THE QUEEN'S PAGE.
In the summer of 1854 I
had rooms in quiet, shady little Queen's Square, Bloomsbury
(corner house on the left as you come from Southampton Row),
and there one afternoon appeared, as it often did, the welcome
face of Gabriel Rossetti. ‘Would I come out with him?’
‘With
the greatest pleasure, if he could wait a little while.’ He
took a book and sat silent. A quarter of an hour or so
later (it was a scribbling-book of mine that was in his hands)
he had made a pen and ink drawing in it opposite to a
translation of a poem of Heine's, twelve lines long, which he
had never seen before. I think he was not dissatisfied with
this rapid design, which he signed and dated, and that many
will be gratified by its reproduction. The size of the original
is six inches by four and a quarter.
There was a King, an old King,
Chill his heart, and gray his head;
And that poor King, that old King,
A sweet young wife must wed.
There was a Page, a young Page,
Light of heart, and bright of hair;
And that fair Page, that young Page,
The young Queen's train must bear.
But dost thou know the old song,
Old story, sad to tell?—
Death they found, they needs must die,
Who loved each other well.