Still at the water's side she holds her place, Her bodice bright is set with Genoa lace; O'er her rich robe, through every satin fold, Wanders an arabesque in threads of gold. From its green urn the rose unfolding grand, Weighs down the exquisite smallness of her hand. And when the child bends to the red leafs tip, Her laughing nostril, and her carmine lip, The royal flower purpureal, kissing there, Hides more than half that young face bright and fair, So that the eye deceived can scarcely speak Where shows the rose, or where the rose-red cheek. Her eyes look bluer from their dark brown frame: Sweet eyes, sweet form, and Mary's sweeter name. All joy, enchantment, perfume, waits she there, Heaven in her glance, her very name a prayer. Yet 'neath the sky, and before life and fate, Poor child, she feels herself so vaguely great. With stately grace she gives her presence high To dawn, to spring, to shadows flitting by, To the dark sunset glories of the heaven, And all the wild magnificence of even; On nature waits, eternal and serene, With all the graveness of a little queen. She never sees a man but on his knee, She Duchess of Brabant one day will be, Or rule Sardinia, or the Flemish crowd She is the Infanta, five years old, and proud. Thus is it with kings' children, for they wear A shadowy circlet on their forehead fair; Their tottering steps are towards a kingly chair. Calmly she waits, and breathes her gathered flower Till one shall cull for her imperial power. Already her eye saith, "It is my right;" Even love flows from her, mingled with affright. If some one seeing her so fragile stand, Were it to save her, should put forth his hand, Ere he had made a step, or breathed a vow, The scaffold's shadow were upon his brow. While the child laughs, beyond the bastion thick Of that vast palace, Roman Catholic, Whose every turret like a mitre shows, Behind the lattice something dreadful goes. Men shake to see a shadow from beneath Passing from pane to pane, like vapory wreath, Pale, black, and still it glides from room to room; In the same spot, like ghost upon a tomb; Or glues its dark brown to the casement wan, Dim shade that lengthens as the night draws on. Its step funereal lingers like the swing Of passing bell--'tis death, or else the king. 'Tis he, the man by whom men live and die; But could one look beyond that phantom eye, As by the wall he leans a little space, And see what shadows fill his soul's dark place, Not the fair child, the waters clear, the flowers Golden with sunset--not the birds, the bowers-- No; 'neath that eye, those fatal brows that keep The fathomless brain, like ocean, dark and deep,