POETRY.
THE PRINCESS ALICE.
I.
CHILD! with the soft hymn by a father's bed
Sung soothing ;.—Maiden! whose bright face did stir All our rough England with the love of her, For the dear help she gave the aching head Of our good Queen—beyond all sung or said Of fair adventure and of golden skies, The morning dawned for those delighted eyes ;- Woman most happy, most serenely wed !
Is there aught better, aught that angels care To look on more intently as they pass,
In their ascension to the sea of glass,
Than lives thus delicate, thus supremely fair ?— In double coronation, double state, Twice beautified, twice crown'd, by birth and Fate.
Ir.
Sweet watcher by the wounded,—undefiled Pitier, in whom Earth's fallen might behold The chrystal's purity, without its cold,— Pale, passionate weeper o'er a princely child— 'Thoughtful and thorough learner of the mild
But difficult lesson charity can unfold—
Calm, honest thinker, gently over-bold, Who for a little trod the glacial wild Of Doubt, but found it more than doubly sweet After the silence of the awful space, After the absence of Christ's living Face, To clasp with her cut hands the bleeding feet ! More beauty than in Beauty's self may be In thought-won faith and sorrow angels see.
The brightness and the shadow finely blent, The beauty and the sorrow, all the twin Delight and desolation have pass'd in Behind the veil, and our Princess present, Not with the white face of a monument, But with a wondrous look of vanish'd sin, And such serenity as only win Souls that have fought their way to full content.
So be she seen by love that ne'er forgets, Pathetic with such pathos as God wills, But a fair influence, soothing all regrets, A presence on the happy Highland hills, A memory like the breath of violets, In letters from a land that sunshine fills.
Palace, Del ., 1878. WILLIAM DERRY AND RAPII0E.
Previous page
