"My Lord has need of these flowrets gay,"
The reaper said and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where once He was a child.
“They shall all bloom in fields of light, Transplanted by my care;
And saints, upon their garments white, These sacred blossoms wear."
And the mother gave, in tears and pain, The flowers she most did love; She knew she should find them all again In the fields of light above.
Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The reaper came that day— 'Twas an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.
In this neglected mirror (the broad frame Of massy silver serves to testify That many a noble matron of the house Has sat before it) once, alas! was seen What led to many sorrows. From that time
The bat came hither for a sleeping place;
And he, that cursed another in his heart,
Said, "Be thy dwelling, through the day and night, Shunned like Coll'alto."
Which flanks the cliff with its gray battlements Flung here and there, and, like an eagle's nest, Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the steward, Shaking his locks, the few that Time had left, Addressed me, as we entered what was called "My Lady's Chamber." On the walls, the chairs, Much yet remained of the rich tapestry; Much of the adventures of Sir Lancelot In the green glades of some enchanted wood. The toilet-table was of silver wrought,
Florentine art, when Florence was renowned; A gay confusion of the elements,
Dolphins and boys, and shells and fruits and flowers: And from the ceiling, in his gilded cage,
Hung a small bird of curious workmanship, That, when his mistress bade him, would unfold (So says the babbling dame, Tradition, there) His emerald-wings, and sing and sing again The song that pleased her. While I stood and looked, A gleam of day yet lingering in the west,
The steward went on. She had ('tis now long since) A gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine,
Fair as a lily, and as spotless too;
None so admired, beloved. They had grown up As play-fellows; and some there were, that said,
Some that knew much, discoursing of Cristine, "She is not what she seems." When unrequired, She would steal forth; her custom, her delight, To wander through and through an ancient grove Self-planted half-way down, losing herself Like one in love with sadness; and her veil And vesture white, seen ever in that place, Ever as surely as the hours came round, Among those reverend trees, gave her below The name of The White Lady. But the day Is gone, and I delay thee.
The Countess, as it might be now, was sitting, Her gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, Combing her golden hair; and through this door The Count, her lord, was hastening, called away By letters of great urgency to Venice; When in the glass she saw, as she believed ('Twas an illusion of the Evil One-
Some say he came and crossed it at the time), A smile, a glance at parting, given and answered, That turned her blood to gall. That very night The deed was done. That night, ere yet the moon Was up on Monte Calvo, and the wolf
Baying as still he does (oft is he heard, An hour and more, by the old turret-clock), They led her forth, the unhappy lost Cristine, Helping her down in her distress-to die.
No blood was spilt; no instrument of death Lurked-or stood forth, declaring its bad purpose;
Nor was a hair of her unblemished head
Hurt in that hour. Fresh as a flower just blown, And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing, She was walled up within the castle-wall. The wall itself was hollowed secretly;
Then closed again, and done to line and rule. Would'st thou descend?-'Tis in a darksome vault Under the chapel: and there nightly now, As in the narrow niche, when smooth and fair, And as though nothing had been done or thought, The stone-work rose before her, till the light Glimmered and went there, nightly at that hour (Thou smilest, and would it were an idle tale!) In her white veil and vesture white she stands Shuddering-her eyes uplifted, and her hands Joined as in prayer; then, like, a Blessed Soul Bursting the tomb, springs forward, and away Flies o'er the woods and mountains. Issuing forth, The hunter meets her in his hunting-track; The shepherd on the heath, starting, exclaims (For still she bears the name she bore of old) 'Tis the White Lady!
YOUNG, lovely, radiant with genius, recently married to a man of serious mind, who was touching on old age, and but recently mother of her first child, Madame Roland was born in that intermediary condition in which families scarcely emancipated from manual labour are, it may be said, amphibious between the labourer and the tradesman, and retain in their manners the virtues and simplicity of the people, whilst they already participate in the lights of society. The period in which aristocracies fall is that in which nations regenerate. The sap of the people is there. In this was born Jean Jacques Rousseau, the virile type of Madame Roland. A portrait of her when a child represents a young girl in her father's workshop, holding in one hand a book, and in the other an engraving tool. This picture is the symbolic definition of the social condition in which Madame Roland was born, and the precise moment between the labour of her hands and her mind.
Her father, Gratien Philippon, was an engraver and painter in enamel. He joined to these two professions that of a trade in diamonds and jewels. He was a man always aspiring higher than his abilities allowed, and a restless speculator, who incessantly destroyed
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