"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay; "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, "But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words." 55 But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune; And the young girl mused beside the well, He wedded a wife of richest dower, Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 60 65 70 And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms' And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, 75 "Ah, that I were free again! Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 80 But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain, And oft, when the summer sun shone hot And she heard the little spring brook fall In the shade of the apple-tree again 185 And, gazing down with timid grace, 90 Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Alas for maiden, alas for judge, God pity them both! and pity us all, 95 100 105 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Ar Paris it was, at the opera there;And she looked like a queen in a book that night, With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch on her breast so bright. 4 Of all the operas that Verdi wrote, The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note, The souls in purgatory. The moon on the tower slept soft as snow; And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, "Non ti scordar di me"? The emperor there, in his box of state, The empress, too, had a tear in her eye: You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again, For one moment, under the old blue sky, Well! there in our front-row box we sat, And hers on the stage hard by. And both were silent, and both were sad;— Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm. With that regal, indolent air she had; So confident of her charm! 12 16 20 24 28 I have not a doubt she was thinking then Of her former lord, good soul that he was! Who died the richest and roundest of men, The Marquis of Carabas. I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven, Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years; Till over my eyes there began to move 32 36 I thought of the dress that she wore last time, When we stood 'neath the cypress-trees together, In that lost land, in that soft clime, In the crimson evening weather; Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot) And her warm white neck in its golden chain; And her full soft hair, just tied in a knot, And the jasmin-flower in her fair young breast; (O the faint, sweet smell of that jasminflower!) 44 |