University of Virginia Library

III.

In a grand old Gothic Palace,
The Lady Laura dwells:
It crowns the warm green valleys, high
As the surge of summer swells.
There, with her emerald chalice, Spring
Kneels, offering beauty's wine;
There, in a land of enchantment, sing
The birds through shower and shine.
'Tis a noble solitude serene,
Where the sudden glory glows!
In a happy nook of nestling green,
That Virginal flower blows,—
Just in the sweetness of the bud,
Brimming with brightness and balm;
The tenderest glimpse of Womanhood
Golden, and sweet, and calm.
She is the Lily of the land;
Born neither to spin nor toil:
She can rest her fair cheek on her dainty white hand,
While the human honey-bees moil.
O the world of rich visions that peer in her eyes:
Around her what fantasies dance!
As she leans in her air of paradise,
And the bower of dalliance:
But her earnest life is sorrowfully
O'ershadowed from above:
She knows the ache of Life's mystery,
And she feels the hurt of Love.
The Lady Laura's soul is sad
For the suffering under the sun:
She looks on the world, and is only glad
For the Duties to be done.
She might have moved by in the pageant grand,
Sweet slip of a lordly line!
Nor soiled the glory of her white hand,
And fairy fingers fine;
And swam in this world's wine and oil,
With those who sink for the next,
Faint with delight, and plundered Toil
With no strange thought perplexed.
The burnished stream would have bravely borne
Her, dancing down in its whirl;
And the dark wreck-kingdom have proudly worn
On its bosom the pure queen-pearl.
But Sorrow hath touched her young, young years,
When their rose-light was smiling and fair;
And her eyes have wept the sharp, sharp tears,
That pierce through all mirage of air.
Ah, the Poor! with her finer sense she hears
How they moan in their cloud of care.
They will tell you down in the valleys
What the Orphan Heiress hath done;
How the grand old Gothic Palace
With Love's new wine doth run.
She is Dawn on the cold hill-tops that divide
The Poor from their neighbour Rank;
The first bright wave of a sluggish tide,
That hath overleapt its bank.
And to Lady Laura by window and door,
Hearts climb with the Roses up,
Their blessings to breathe, and their pride to pour,
In many a brimming cup.
Rebel hindrance she treads queenly down,
Where it stands in her Throne's high way.
O Factory-Fiend with the fearful frown,
She blooms in your Desert to-day!