Classic Poem

" A Lady asks the Minstrel's rhyme. "
A Lady asks? There was a time
When, musical as play-bell's chime
To wearied boy,
That sound would summon dreams sublime
Of pride and joy.

But now the spell hath lost its sway,
Life's first-born fancies first decay,
Gone are the plumes and pennons gay
Of young Romance;
There linger but her ruins gray,
And broken lance.

'Tis a new world — no more to maid,
Warrior, or bard, is homage paid;
The bay-tree's, laurel's, myrtle's shade,
Men's thoughts resign;
Heaven placed us here to vote and trade,
Twin tasks divine!

" 'Tis youth, 'tis beauty asks; the green
And growing leaves of seventeen
Are round her; and, half hid, half seen,
A violet flower,
Nursed by the virtues she hath been
From childhood's hour. "

Blind passion's picture — yet for this
We woo the life-long bridal kiss,
And blend our every hope of bliss
With hers we love;
Unmindful of the serpent's hiss
In Eden's grove.

Beauty — the fading rainbow's pride,
Youth — 'twas the charm of her who died
At dawn, and by her coffin's side
A grandsire stands,
Age-strengthened, like the oak storm-tried
Of mountain lands.

Youth's coffin — hush the tale it tells,
Be silent, memory's funeral bells!
Lone in one heart, her home, it dwells
Untold till death,
And where the grave-mound greenly swells
O'er buried faith.

" But what if hers are rank and power,
Armies her train, a throne her bower,
A kingdom's gold her marriage dower,
Broad seas and lands?
What if from bannered hall and tower
A queen commands? "

A queen? Earth's regal moons have set.
Where perished Marie Antoinette?
Where's Bordeaux's mother? Where the jet-
Black Haytian dame?
And Lusitania's coronet?
And Angoulême?

Empires to-day are upside down,
The castle kneels before the town,
The monarch fears a printer's frown,
A brickbat's range;
Give me, in preference to a crown,
Five shillings change.

" But her who asks, though first among
The good, the beautiful, the young,
The birthright of a spell more strong
Than these hath brought her;
She is your kinswoman in song,
A Poet's daughter. "

A Poet's daughter? Could I claim
The consanguinity of fame,
Veins of my intellectual frame!
Your blood would glow
Proudly to sing that gentlest name
Of aught below.

A Poet's daughter — dearer word
Lip hath not spoke nor listener heard,
Fit theme for song of bee and bird
From morn till even,
And wind-harp by the breathing stirred
Of star-lit heaven.

My spirit's wings are weak, the fire
Poetic comes but to expire,
Her name needs not my humble lyre
To bid it live;
She hath already from her sire
All bard can give.