QUEEN BERTHA'S VIGIL.
1
Beneath and round her queenly bower
So tall the garden pageants grew,
With every breeze each moon-lit flower
Was waved the casement through:
White in the radiance glanced the fawn;
Flitted the hare from lawn to lawn;
By close, broad firs, that flecked the sheen,
And barred with black the silver green.
2
Far off, like mighty cliffs, their shade
Over a waste of waves that cast,
The castle walls o'er wood and glade
Flung down their darkness vast.
Answering a monarch's joyous call,
Far realms were met in festival:
There flocked the noble and the fair—
The fairest, noblest was not there.
3
And yet for her no flowers were blowing:
No listening dell or vale profound
Enjoyed her breath: for her was flowing
Nor glassy stream, nor stream of sound:
In vain her song the night-bird squandered:
The winds that through her chamber wandered
And o'er her pillow brushed screne,
But found the place where she had been!
4
The Moon, whose glory swelled with light
Each lilied slope and laurelled mound,
With touch more sharp and exquisite,
Defined one rock cross-crowned.
Like argent flames or spires of frost
Uprose that shape of stone, embossed
With breeze-worn sculptures quaint and mild
Of Maid and Angel, King and Child.
5
There on her knees the Queen was praying:
On that cold marble leaned her breast;
Prayer after prayer devoutly saying,
With palms together pressed.
There for her lord she prayed aloud,
Prayed for her people, blind and proud—
That Heaven would chase away their night,
That God would bathe his heart in light!
