The Lady Constance loved Sir Lionel
With all the warmth and fervour of first love;
And the young Baron prized her favour more
Than the hot life-blood pulsing in his heart.
She was the only daughter of an Earl;
And he the orphan of her father's friend —
Brought by her father, at his orphanage,
To dwell with him within the vast old Hall
And be a playmate to his little girl.
And they had grown together; like two flowers
That, hidden in a leafy solitude,
Together drink the sunshine and the dews,
And watch each other's beauty glow and grow
Till Spring's fresh days give place to Summer's prime.
And ever as their golden youth flew by
The lady loved her lover more and more:
Her every thought, unknown unto herself,
Borrowed its hues from him, and all her life
Became a yearning to possess his heart
And flood his way with beauty and with joy!
But Lionel mourned his own unworthiness,
And mused, " If I could only do some deed
Of lofty import or triumphant good,
To prove I prize her love beyond all else
Within this breathing Universe of God's,
Then would I glory to heap on her head
The grateful tribute of the world's applause,
And throne her on the topmost peak of Fame.
Resolves will wither 'mong these tranquil ways;
And in this lassitude my nerves will rust.
I must go forth and grapple with the world.
But evermore upon his musings rose
The vision of a face so pale and meek,
And beautiful in its ethereal peace,
Softening his heart and making him like one
Who, journeying through a strange and unknown land,
Lights on two paths and knows not which to take.

So the days crowded past like happy dreams —
When suddenly a noise of war arose,
And England sent her armies o'er the sea
To fight her battles and uphold her rights.
Then Lionel felt an ardour and a zeal,
Drawn from a line of warlike ancestry,
Quicken and spring to life within his soul,
To go forth with the legions of his land
And meet her foes in the wild crash of war.

Sir Lionel nursed this yearning in his heart,
Till, on a summer evening, when the twain
Walked down the mile-long avenue of elms
Before the Hall, and came upon the sea
Basking in moon-lit peace. Then Lionel said,
" O Constance, I have something on my mind
Which I am sure will cause you grief and pain,
Yet must I speak and tell you what it is."
She lifted unto him a startled glance,
And gazed a moment in his troubled eyes:
Then, like a bird that seeks its sheltering nest,
Crept to his bosom and this answer made:
" Say on, my Lionel, and be not afraid
To tell me all the trouble in your heart;
Thy Constance fears not any threatened ill
So she can lay her head on this dear breast
And feel that thou art near her evermore.
Then he: " Ah! therein lies the bitterness
Which makes the strife 'twixt love and duty sore.
Constance, my love has been a happy one,
And happy might I still be, could I stay
To roam with you about our childhood's haunts —
The woods, the cliffs, the streamlets, and the hills —
To ride, walk, read with you, and with you tend
The sweet familiar flowers we love so well.
But now I feel I am a boy no more,
And other sterner things put forth their claims
Upon my manhood. I am not so young
That I should stand with women and with babes
And watch the busy workers pressing on
To win the fame that waits on noble deeds,
And never wish to join them in the race,
And struggle forward till I reach the goal!
Many as young as I, with tongue, pen, sword,
Toil in their country's cause, and help along
The freedom and the welfare of the world.
No charms for me have hustings, senates, courts:
My father was a soldier; and I feel
The spirit of my father moves me on
To join the glorious chivalry of war,
And wield a true sword in a holy cause.
I therefore purpose shortly to set forth
Across the seas to fight my country's foes,
And do what one man can to crush their power."

Constance stood mute and listened to the end;
But when she heard him speaking calmly thus,
And knew that they must part, and that perchance
She ne'er might see his face again, she felt
Like the poor traveller in the sandy waste
Who, with tired footsteps and with parched tongue,
Draws near the spot toward which he long hath toiled
And sees the mirage melting into nought.
But Lionel spake of hope and comfort to her,
And of a future crowned with happiness
When he should take her to his heart, and they
Should feel the pure high bliss of hopes fulfilled
And duties nobly done. Then courage came;
And all the clamorous voices of her heart
Grew quiet as a linnet's callow brood
Fed by the parent bird. She stood erect,
And all the proud blood of her haughty race
Flushed her fair cheeks and mounted to her brow
Like sunrise creeping o'er the pallid dawn.

" Forgive the selfish petulance," she said,
" Which for a while spread havoc 'mong my thoughts
And made my love so little worthy thine.
'Tis past: and now I do not bid thee stay
To waste the golden promise of thy youth
Longer among these scenes of tranquil rest.
Go forth and smite the haters of thy land.
Well know I that 'tis nobler far to heed
The calls of duty than the voice of love.
My love go with thee o'er the stormy seas,
And be thy buckler on the fields of war.
Though but a simple peaceful English maid,
Some touch of Spartan valour in my veins
Gives me the power to say unto thee — " Go. "
God shield thee with His arm from ills and death,
And send thee safely home to me again:
But even should my darkest fears prove true,
And thy dear form should fail from off the earth,
Still proudly would I walk the waste of life
In the dimmed lustre of thy love removed,
Knowing that neither death nor absence can
Destroy that love within us, or prevent
Its full fruition in a purer world."

She ceased; and both stood silent, gazing o'er
The moon-lit calm of ocean's waveless plain,
Which, in its constant ripple on the shore.
Seemed ever framing low-voiced calls for each
To leave the peaceful dreamland of their youth
And learn to toil and suffer in the world.

Then homeward, silent still, but with full hearts
That spoke a low love-language each to each,
They passed beneath the whispering elms that threw
A shadowy tapestry about their path.

So ere the languid moon had thrice turned round
Full-faced to gaze upon the dreaming world,
Lionel departed for the seat of war.
Constance stood on the shore, full wistfully.
Watching the white-fledged messenger of fate,
Freighted with all her hopes, sail far away,
Till, on the horizon, like a sea-bird's wing
It gleamed, and dipped into the veiling gray.
Then as she turned she heard within her heart
A whisper like the echo of a bell
That tolls the passing of a soul from earth!
But bravely did she struggle with her grief:
And oftentimes she heard, or deemed she heard,
Low voices murmuring softly in her ear,
" Labour and strive to merit all his love!"
Thoughts of the toilsome life Lionel had chosen —
Its dangers and discomforts — made her own
Seem altogether purposeless and vain:
Whilst out of sorrow for his absence sprang
The wish to minister to others' woes.
No longer did she pass the listless hours
In dreamful lassitude or languid ease,
But all the tenor of her days was changed:
She clothed the wretched, gave the hungry food.
Relieved the suffering, comforted the lorn,
And entered, like a sunbeam, lowly doors,
Gladdening all hearts, and bearing with her thence
A blessing richer than the gifts she brought.

Meanwhile the war was raging far away,
And Lionel, with all ardour, plunged among
The fiery whirl and rush of combatants,
Fleshing right manfully his virgin sword.
Men marvelled at the might of his young arm,
And hailed him as a leader yet to be.
Promotion waited him on every field,
And honours rained upon him thick and fast;
Till o'er the length and breadth of his own land
His name was bruited as the type and stamp
Of all things noble, chivalrous, and brave.
Constance heard proudly of his growing fame,
And in sweet day-dreams welcomed back again
Her hero-lover to the faithful heart
That yearned to be the pillow of his rest!

So two years passed; and Lionel had become
A bronzed and bearded chief: his face was seamed
With many a scar; and furrowed was his brow
With lines which anxious thought had printed there.
Still from beneath stern brow and burnished helm
Looked as of old the frank and fearless eyes, —
That even a child's small hand had trustfully
Sought the hard palm so used to scatter death!

It chanced one night a fortress of the foe
Had to be stormed; and Lionel was chosen
To lead a column up to the assault.
All silently the men moved through the gloom,
Approached the frowning walls, and planting there
The scaling-ladders, with a sudden shout
Dashed o'er the summit like a whelming wave.
But as a wave that climbs a craggy shelf
Is broken and driven back, and leaves behind
Its scattered crust of foam upon the top —
So, soon o'er-mastered by the enemy,
The British troops were beaten from the hold,
Leaving the beetling ramparts strewn with dead.
Again they formed and rallied, with such force
As made the stubborn foe yield step by step;
And Lionel, hovering about the van,
Cheered on his men with words of high emprise
And deeds of wondrous prowess, till at length
The enemy was hurled across the heights,
And o'er the turrets England's ensign flapped
With ghostly flutter through the murky night.
Then in that rapturous moment of success,
While yet the youthful leader held on high
His reeking blade, and shouted — " Victory,"
A bullet hissing through the folded smoke
Shattered his sword arm, and he reeled and fell.

His comrades bore him sadly from the place:
And, faint with suffering and loss of blood,
For weary days he lay like one o'er whom
Life and Death struggle for the masterdom.
Still he revived; but with a shattered frame,
Wasted and weakened by his wound, and worn
By long exposure to the heat and cold,
And toiling in the trenches night and day;
So, that ere duty he could well resume,
A fever that was raging in the camp
Seized on him and prostrated him anew.
Then often in his blank deliriousness
He raved of olden things — his boyhood's days —
The dog he hunted with — the horse he rode —
The grim Hall hid among the shadowy elms —
The brook that flashed its dimples in the sun —
The cliffs that looked bare-breasted o'er the main —
The restless heaving sea, that evermore
Whispered its drowsy secrets to the strand:
And with all these was mingled that one name
Whose gentle influence lulled the stormy soul
And beautified delirium's hideous dreams.
Oft, too, his spirit moved 'mid war's alarms;
He yelled aloud his furious battle-cries,
Shrieked forth defiance, and his rolling eyes
Were full of the wild frenzy of the fight.

Three weeks the fever lasted: and at length —
When reason dawning in the wildered brain
Left the racked body like a stranded wreck
Cast on a dreary barren shore, and lost
To use and strength and purpose in the world —
Lionel prayed, " Let me see, before I die,
Constance and England, and I die in peace."
Then they who watched him said among themselves,
" Right nobly has he lived and fought and bled;
Why should we cross his lightest wish in death?"
And so they bore him to a home-bound ship,
Bade him farewell, and as he sailed away,
They shook their heads and muttered, " All too late!
He ne'er will look on England's shores again!"

But will and yearning gave his body strength,
And confidence inspired the sick man's hope.
Oft in the dreamy noontide heat he lay
Upon his pallet on the vessel's poop,
And watched as in a waking dream the curved
And changeful pathway on the pathless deep.
But thought and fancy wandered otherwhere —
To England's shores, and to another home
He knew he was approaching day by day.

And Constance daily watched for his return:
But with how changed a feeling from the joy
With which, in bygone days, she had foretold
Her warrior-love's triumphant welcome home.
Still all the memory of his nobleness,
The glory and the fame that he had won,
His love of country, and his scorn of death,
Came o'er her sad heart like a morning song,
And almost changed her sorrow into joy.
" And why," she thought, " should we not welcome him
With honour and rejoicing, as a chief
Whose faith and valour have not been in vain?"
So when at last he reached his native shore,
The Hall was dressed as for a festival;
Porches and pillars were festooned with flowers:
Triumphant arches rose along the way
With " Welcome," and with " Honour to the brave;
And through the surging, cheering crowds they brought
The dying soldier like a victor home.
Then, on the morrow, Constance decked herself
In pearls and glistening raiment like a bride,
And seeking Lionel's chamber, with a priest,
They two were bound, at her most earnest wish,
In wedlock's holy and most sacred bonds.
The ceremony over, she arose,
And laid aside her gems and glittering robes,
And then, by virtue of her wifehood, moved
About his couch in gentle offices
Of tender ministration and fond care.
But ere a week had passed, one eventide —
When the low sun looked through the leafy elms
And filled the chamber with a mystic glow —
The faint head clasped within the faithful arms
Sank feebly on the pillow, while a smile
Broke o'er the features, and the tired soul
Passed to where all the weary shall have rest.

And so the virgin-wife put on the weeds
Of widowhood, and for three lonely years —
In sorrow for her love's untimely fate,
In pride to bear his dear and honoured name,
In almsgiving, and in acts of charity —
She lived, and then Death sought her like a friend
She wished not for, but welcomed when he came.