ISIDORE.

Have you the volume still, sir?

LORD IVON.

'Twas the gift

Of a poor scholar wandering in the hills, Who pitied my sick idleness. I fed

My inmost soul upon the witching rhymeA silly tale of a low minstrel boy,

Who broke his heart in singing at a bridal.

ISIDORE.

Loved he the lady, sir?

LORD IVON.

So ran the tale.

How well I do remember it!

Poor youth!

ISIDORE.

Alas!

LORD IVON.

I never thought to pity him.

The bride was a duke's sister; and I mused
Upon the wonder of his daring love,

Till my heart changed within me. I became
Restless and sad; and in my sleep I saw
Beautiful dames all scornfully go by;

And one o'er-weary morn I crept away
Into the glen, and, flung upon a rock,
Over a torrent whose swift, giddy waters
Fill'd me with energy, I swore my soul
To better that false vision, if there were
Manhood or fire within my wretched frame.
I turn'd me homeward with the sunset hour,
Changed-for the thought had conquer'd ev'n
disease;

And my poor mother check'd her busy wheel,
To wonder at the step with which I came.

Oh, heavens! that soft and dewy April eve,
When, in a minstrel's garb, but with a heart
As lofty as the marble shafts upreared
Beneath the stately portico, I stood
At this same palace door!

A minstrel boy!

ISIDORE.

Our own! and you

LORD IVON.

Yes I had wandered far

Since I shook of my sickness in the hills,

And, with some cunning on the lute, had learn'd A subtler lesson than humility

In the quick school of want. A menial stood By the Egyptian sphinx; and when I came And pray'd to sing beneath the balcony

A song of love for a fair lady's ear,

He insolently bade me to begone.

Listening not, I swept my fingers o'er

The strings in prelude, when the base-born slave Struck me!

ISIDORE.

Impossible!

LORD IVON.

I dash'd my lute

Into his face, and o'er the threshold flew ;
And, threading rapidly the lofty rooms,
Sought vainly for his master. Suddenly
A wing rushed o'er me, and a radiant girl,
Young as myself, but fairer than the dream
Of my most wild imagining, sprang forth,
Chasing a dove, that, 'wilder'd with pursuit,
Dropt breathless on my bosom.

Was't so indeed?

ISIDORE.

Nay, dear father!

LORD IVON.

I thank'd my blessed star!

And, as the fair, transcendent creature stood
Silent with wonder, I resign'd the bird

To her white hands: and, with a rapid thought,
And lips already eloquent of love,

Turn'd the strange chance to a similitude

Of my own story. Her slight, haughty lip
Curl'd at the warm recital of my wrong,
And on the ivory oval of her cheek

The rose flush'd outward with a deeper red;

And from that hour the minstrel was at home, And horse and hound were,his, and none might

A summer, and a winter, and a spring,
Went over me like brief and noteless hours.
Forever at the side of one who grew

With every morn more beautiful; the slave,
Willing and quick, of every idle whim;
Singing for no one's bidding but her own,
And then a song from my own passionate heart,
Sung with a lip of fire, but ever named

As an old rhyme that I had chanced to hear;
Riding beside her, sleeping at her door,
Doing her maddest bidding at the risk
Of life-what marvel if at last I grew
Presumptuous ?