Page:Forget Me Not (1826).djvu/29
ALICE. 9
The high idea, the bright imagining
Of her own soul. Gentleness, valour, truth,
And lofty faith, and noble thought —’twas these
She loved; the magic image did but clothe,
But lend a form to the diviner mind
Which her pure fancy moulded.
Henry (aside). How she stoops
To kiss her mother’s hand! — sweet artifice
Of maiden shame, to hide the crimson glow,
Her ardent speech hath brought upon the cheek
That was all lily! (aloud.) Go not! [ Exit Alice.
Mrs. Neville. She is gone
To join her youthful comrades.
Henry. Ay, she moves
Towards them with a gentle dignity,
As yonder cygnet glides along the stream.
Look! what a picture ’tis to see her pause
Under the brow of that lone summer-house
Which overhangs the water, overhung
With ivy and wild woodbine, backed with firs
So old, and vast, and shadowy, that they lend
A blackness to the deep rank grass; and crowned
With poplars of such growth, such spiral height —
The stately columns of eternal Rome
Matched not the pair of living monuments
That shoot their tapering heads into the sky.
She pauses there, the beautiful!— amidst
That beauty, lifting her fair hand to shade
The light from those blue eyes—she passes now
Beneath the firs — she disappears. Yon scene —
B 2