 | Denzil place |  |
There are some scenes in this our little life
Which the uncertain light of memory
Seems to illumine with more vivid glow
Than all the rest, as in old banquet halls
Dim with oak-panelling, ere candles beam,
Some falling log will raise a transient flame
To light one pictured face upon the wall
When all the space around is indistinct,—
Thus Constance, looking back upon her youth,
At what she was, and what she was not yet,
In after years, saw Geoffrey Denzil ride
As she had seen him first, thro' long arcades
Of evergreens; his head a little bow'd,
As tho' to shun the overhanging leaves,
And sitting somewhat forward on his horse,
His eager profile as he pass'd her by—
A little hawk-like—looking far to front,
His boyish head, with all its cluster'd curls
And trace of southern suns upon his cheek,—
Then, she had heard the trotting of the horse
Upon the shingly English avenue
Long after that young rider had pass'd by;
And after, when so many more had pass'd
(The horsemen who had left her on Life's road),
She often seem'd to hear that trotting steed.
Which the uncertain light of memory
Seems to illumine with more vivid glow
Than all the rest, as in old banquet halls
Dim with oak-panelling, ere candles beam,
Some falling log will raise a transient flame
20
When all the space around is indistinct,—
Thus Constance, looking back upon her youth,
At what she was, and what she was not yet,
In after years, saw Geoffrey Denzil ride
As she had seen him first, thro' long arcades
Of evergreens; his head a little bow'd,
As tho' to shun the overhanging leaves,
And sitting somewhat forward on his horse,
His eager profile as he pass'd her by—
A little hawk-like—looking far to front,
His boyish head, with all its cluster'd curls
And trace of southern suns upon his cheek,—
Then, she had heard the trotting of the horse
Upon the shingly English avenue
Long after that young rider had pass'd by;
And after, when so many more had pass'd
(The horsemen who had left her on Life's road),
She often seem'd to hear that trotting steed.
| Denzil place | |