Classic Poem

I

O fairer than vermilion
 Shed upon Western skies
Was the blush of that sweet Castilian
 Girl, with the deep brown eyes—
As her happy heart grew firmer,
 In the strange bright days of yore,
When she heard young Edward murmur,
 ‘I love thee, Eleänore!’

II

Sweeter than musical cadence
 Of the wind amid cedar and lime,
Is love to a timorous maiden's
 Heart in the fresh spring-time:
Sweeter than waves that mutter
 And break on a sinuous shore,
Are the songs her fancies utter
 To brown-eyed Eleänore.

III

They twain went forth together
 Away o'er the midland main,
Through the golden summer weather,
 To Syria's mystic plain;
Together, toil and danger
 And the death of their loved ones bore,
And perils from Paynim, stranger
 Than death to Eleänore.

IV

Where Lincoln's towers of wonder
 Soar high o'er the vale of Trent—
Their lives were torn asunder;
 To her home the good Queen went
Her corse to the tomb he carried,
 With grief at his heart's stern core;
And where'er at night they tarried
 Rose a cross to Eleänore.

V

As ye trace a meteor's onset
 By a line of silver rain—
As ye trace a regal sunset
 By streaks of a saffron stain—
So to the Minster holy
 At the west of London's roar,
May ye mark how, sadly, slowly,
 Passed the corse of Eleänore.

VI

Back to where lances quiver—
 Straight back, by tower and town,
By hill and wold and river—
 For the love of Scotland's Crown:
But ah! there is woe within him
 For the face he shall see no more;
And conquest cannot win him
 From the love of Eleänore.

VII

Years after, sternly dying
 In his tent by the Solway Sea,
With the breezes of Scotland flying
 O'er the wild sands wide and free,
His dim thoughts sadly wander
 To the happy days of yore,
And he sees, in the gray sky yonder,
 The eyes of his Eleänore.

VIII

Time must destroy those Crosses,
 Raised by the Poet-King:
But so long as the blue sea tosses,
 So long as the skylarks sing,
So long as London's river
 Glides stately down to the Nore,
Men shall remember ever
 How he loved Queen Eleänore.