Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

So spake the gentle Lady Maude:
“He loves me not!—He said,
‘Nay wed me unto whom ye list,
Now Margaret is dead;
But, dearer than the reddest rose
In bride-bower blushing brave,
Is the little daisy flower that grows
Upon my true love's grave.
And on my lips the kiss I took
So cold from hers, will cling,
For marriage-bell, for priest and book,
For spousal troth and ring.
So if in kiss of loveless lip,
In clasp of loveless hand,
There lie a spell old feud to quell,
And quench strife's smouldering brand;
If loveless bonds can fetter hate,
Be then this bridal sped:
Yet in an evil fate ye mate
The Living with the Dead.’”

So spake the Lady Maude, and fast her tears fell down like rain:
“Ten long—ten silent years my breast hath striven with this pain,
And flung it off a while, then ta'en the weary load again;
Ten years—ten years that I have lived the noble Guilbert's wife,
Have crept uncheered by look of love, unmarked by word of strife;
Within the house an honoured dame—a lady unreproved,
Within the heart a slighted wife—a woman unbeloved!
Long, long ago, I thought this woe would cease, or I should prove
How patient grief wins quietness, how patient love wins love;
Long, long ago, I thought this woe would cease, or I should be
Love-lifted up to happy life, death-gathered to the free.
The smile of love, the smile of death, oh! wondrous sweet they be,
The brethren's and the father's kiss, and neither were for me.

“The brethren's and the father's love; oh! Father, having Thine,
And can we seek aught else for joy, or in our sadness pine

To rest on one another's breast; oh! Father, can it be
That we can need each other still?—each other—having Thee?
Yet even so hast Thou been pleased to weave us in one woof,
To bind us in one golden sheaf, that none may stand aloof
From these sweet sacred bands, and say, ‘In having One above
So have I all;’ that none may scorn his human brother's love
That Thou art mindful of, and thus since Thou hast loved us, none
That loves Thee best, may ever rest in loving Thee alone!”

So spake she calmer: “He who made best knoweth how we feel,
So dare I show Him of the thoughts that never I unseal
To human ear, in very fear lest censure should lie cold
With our dead fathers in their graves, heaped o'er them with the mould,
Or follow on my living lord; nay, rather let this blame
Be mine that dared to give him more than he hath cared to claim.

And yet small blame, for who e'er lived with him that loved him not?
And never sign or word of mine hath wearied him, I wot,
For from the first my heart its lot accepted, understood;
I saw that of the things he had he gave me what he could.
No lady in the Marches sees for pleasure or for state
So fair a train of servitors upon her bidding wait;
I never lacked for page in bower, for minstrel in the hall,
For gentle merlin on my wrist, or palfrey in the stall,
Robe, gaud, and gem, each costly gift that on love's altar lies,
Were mine, but never with them that which only sanctifies;
And he perhaps who gave them all did never guess or know
(For loving hearts run fast, and eyes unloving read them slow),
That I had cast them from me fain, so might I but have found
The greeting that he gave to serf, the look he gave his hound,
The smile and largesse he flung down unto a vassal old,—
Fain had I gathered up the one and doubled him the gold.

“I am not fair as Marg'ret was; yet faces have grown bright
That nature made not so, methinks, when seen by household light;
And in the heart a mirror set hath shown them forth approved
In every look; not only they, the lovely are the loved!
For never hath my name been borne on tilt or tourney's din,
Nor minstrel ta'en it for his song, a sweeter praise to win;
Yet children leaving brighter dames have run in haste to press
Their rosy cheeks against my own, yes, children! they could bless
With unsought tenderness. Methinks a child upon my knee
Had been a pleader winning love both for itself and me;
A child's soft touch, perchance, had stirred the springs of feeling so,
That even to my lips had risen its strong, calm overflow.
Yes, even so, yet well I know these thoughts but bring unrest,
They strive, but may not better that by God marked out for best—
For me the best; for every path, the sun-lit and the dim,
The flower-strewn as the thorny Way alike have led to Him;

Yet finding Love's sweet fountain closed, it even thus befell
That searching farther on I found Life's clear upspringing Well.”

So spake she fervent: “I have learned by knocking at Heaven's gate
The meaning of one golden word that shines above it, ‘Wait!’
For with the Master whom to serve is not to ride or run,
But only to abide His Will, ‘Well waited is well done.’
So waiting, on my heart sweet words, like fragments of a song
Down floated from a happy place, have whispered ‘Not for long.’
So be it; yet before I go, if I might but require
One boon, if God would answer me in this my heart's desire,
Then would I ask, through toil, through pain, through death itself, to see
My husband's eyes, before mine close, look once with love on me.
Then with this arrow that hath long through strength of pain upborne
The breast that hid it, would my soul be gently, gently drawn
Forth by a loving hand, that so my spirit as it passed
Might breathe one slow and soft and low ‘At last, at last, at last!’”