| |
| ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, | |
| Whatever stirs this mortal frame, | |
| All are but ministers of Love, | |
| And feed his sacred flame. | |
| |
| Oft in my waking dreams do I | 5 |
| Live o’er again that happy hour, | |
| When midway on the mount I lay, | |
| Beside the ruin’d tower. | |
| |
| The moonshine stealing o’er the scene | |
| Had blended with the lights of eve; | 10 |
| And she was there, my hope, my joy, | |
| My own dear Genevieve! | |
| |
| She lean’d against the arméd man, | |
| The statue of the arméd knight; | |
| She stood and listen’d to my lay, | 15 |
| Amid the lingering light. | |
| |
| Few sorrows hath she of her own, | |
| My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! | |
| She loves me best, whene’er I sing | |
| The songs that make her grieve. | 20 |
| |
| I play’d a soft and doleful air, | |
| I sang an old and moving story— | |
| An old rude song, that suited well | |
| That ruin wild and hoary. | |
| |
| She listen’d with a flitting blush, | 25 |
| With downcast eyes and modest grace; | |
| For well she knew, I could not choose | |
| But gaze upon her face. | |
| |
| I told her of the Knight that wore | |
| Upon his shield a burning brand; | 30 |
| And that for ten long years he woo’d | |
| The Lady of the Land. | |
| |
| I told her how he pined: and ah! | |
| The deep, the low, the pleading tone | |
| With which I sang another’s love | 35 |
| Interpreted my own. | |
| |
| She listen’d with a flitting blush, | |
| With downcast eyes and modest grace; | |
| And she forgave me, that I gazed | |
| Too fondly on her face! | 40 |
| |
| But when I told the cruel scorn | |
| That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, | |
| And that he cross’d the mountain-woods, | |
| Nor rested day nor night; | |
| |
| That sometimes from the savage den, | 45 |
| And sometimes from the darksome shade | |
| And sometimes starting up at once | |
| In green and sunny glade | |
| |
| There came and look’d him in the face | |
| An angel beautiful and bright; | 50 |
| And that he knew it was a Fiend, | |
| This miserable Knight! | |
| |
| And that unknowing what he did, | |
| He leap’d amid a murderous band, | |
| And saved from outrage worse than death | 55 |
| The Lady of the Land; | |
| |
| And how she wept, and clasp’d his knees; | |
| And how she tended him in vain; | |
| And ever strove to expiate | |
| The scorn that crazed his brain; | 60 |
| |
| And that she nursed him in a cave, | |
| And how his madness went away, | |
| When on the yellow forest-leaves | |
| A dying man he lay; | |
| |
| —His dying words—but when I reach’d | 65 |
| That tenderest strain of all the ditty, | |
| My faltering voice and pausing harp | |
| Disturb’d her soul with pity! | |
| |
| All impulses of soul and sense | |
| Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve; | 70 |
| The music and the doleful tale, | |
| The rich and balmy eve; | |
| |
| And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, | |
| An undistinguishable throng, | |
| And gentle wishes long subdued, | 75 |
| Subdued and cherish’d long! | |
| |
| She wept with pity and delight, | |
| She blush’d with love, and virgin shame; | |
| And like the murmur of a dream, | |
| I heard her breathe my name. | 80 |
| |
| Her bosom heaved—she stepp’d aside, | |
| As conscious of my look she stept— | |
| Then suddenly, with timorous eye | |
| She fled to me and wept. | |
| |
| She half enclosed me with her arms, | 85 |
| She press’d me with a meek embrace; | |
| And bending back her head, look’d up, | |
| And gazed upon my face. | |
| |
| ’Twas partly love, and partly fear, | |
| And partly ’twas a bashful art | 90 |
| That I might rather feel, than see, | |
| The swelling of her heart. | |
| |
| I calm’d her fears, and she was calm, | |
| And told her love with virgin pride; | |
| And so I won my Genevieve, | 95 |
| My bright and beauteous Bride. | |
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