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Rodolph de Brevern wrong'd his mother!"
And, as that doom of love was heard,

My sister sunk-and died-without a sign or word!

I shed no tear for her. She died

With her last sunshine in her eyes.
Earth held for her no joy beside

The hope just shatter'd and she lies
In a green nook of yonder dell;
And near her, in a newer bed,
Her lover brother-sleeps as well!

Peace to the broken-hearted dead!

LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER.

"Dost thou despise

A love like this! A lady should not scorn
One soul that loves her, howe'er lowly it be."

BARRY CORNWALL.

LORD IVON.

How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!

Is't not a face of most bewildering brightness?

ISIDORE.

The features are all fair, sir, but so cold—

I could not love such beauty!

LORD IVON.

Yet, ev'n so

Look'd thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow
Lofty like this-her lips thus delicate,

Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads-
Her neck thus queenly, and the sweeping curve
Thus matchless, from the small and "pearl

round ear"

To the o'er-polished shoulder. Never swan
Dreamed on the water with a grace so calm!

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Dost thou prate already

Of books, my little one? Nay, then, 'tis time

That a sad tale were told thee. Is thy bird Fed for the day? Canst thou forget the rein Of thy beloved Arabian for an hour,

And, the first time in all thy sunny life,

Take sadness to thy heart? Wilt listen, sweet?

ISIDORE.

Hang I not ever on thy lips, dear father?

LORD IVON.

As thou didst enter, I was musing here
Upon this picture. 'Tis the face of one
I never knew; but, for its glorious pride,
I bought it of the painter. There has hung
Ever the cunning curse upon my soul

To love this look in woman. Not the flower
Of all Arcadia, in the Age of Gold,
Look'd she a shepherdess, would be to me
More than the birds are. As th' astrologer
Worships the half-seen star that in its sphere
Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily
That flings, unask'd, its fragrance in his way,

Yet both (as are the high-born and the low) Wrought of the same fine Hand-so, daringly, You are here In a brave palace, Isidore! The gem

Flew my boy-hopes beyond me.

That sparkles in your hair imprisons light
Drunk in the flaming Orient; and gold
Waits on the bidding of those girlish lips
In measure that Aladdin never knew

Yet was I-lowly born!

ISIDORE.

Lord Ivon!

LORD IVON.

Ay,

You wonder; but I tell you that the Lord
Of this tall palace was a peasant's child!
And, looking sometimes on his fair domain,
Thy sire bethinks him of a sickly boy,
Nursed by his mother on a mountain side,
His only wealth a book of poetry,

With which he daily crept into the sun,

To cheat sharp pains with the bewildering dream Of beauty he had only read' of there.

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