—
Those eyes, whose deep gaze answer'd strangely his own—
What was it? Some ghost from its grave come again?
Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain?
Or was it herself—with those deep eyes of hers,
And that face unforgotten?—Lucile de Nevers!
| Lucile | |