Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence;
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning
together

To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall:
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall.

They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me:
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses;
Their arms about me intwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.

And still with favor singled out, Marred less than man by mortal fall,

Her disposition is devout,
Her countenance angelical.
No faithless thought her instinct
shrouds,

But fancy checkers settled sense, Like alteration of the clouds

On noonday's azure permanence. Pure courtesy, composure, ease, Declare affections nobly fixed, And impulse sprung from due degrees

Of sense and spirit sweetly mixed. Her modesty, her chiefest grace, The cestus clasping Venus' side, Is potent to deject the face

Of him who would affront its pride. Wrong dares not in her presence speak,

Nor spotted thought its taint disclose

Under the protest of a cheek

Outbragging Nature's boast, the

rose.

In mind and manners how discreet!
How artless in her very art!
How candid in discourse! how sweet
The concord of her lips and heart!

"He that's for heaven itself unfit, Let him not hope to merit me."

And though her charms are a strong law

Compelling all men to admire, They are so clad with lovely awe,

None but the noble dares desire.

He who would seek to make her his, Will comprehend that souls of

grace

Own sweet repulsion, and that 'tis.

The quality of their embrace

To be like the majestic reach

Of coupled suns, that, from afar, Mingle their mutual spheres, while each

Circles the twin obsequious star:

And in the warmth of hand to hand, Of heart to heart, he'll vow to note And reverently understand

How the two spirits shine remote;

And ne'er to numb fine honor's nerve, Nor let sweet awe in passion melt, Nor fail by courtesies to observe

The space which makes attraction felt;

Nor cease to guard like life the sense Which tells him that the embrace of love

Is o'er a gulf of difference
Love cannot sound, nor death re-

move.

COVENTRY PATMORE.

DUCHESSE BLANCHE.

IT happed that I came on a day
Into a place, there that I say,
Truly the fairest companey
Of ladies that ever man with eye
Had seen together in one place,·
Shall I clepe it hap or grace?
Among these ladies thus each one
Sooth to say I saw one

That was like none of the rout,
For I dare swear without doubt,
That as the summer's Sunne bright
Is fairer, clearer, and hath more light

Than any other planet in Heaven,
The moone, or the starres seven,
For all the world, so had she
Surmounten them all of beauty,
Of manner, and of comeliness,
Of stature, and of well set gladnesse,
Of goodly heed, and so well besey,—
Shortly what shall I more say,
By God, and by his holowes' twelve,
It was my sweet, right all herselve.
She had so stedfast countenance
In noble port and maintenance,
And Love that well harde my bone3
Had espied me thus soone,
That she full soone in my thought
As, help me God, so was I caught
So suddenly that I ne took
No manner counsel but at her look,
And at my heart for why her eyen
So gladly I trow mine heart, seyen
That purely then mine own thought
Said, Twere better to serve her for
nought

Than with another to be well.

I saw her dance so comely,
Carol and sing so swetely,
Laugh and play so womanly,
And look so debonairly,

So goodly speak, and so friendly,
That certes I trow that evermore
N'as seen so blissful a treasore,
For every hair on her head,
Sooth to say, it was not red,
Nor neither yellow nor brown it n'as,
Methought most like gold it was,
And such eyen my lady had,
Debonnaire, good, glad, and sad,
Simple, of good mokel, not too wide,
Thereto her look was not aside,
Nor overtwhart, but beset so well
It drew and took up every dell.
All that on her 'gan behold
Her eyen seemed anon she would
Have mercy.-folly wenden so,
But it was never the rather do.
It was no counterfeited thing
It was her own pure looking
That the goddess Dame Nature
Had made them open by measure
And close; for, were she never so

glad

By God my wrath is all forgive.
Therewith her list so well to live,
That dulness was of her adrad,
She n'as too sober ne too glad;
In all thinges more measure
Had never I trowe creature,
But many one with her look she hurt,
And that sat her full little at herte:
For she knew nothing of their
thought,

But whether she knew, or knew it not,
Alway she ne cared for them a stree;1
To get her love no near n'as he
That woned at home, than he in Inde,
The foremost was alway behinde;
But good folk over all other
She loved as man may his brother,
Of which love she was wonder large,
In skilful places that bear charge:
But what a visage had she thereto,
Alas! my heart is wonder wo
That I not can describen it;-
Me lacketh both English and wit
For to undo it at the full.
And eke my spirits be so dull
So great a thing for to devise,
I have not wit that can suffice
To comprehend her beauté,

But thus much I dare saine, that she Was white, ruddy, fresh, and lifely hued,

And every day her beauty newed.
And nigh her face was alderbest; 3
For, certes, Nature had such lest
To make that fair, that truly she
Was her chief patron of beauté,
And chief example of all her worke
And moulter: for, be it never so derke,
Methinks I see her evermo,
And yet, moreover, though all tho
That ever lived were now alive,
Not would have founde to descrive
In all her face a wicked sign,
For it was sad, simple, and benign.
And such a goodly sweet speech
Had that sweet, my life's leech,
So friendly, and so well y-grounded
Upon all reason, so well founded,
And so treatable to all good,
That I dare swear well by the rood,
Of eloquence was never found
So sweet a sounding faconde,
Nor truer tongued nor scorned less,
Nor bét could heal, that, by the Mass
I durst swear, though the Pope it sung,

There was never yet through her tongue

Man or woman greatly harmèd
As for her was all harm hid,
No lassie flattering in her worde,
That, purely, her simple record
Was found as true as any bond,
Or truth of any man'es hand.

Her throat, as I have now memory,
Seemed as a round tower of ivory,
Of good greatness, and not too great,
And fair white she hete

That was my lady's name right,
She was thereto fair and bright,
She had not her name wrong,
Right fair shoulders, and body long
She had, and armes ever lith
Fattish, fleshy, not great therewith,
Right white hands and nailès red
Round breasts, and of good brede 8
Her lippes were; a straight flat back,
I knew on her none other lack,
That all her limbs were pure snowing
In as far as I had knowing.
Thereto she could so well play
What that her list, that I dare say
That was like to torch bright
That every man may take of light
Enough, and it hath never the less
Of manner and of comeliness.
Right so fared my lady dear
For every wight of her mannere
Might catch enough if that he would
If he had eyes her to behold
For I dare swear well if that she
Had among ten thousand be,
She would have been at the best,
A chief mirror of all the feast
Though they had stood in a row
To men's eyen that could know,
For whereso men had played or
waked,

So well inclined to all good
That all her wit was set by the rood,
Without malice, upon gladness,
And thereto I saw never yet a less
Harmful than she was in doing.
I say not that she not had knowing
What harm was, or else she
Had known no good, so thinketh me:
And truly, for to speak of truth
But she had had, it had been ruth,
Therefore she had so much her dell
And I dare say, and swear it well
That Truth himself over all and all
Had chose his manor principal
In her that was his resting place;
Thereto she had the moste grace
To have stedfast perseverance
And easy attempre governance
That ever I knew or wist yet
So pure suffraunt was her wit.
CHAUCER.

LUCY.

THREE years she grew in sun and

shower;

Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,

Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend:
Nor shall she fail to see,

Even in the motions of the storm, Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round;

And beauty, born of murmuring sound,

Shall pass into her face.