Classic Poem

( " Elle est toute petite, une duegne la garde. " )

So small she is! 'neath a duenna's care,
She looks around with but a listless air,
While holding in her hand a fragrant rose;
What she is gazing at she scarcely knows.
Before her lies a sheet of water; pine
And birch in dark reflection on it shine,
A white-winged swan makes cradle of its waves,
That sway to song of branches which it laves,
And the great garden's radiant flowery show;
She seems an angel moulded out of snow.
A stately palace dominates the scene,
With park and fish ponds, where the deer oft lean
To drink the waters clear; starred peacocks too
Beneath the ample foliage are in view.
Around this child the grass bears jewels fine,
Rubies and diamonds seem thereon to shine,
While sapphire water flows from dolphins near;
Her innocence takes added whiteness here;
And clust'ring graces trembling aspect wear.

Beside the water, gazing at her flower,
Which quite delights her for the passing hour,
She stands a figure full of childish grace:
Her bodice is of Genoese point lace,
Her satin skirt has arabesque design,
Worked in gold thread by fingers Florentine.
From urn-like calyx spreads the full-blown rose,
And fills the little hand that holds it close.
Then part the carmine lips as with a smile,
Nostrils dilate, yet with a frown the while
Deep breathing she inhales its fragrance full.
The damask rose, royally beautiful,
So nearly hides her blooming face that we
Scarcely discover where the cheeks may be.
Her sweet blue eyes shine brighter 'neath the lines
Of her brown eyebrows, everything combines
To make her incarnation of delight.
What softness in those azure eyes so bright,
What charm in Marie — her dear name that falls
Upon the ear with sound that prayer recalls!
The splendour dazzles — yet we say, " Poor thing! "
Beneath the sky — with all that life may bring
Before her, — vaguely great herself she feels;
For her comes spring, and light or shadow steals
Upon the scene; for her the sunsets fine,
And gorgeous lustre of the starlight shine;
For her brooks murmur, though themselves unseen,
And nature's fields, eternal and serene,
She views with gravity that queens must show.
No man she'd seen who did not humbly bow;
Duchess of Brabant she would one day be
And govern Flanders, or by southern sea
Sardinia, for the young Infanta she,
Five years of age, disdaining common things,
For thus it happens to the babes of kings:
Their white brows something like a shadow bear,
And with their tottering step begins the air
Of royalty. Rejoicing in her flower,
She waits the gathering empire for her dower.
Her royal look already says " 'tis mine, "
While with the love she wins vague awe doth twine.
Should sudden danger looker-on appal,
The scaffold's shadow on his brow would fall
Who her, unbidden, snatched from peril dread.

The sweet child smiled, as though in thought she said,
It is enough to live 'mong flowers I love,
With this my rose in hand and heaven above.

Day fades, the wrangling twitter of the nests,
With purple shadow on the trees, attests
The sunset; while each marble goddess' brow
Flushes at eve with ruddy life-like glow,
As she the mystery of night must show.
All things grow calm; the sun the wave receives
As birds are hidden by the sheltering leaves.

While smiles the child, contented with her flower,
In the vast palace dwells a dreadful power,
Papistical. The lancet windows shine
Like mitres. Through the glass a dim outline
Is seen of figure pacing to and fro,
From room to room its shadow seems to go;
Or else immovable the long hours through
With brow against the glass, and motionless
As monumental stone, yet not the less
The phantom is a horror, wan and dread;
Its step as slow as bell that tolls the dead.
And Death it is — unless it be the king
With lengthened shadow that the night hours bring —
'Tis he — the man a trembling nation fears
Who thus a phantom horrible appears;
Upright, with shoulder 'gainst the chamber wall,
On whom the twilight can but dimly fall,
This frightful being, in the shadow seen,
Sees nothing of the lovely garden sheen,
Or thickets where the pecking birds have been,
Or child, or shining rippled waters spread:
Reflecting back the evening sky o'erhead:
Oh, no; those glassy orbs, 'neath cruel brows,
Like ocean depths no plummet ever knows,
Sees mirage that the senses seems to blind.
Could we but know the image in his mind
'Twould be a fleet of noble Spanish ships
That doth all former armaments eclipse;
He sees the vessels fly before the breeze,
Breasting the crested, foaming waves with ease;
The rattling of the bellowing sails he hears,
And sees the Isle his great Armada nears,
Beneath the stars, a white rock clothed in mist
Which o'er the waves doth to his thunders list.

This is the vision which now fills the soul
Of him who would humanity control,
And blinds him to all else; the floating host
He looks upon as lever he may boast
Shall raise the world; he follows it in thought
Across the darkness of the sea; thus wrought
In spirit he a conqueror feels — and so
His mournfulness a gleam of light doth know.
The Koran's Ibis and the Bible's Cain
Hardly had stigmas that as black remain
As that which rests on Second Philip's fame;
A being terrible he was whose name
Meant evil with the ready sword in hand,
A nightmare that o'ershadowed every land.
This royal spectre of the Escurial,
Son of the spectre called Imperial,
Inspired such terror that a lurid light
Seemed from his presence only to affright.
Men trembled if they merely saw pass by
One of his stewards, for his power seemed nigh
To that of the Almighty, so confused
Were they by his determined will, so used
To think of him as changeless and as stable
As are the stars and Heaven's abyss, and able
All things to compass, for they thought his will
Cramped destiny its purpose to fulfil.
The Indies and America he swayed,
Pressed upon Africa, and made afraid
All Europe; yet did gloomy England still
His mind with feelings of disquiet fill.
His mouth was closed, his soul a mystery,
His throne a fraud, based on chicanery.
He was sustained by darkness, as might be
His figure on a dark horse, did we see
Equestrian statue of him; black his wear,
Giving to this so potent Prince the air
Of mourning his existence silently;
And like consuming silent sphinx was he —
Being all-potent what had he to say?
No one had ever seen him smiling gay;
On iron lips like his smiles could not dwell,
Lips only lighted like the gates of hell.
When he shakes off his torpid adder state,
'Tis to assist tormentors, and to sate
His hateful passion for the death-pyre's air,
Till in his eyeball rests its horrid glare.
With all humanity he is at strife,
With thought and freedom and progressive life;
A slave to Papal Rome, his was the shame
To rule as Satan in Christ's holy name.
The thoughts that flowed from his nocturnal mind
Were stealthy, gliding broods of viper kind;
Th' Escurial, Burgos, Aranjuez, his homes,
Never beneath their frigid palace domes
Knew festal scenes where merriment enthralls;
Auto-da-fes made courtly festivals,
And treachery was pastime. Troubled kings
Have often in dim vision night time brings
Their projects opened, and his dreams had power
A weight of evil on the world to shower.
They prompted conquest and oppression vast,
Lightnings came from them to destroy and blast;
Even the people that he thought of said
" We stifle, " such the abject terror dread,
Throughout his Empire, of his glance and scowl.
Charles was the vulture — Philip is the owl.

Mournful he looked in pourpoint black for coat,
The Golden Fleece suspended from his throat,
The frigid sentinel of destiny
He seemed, with figure motionless and eye
Resembling vent hole of a cavern dark,
With finger stretched his will to dimly mark,
Though none there be the gesture who can see
He holds command by immobility,
And vaguely writes behest to shadows — while,
Oh strange, unheard of thing, — a smile
Grinds on his lips, sardonic, bitter, stern,
Born of the vision, which he can discern.
Ever more plainly now he gloats to see
His armament in all its majesty;
In thought he views it following his designs,
As if he from the zenith ruled its lines;
And all goes well — calm rolls the ocean dark
As if th' Armada awed it, as the Ark
Of old the Deluge. He beholds his fleet
Spread out in sailing order, all complete,
The vessels guarding certain spaces fixed
Like chessmen on a chessboard deftly mixed.
The decks and masts and bridges undulate
Like one vast hurdle; waves are subjugate,
And form a hedge around this sacred force;
The currents' work it is to make their course
An aid to debarkation; rocks change mien,
And round the ships the circling waves are seen,
As if all love; the surf in pearl-drops falls,
And all the galleys have their prodigals
Of strength; see those of Escaut and Adour,
And hundred colonels that the vessels bore
With constables; and Germany has lent
Her ships redoubtable, and Naples sent
Her brigs, and Cadiz galleons — Lisbon men,
For they were lions that were needed then.
Philip, o'erleaping space, leans o'er the scene,
And hears as well as sees; with gloating mien
He hears the drums and speaking-trumpets shout,
And signal cries, and hurrying about;
He hears the boatswain's whistle, and the rush
Of agile youths and sailors in the crush
Of hammock hauling; black sepulchral show
Of hubbub on his senses now does grow.
Are they great cormorants or citadels?
The sails make dull harsh noise, as each one swells,
Like beating of great wings! and groans the sea
Beneath the mighty mass that noisily
Expands itself and swiftly rolls along.

The sombre king smiles at the mighty throng,
Gloating like hungry vampire o'er his prey.
Four hundred vessels! and he knows that they
Bear eighty thousand swords. Oh England, pale!
He holds thee fast — what now can aught avail?
The match is near the powder — 'tis his right
The thunderbolt to hold, who has the might
To loose the sheaf from out his potent hand,
Whose orders none can dare to countermand;
Is he not heir to Caesar — he to-day
Whose shadow spreads from Ganges far away
Even to Posilipo's famous hill?
Is not all ended when he says " I will? "
Is it not he who holds fast Victory still
By the hair? What can his purposes withstand —
Was it not Philip, he alone who plann'd
This terrifying fleet to pilot now
Its onward course? The waves obedient flow;
Did he his little finger but incline
All the winged dragons would obey the sign.
Is he not king — the dismal man whom they,
This monstrous whirlwind swarm, must all obey!

When Beit-Cifresil — so history tells,
Son of Abdallah-Beit, — sank the great wells
Of Cairo's mosque, he 'graved above the sod,
" The earth is mine — 'tis Heaven belongs to God. "
And, as all tyrants are the same at heart,
Though things may be confused and seem apart,
What said the Sultan then this king doth think.

Meanwhile, upon the basin's silent brink,
Her rose the young Infanta gravely holds,
And, blue-eyed angel, kisses oft its folds.
Quite suddenly a blustering breath of air
The shuddering eve casts o'er the plains so fair;
A boisterous ground-wind ruffles every lake,
And bids the rushes tremble, and doth make
The asphodels and distant myrtle trees
To shudder, reaching the calm child from these
With sudden blast, it shakes a tree that's near,
While shattering the flower she held so dear,
Leaving alone a thorn. She stooped to gaze,
And saw upon the stream, with great amaze,
The total ruin of her cherished flower.
She could not comprehend this dreadful power
That dared offend her; and she felt afraid
As looking up to Heaven all dismayed.
The lake so calm just now is full of rage,
And the black foaming waves seem war to wage
With the poor rose-leaves on the water strewed,
Drowning and wrecked by turbulence renewed.
The hundred leaves a thousand waves still meet,
And one can dream upon this watery sheet
We see the ruin of a mighty fleet.
Whereon the staid duenna gravely said
Unto the musing, frightened little maid,
Amazed and puzzled, " Madame, bear in mind
That Princes govern all things — save the wind. "