And drew her hand, half-shrinking, in his own, And said, "Nay, pause and task the showman's skill, What moves thee most?--come, question me at will." Listening she linger'd, and she knew not why Time's wing so swiftly never seem'd to fly; Never before unto her gaze reveal'd The Eastern fire, the Eastern calm conceal'd: Child of the sun, and native of the waste, Cramp'd in the formal chains it had embraced, His heart leapt back to its old haunts afar, As leaps the lion from the captive bar; And, as each token flash'd upon the mind, Back the bold deeds that life had left behind, The dark eye blazed, the rich words roll'd along, Vivid as light, and eloquent as song; At length, with sudden pause, he check'd the stream, And his soul darken'd from the gorgeous dream. "So," with sad voice he said, "my youth went by, Fresh was the wave, if fitful was the sky; What is my manhood?--curl'd and congeal'd, A stagnant water in a barren field: Gall'd with strange customs,--in the crowd alone; And courting bloodless hearts that freeze my own. In the far lands, where first I breathed the air,-- Smile if thou wilt,--this rugged form was fair, For the swift foot, strong arm, bold heart give grace To man, when danger girds man's dwelling-place,-- Thou seest the daughter of my mother, now, Shrinks from the outcast branded on my brow; My boyhood tamed the panther in his den, The wild beast feels man's kindness more than men. Like with its like, they say, will intertwine,-- I have not tamed one human heart to mine!"-- He paused abruptly. Thrice his listener sought To shape consoling speech from soothing thought, But thrice she fail'd, and thrice the colour came And went, as tenderness was check'd by shame! At length her dove-like eyes to his she raised, And all the comfort words forbade, she gazed; Moved by her childlike pity, but too dark In hopeless thought than pity more to mark; "Infant," he murmur'd, "not for others flow The tears the wise, how hard soe'er, must know; As yet, the Eden of a guileless breast, Opes a frank home to every angel guest; Soft Eve, look round!--The world in which thou art Distrusts the angel, nor unlocks the heart-- Thy time will come!"-- He spoke, and from her side Was gone,--the heart his wisdom wrong'd replied! [A] Where now stands St. James's palace stood the hospital dedicated to St. James, for the reception of fourteen leprous maidens. [B] Charles the First attended divine service in the Royal Chapel immediately before he walked through the park to his scaffold at Whitehall. In the palace of St. James's, Monk and Sir John Granville schemed for the restoration of Charles II. [C] The Sanscrit term, denoting the mixture or confusion of classes; applied to that large portion of the Indian population excluded from the four pure castes.