The Earl’s Minstrel
I had a passion when I was a child
For a most pleasant idleness. In June,
When the thick masses of the leaves were stirr’d
With a just audible murmur, and the streams
Fainted in their cool places to a low
Unnotic’d tinkle, and the reapers hung
Their sickles in the trees and went to sleep,
Then might you find me in an antique chair
Cushion’d with cunning luxury, which stood
In the old study corner, by a nook
Crowded with volumes of the old romance;
And there, the long and quiet summer day,
Lay I with half clos’d eyelids, turning o’er
Leaf after leaf, until the twilight blurr’d
Their singular and time-stain’d characters.
’Twas a forgetful lore, and it is blent
With dreams that in my fitful slumber came,
And is remember’d faintly. But to-day
With the strange waywardness of human thought,
A story has come back to me which I
Had long forgotten, and I tell it now
Because it hath a savour that I find
But seldom in the temper of the world.
Angelo turn’d away. He was a poor
Unhonor’d minstrel, and he might not breathe
Love to the daughter of an Earl. She rais’d
Proudly her beautiful head, and shook away
From her clear temples the luxuriant hair,
And told him it would ever please her well
To listen to his minstrelsy, but love
Was for a loftier lip– and then the tear
Stole to her flashing eye, for as she spoke
There rose up a remembrance of his keen,
Unstooping spirit, and his noble heart
Given her like a sacrifice, and she held
Her hand for him to kiss, and said, “Farewell!
Think of me, Angelo!” and so pass’d on.
The color to his forehead mounted high,
And his thin lip curl’d haughtily, and then
As if his mood had chang’d, he bow’d his head
Low on his bosom, and remain’d awhile
Lost in his bitter thoughts– and then again
He lifted to its height his slender form,
And his moist eye grew clear, and his hand pass’d
Rapidly o’er his instrument while thus
He gave his spirit voice: -
It did not need that alter’d look,
Nor that uplifted brow -
I had not ask’d thy haughty love,
Were I as proud as now.
My love was like a beating heart -
Unbidden and unstayed;
And had I known but half its power,
It had not been betray’d.
I did not seek thy titled hand;
I thought not of thy name;
I only granted utterance
To one wild thought of flame.
I did not dream thou couldst be mine,
Or I a thought to thee -
I only knew my lip must let
Some burning thought go free.
I lov’d thee for thy high born grace,
Thy deep and lustrous eye,
For the sweet meaning of thy brow,
And for thy bearing high;
I lov’d thee for thy stainless truth,
Thy thirst for higher things;
For all that to our common lot
A better temper brings -
And are they not all thine? still thine?
Is not thy heart as true?
Holds not thy step its noble grace -
Thy cheek its dainty hue?
And have I not an ear to hear -
A cloudless eye to see -
And a thirst for beautiful human thought,
That first was stirr’d with thee?
Then why should I turn from thee now?
Why should not I love on -
Dreaming of thee by night, by day,
As I have ever done?
My service shall be still as leal,
My love as quenchless burn
It shames me of my selfish thought
That dream’d of a return!
He married her! Perhaps it spoils the tale -
But she had listen’d to his song, unseen,
And kept it in her heart, and, by and by,
When Angelo did service for his king,
And was prefer’d to honor, she betray’d
Her secret in some delicate way that I
Do not remember, and so ends the tale.
