Niece of the Marquis--John the Striker named-- Mahaud to-day the marquisate has claimed. A noble dame--the crown is hers by right: As woman she has graces that delight. A queen devoid of beauty is not queen, She needs the royalty of beauty's mien; God in His harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists, and reed that bends, And good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners schools, And laws and mind;--succeeding master proud, With gentle voice and smile she leads the crowd, The sombre human troop. But sweet Mahaud On evil days had fallen; gentle, good, Alas! she held the sceptre like a flower; Timid yet gay, imprudent for the hour, And careless too. With Europe all in throes, Though twenty years she now already knows, She has refused to marry, although oft Entreated. It is time an arm less soft Than hers--a manly arm--supported her; Like to the rainbow she, one might aver, Shining on high between the cloud and rain, Or like the ewe that gambols on the plain Between the bear and tiger; innocent, She has two neighbors of most foul intent: For foes the Beauty has, in life's pure spring, The German Emp'ror and the Polish King. VI. THE TWO NEIGHBORS. The difference this betwixt the evil pair, Faithless to God--for laws without a care-- One was the claw, the other one the will Controlling. Yet to mass they both went still, And on the rosary told their beads each day. But none the less the world believed that they Unto the powers of hell their souls had sold. Even in whispers men each other told The details of the pact which they had signed With that dark power, the foe of human kind; In whispers, for the crowd had mortal dread Of them so high, and woes that they had spread. One might be vengeance and the other hate, Yet lived they side by side, in powerful state And close alliance. All the people near From red horizon dwelt in abject fear, Mastered by them; their figures darkly grand Had ruddy reflex from the wasted land, And fires, and towns they sacked. Besides the one, Like David, poet was, the other shone As fine musician--rumor spread their fame, Declaring them divine, until each name In Italy's fine sonnets met with praise. The ancient hierarch in those old days Had custom strange, a now forgotten thing, It was a European plan that King Of France was marquis, and th' imperial head Of Germany was duke; there was no need To class the other kings, but barons they, Obedient vassals unto Rome, their stay. The King of Poland was but simple knight, Yet now, for once, had strange unwonted right, And, as exception to the common state, This one Sarmatian King was held as great