The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
Moore.
The times are gone when woman’s heart
Responded to the minstrel’s art;
Those times of high romantic bliss,
Of serenades and knightly prowess,
When finger-tips were given to kiss,
And love was purer than it now is;
Those times, when seven long years of ardour
Would scarce suffice a smile to gain;
When broken hearts, and (what was harder)
Crack’d heads, might bleed alike in vain;
When valour’s self had scarce the power
To win its way to beauty’s bower,
Unaided by the magic spell,
Which song sheds over love so well;
When each enamour’d knight would make
A vow that, for his lady’s sake,
“Some fourteen” Paynim heads should leave
Their shoulders by All Hallows’ eve;
While all he met, who dared deny
The lustre of her sparkling eye,
Or think (as oft those errant men did)
Their own chaste damsels still more splendid,
Would have to peril straight their bodies,
Or give meet honour to his goddess.
Those times are gone—but times succeeded,
When other damsels bloom’d as she did,
And then, though beauty grew more rare,
The muse knew one exceeding fair—
So fair, that every eye was charm’d,
Which on her cheek of damask dwelt ;
So fair, that every heart was warm’d,
And every knee before her knelt ;
Though at the epoch of my strain,
Her charms were rather on the wane.
Yet as we love to look upon
The light of the declining sun,
Albeit the eye is dazzled less
Than by his noontide garishness ;
And as a somewhat wither’d plum
Is sweet, though it hath lost its bloom ;—
So was she then, without dispute,
Mild like that sun—sweet like that fruit.
From her youth upwards many a lover
Had tried, but tried in vain, to move her.
From every grade her suitors came—
The warrior, with his eye of flame,
Essay’d to win her chary hand
By tales of war in foreign land,
And all the feats that he had done
In arms, on Blenheim’s glorious plain ;—
How many trophies he had won,
Tow many with his red sword slain,
What sights of carnage he had seen,
And much of Marlbro’ and Eugene.
But though she glow’d as woman glows,
(Or did glow then, when blood was rife)
To hear him speak of slaughter’d foes,
And hair-breadth ’seapes, and fiery strife,
His deeds in battle fail’d to move
Her yet unwounded heart to love.
The gorgeous courtier next essay’d,
In pride of place, to win the maid.
Attended by a princely state,
And smiling, as of conquest sure,
He bow’d him at the lady’s gate,
But found the lady’s gate secure.
In vain he talk’d of palace-hall,
Of glittering féte and festival ;
Where beauty in her queenly seat
Saw rank and yalour at her feet ;
Where royal smiles illumed the scene,
Where, in a heaven of splendour placed,
Her pearly brow and noble mien I
Would, less than it should grace, be graced.
In vain the courtier urged bis suit—
The door kept shut—the lady mute !
A merchant all his hoard display’d
Of costly silk and rich brocade ;
Of jewels from the orient mine,
Of yellow gold an endless store,
“ And all, fair lady, shall be thine,
If at thy beauty’s dazzling shrine
My knee may bend, my heart adore.
For thee my venturous ships shall sail
Where costly perfumes scent the gale ;
And I will lay that treasure sweet,
An offering, at my lady’s feet :
Fair maidens shall around thee wait,
And watch the language of thine eyes ;
And thou shalt have a queen’s estate,
If thou wilt yield thee to my sighs.”
All would not do; the merchant’s prayer
Was, like his odours, lost in air.
When all had left, in hopeless mood,
That lady to her solitude,
It chanced that, in a sunny hour,
A wandering minstrel sought her bower—
One of those sunny hours, when Love
Delights him most in field and grove ;
When the young Mischief likes to be
By purling stream and shady tree ;
When a voluptuous languor throws
All nature into warm repose ;
When the faint bee has scarce the power
To hum around his honey-flower ;
The bright, soft, fragrant hour of noon,
In fair and aromatic June.
The bard had not the courtier’s gear,
But he could soothe a lady’s ear ;
He wore not knighthood’s gilded spurs,
Nor deck’d his robe with costly furs :
He came in homely raiment clad ;
His lute was all the wealth he had ;
And thus, by loye and beauty fired,
Burst forth the strains that they inspired :
“ Less brightly shines yon dazzling sun
Than those two lustrous eyes of thine ;
Those eyes, whose beams have all undone
This pierced and burning heart of mine :
Thy smiles, which from those roseate lips,
Like sunbeams from a mirror, start,
The splendour of this noon eclipse,
And flash like lightning to the heart.
“ How dim yon clear sky’s azure hue
Appears when those white lids you raise,
Compared with thy bright eyes of blue,
Whose glance the ethereal soul displays.
Lady ! the whitest cloud is not
So white as thy translucent brow ;
Nor has this earth another spot
Containing aught so fair as thou.
“ The winding stream, that softly flows
With gentle murmurs through the mead,
Cannot such soothing sounds disclose
As from thy tongue of music speed.
The bounding fawn, which stands to gaze
Upon thy charms, (oh, happy fawn !)
Less grace and majesty displays
Than Araminta on the lawn.
“ The gales of Araby the sweet
Are borne on thy triumphant sigh ;
And safely rests beneath thy feet—
Thy zephyr feet—the tiniest fly.
See ! Juno’s regal gait display’d
In every movement thou dost make !
See ! Venus in thy form array’d !—
My foolish heart, be still—or break !”
He ceased ; her raptured bosom swell’d,
And in her eyes his eyes beheld
What lovers’ souls interpret best ;
And sighs and murmurs told the rest :
No wonder, if, in such an hour,
That such a lay had such a power.
Thus valour, rank, and wealth, assail’d
The unwarm’d heart of beauty long ;
But valour, rank, and riches, fail’d,
And it was melted down by song.