Among the Millet and Other Poems

John Stuart Mill · en
"And all that noon and weary night she lay,
      Poor child, like death upon her prison stone,
    And none that came to her but crept away,
      Sickened at heart to see her lips so moan,
    Her eyes so dim within their sockets grey,
      Her tender cheeks so thin and ghastly grown;
    But when the next morn's light began to stir,
    She sent and prayed that I might be with her.


XXV.

    "This boon he gave: perchance he deemed that I,
      The chaplain of his house, her childhood's friend,
    With patient tones and holy words, might try
      To soothe her purpose to his gainful end.
    I bowed full low before his crafty eye,
      But knew my heart had no base help to lend.
    That night with many a silent prayer I came
    To poor Leonora in her grief and shame.


XXVI.

    "But she was strange to me: I could not speak
      For glad amazement, mixed with some dark fear;
    I saw her stand no longer pale and weak,
      But a proud maiden, queenly and most clear,
    With flashing eyes and vermeil in her cheek:
      And on the little table, set anear,
    I marked two goblets of rare workmanship
    With some strange liquor crownèd to the lip.


XXVII.

    "And then she ran to me and caught my hand,
      Tightly imprisoned in her meagre twain,
    And like the ghost of sorrow she did stand,
      And eyed me softly with a liquid pain:
    'Oh father, grant, I pray thee, I command,
      One boon to me, I'll never ask again,
    One boon to me and to my love, to both;
    Dear father, grant, and bind it with an oath.'


XXVIII.

    "This granted I, and then with many a wail
      She told me all the story of your woe,
    And when she finished, lightly but most pale,
      To those two brimming goblets she did go,
    And one she took within her fingers frail,
      And looked down smiling in its crimson glow:
    'And now thine oath I'll tell; God grant to thee
    No rest in grave, if thou be false to me.


XXIX.

    "'Alas, poor me! whom cruel hearts would wed
      On the sad morrow to that wicked lord;
    But I'll not go; nay, rather I'll be dead,
      Safe from their frown and from their bitter word.
    Without my Nino life indeed were sped;
      And sith we two can never more accord
    In this drear world, so weary and perplext,
    We'll die, and win sweet pleasure in the next.


XXX.

    "'Oh father, God will never give thee rest,
      If thou be false to what thy lips have sworn,
    And false to love, and false to me distressed,
      A helpless maid, so broken and outworn.
    This cup--she put it softly to her breast--
      I pray thee carry, ere the morrow morn,
    To Nino's hand, and tell him all my pain;
    This other with mine own lips I will drain.'


XXXI.