A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL.
All winter long I tarried in a strange, monotonous land, Among pine forests,—an eternal throng Of green plumes, changeless o'er the changeless sand, Whereto the ocean singeth one sole song, Heard swinging heavily by sunLor star, On its Biscayan bar.
But with the spring I see the mountains tepid with sunny white, Like silver clouds beyond imagining, Rise in the cloudless blue, and, day or night, iTis sweet to hear clear-water'd Adour sing, And watch the shadows which far forests throw On Pyrenean snow.
All the year through There hung a grand monotony of grief O'er England, ever quiet, ever true, Speeches and elegies perchance were brief, But voices faltered, till the whole world knew She mourn'd her Prince—from evil tongues secure, Because his heart was pure.
Worthy to bear Half the Crown's crushing burden in the State Where monarchy but cometh forth more fair From fires of revolution, where to fate The king may yield ; but still the throne is there, As drops that make the rainbow on the river Perish—the rainbow never !
But lo ! with spring (I will not say our grief bath fled for good, But it is time-touch'd to a gentler thing), The Princess comes whose noble womanhood Is better than the circlet of a king: Surely young grass and flowers are clothing now The furrows of God's plough.
Ah ! Princess, come !
Come, Princess ! in the war-ship, o'er the wave ; Come, Princess ! o'er the favourable foam ; With blazing streets, with banners of the brave, With arches they will hail thee to thy home ; With these, and the long thunders of the cheers Falling in rain of tears.
In tears !—in tears !- Remembering who, with pageantry as grand, Paas'd through the acclaim of people and of peers, When, with her princely spouse at her right hand, She went in state among the endless cheers, And "let her people see her" as she rolled On, in a cloud of gold.
Sweet lady ! pass On to St. George's Chapel. Wear as free Thy royal jewels, in a starry mass Clustered, as doth some bride of low degree Her wreath from orchard or from meadow-grass. Surely, when joy so trembles to a tear The dead are strangely near.
From where his true Heart-love of beauty feeds on the uncreated And ancient Beauty that is ever new ; Where his deep thirst for purity is sated, And his high soul bath found a work to do Sublimer than the work on earth he wrought, And full of nobler thought ; Surely one spirit, Full of a tender care that is not dread, Full of sweet love that doth no touch inherit Of fear or woe—one of the living dead, Stoled in the robe made white by Christ's dear merit, With benediction for the princely pair, Stands on the altar stair.
Here, missing sore Old England, and her streets ablaze with lights, The illumination, when the day is o'er, Shall be the splendours that on starry nights From silver snows stream to heaven's silver floor ; And for a nation's cheers, the silent prayer Breath'd on the mountain air.
W. A.
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