University of Virginia Library

In sooth it was as fair a court
As ever in a morn of May,
Amid the greenwood's glad resort,
Made a perpetual holiday.
'Tis true she was a queen no more,
But still her robe the ermine bore;
And in her hand, and in her eye,
Was that which spoke of courts gone by:
For Catherine looked what she had been,
At once the beauty and the queen.
Both had their grief, whose memory throws
A deeper charm around repose.
She knew the worth of quiet hours,
Past true and loving hearts among,
Whose history might be writ on flowers,
Or only chronicled in song.
Methinks, were it my lot to choose,
As my lot it will never be,
I'd colour life with those same hues
That, lady! coloured life for thee.
Thou, to whom life enough was known—
The moon-lit bower, the court, the throne;
The heart that maketh its own snare,
Passion and power, and grief and care;
Till the soul, saddened and subdued,
Rejoiced in haunted solitude.
Youth is too eager, forth it flings
Itself upon exulting wings,
Which seek the heaven they ask too near—
One wild flight ends the bright career;
With broken wing and darkened eye,
Earth claims again its own to die.
No! solitude asks bygone hours
Wherewith to fill its silent bowers,—
Memories that linger o'er the past,
But into softer shadow cast,
Like lovely pictures that recall
One look, but that most dear of all.
When life's more fierce desires depart,
Aware how false and vain they are,—
While youth yet lingers at the heart,
And hope, although it looks afar,—
Then takes the lute, its softest tone,
It murmurs of emotions gone.
Then charms the picture most, it brings
So many unforgotten things.
Then breathes within the gifted scroll
A deeper meaning to the soul,—
For that itself hath learnt before
The truth and secret of its lore.

Few know such blessed breathing time
As she, whose home beside the sea,
Beneath that lovely summer clime,
Seems such a fairy dream to me.
Within a fair Italian hall,
Round which an olive wood extends,
With summer for her festival,—
For camp and court a few tried friends,
The Queen of Cypress dwelt,—the last
That ever ruled that lovely isle;
The sceptre from her hand she cast,
And Venice wore her crown the while,
Whose winged lion loved to sweep
Sole master of his bride—the deep.
Her history is upon her face;
Titian hath kept its pensive grace.

Divinest art, that can restore
The lovely and the loved of yore!
Her cheek is pale, her mouth is wrought
With lines that tell of care and thought,
But sweet, and with a smile, that seems
To brood above a world of dreams.
And with an eye of that clear blue,
Like heaven when stars are shining through,
The pure, the spiritual, the clear,
Whose light is of another sphere.
It was an eve when June was calling
The red rose to its summer state,
When dew-like tears around are falling—
Such tears as upon pity wait.
The woods obscured the crimson west,
Which yet shone through the shadowy screen
Like a bright sea in its unrest,
With gold amid the kindling green.
But softer lights and colours fall
Around the olive-sheltered hall,
Which, opening to a garden, made
Its own, just slightly broken, shade.
Beneath a marble terrace spread,
Veined with the sunset's flitting red.
And lovely plants, in vases, there
Wore colours caught in other skies;
Sweet prisoners, such—because so fair,
Made captives for their radiant eyes.
And in the centre of that room
A fountain, like an April shower,
Brought light—and bore away perfume
To many a pale and drooping flower,
That, wearied with the sultry noon,
Languished at that sweet water's tune.