Oh, that he who saw you thus,-- Seized and sent you down to us, On his canvas limned with skill Tender curves of throat and cheek,-- Might have added one thing still, Made the grave lips ope and speak! For I fain had heard it told What the world was like around you, That old world of cloth-of-gold Where the cunning painter found you. Tell me how your time was spent: Had you any playmates then, Or were all who came and went Ceremonious dames and men? Had you some tall hound to pet-- Some caged bird, with eyes of jet? As you moved, a soul apart, Through that world of plume and glove, Could your precious little heart Fix on anything to love? --Sober, silent you remain, Tiny, stately maid of Spain! LEPAGE’S JOAN OF ARC Once, it may be, the soft gray skies were dear, The clouds above in crowds, like sheep below, The bending of each kindly wrinkled tree; Or blossoms at the birth-time of the year, Or lambs unweaned, or water in still flow, In whose brown glass a girl her face might see. Such days are gone, and strange things come instead; For she has looked on other faces white, Pale bloom of fear, before war’s whirlwind blown; Has stooped, ah Heaven! in some low sheltering shed To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow’s bite, While the cold death that hovered seemed her own. And in her hurt heart, o’er some grilled head, The mother that shall never be has yearned; And love’s fine voice, she else shall never hear, Came to her as the call of saints long dead; And straightway all the passion in her burned, One altar-flame that hourly waxes clear. Hence goes she ever in a glimmering dream, And very oft will sudden stand at gaze, With blue, dim eyes that still not seem to see: For now the well-known ways with visions teem; Unfelt is toil, and summer one green daze, Till that the king be crowned, and France be free! A NOCTURNE OF RUBINSTEIN I What now remains, what now remains but night? Night hopeless, since the moon is in her grave! Late came a glorious light In one wide flood on spire and field and wave. It found a flowing way To secret places where the dead leaves lay; It won the half-hid stream To shy remembrance of her morning gleam; Then on the sky’s sharp shore Rolled back, a fading tide, and was no more. No more on spire and ivied window bright! No more on field and wave! _What now remains, what now remains but night? Night hopeless, since the moon is in her grave!_ II