Page:Barham Beach - a poem of regeneration.djvu/41

Rh Vice, Death, Estrangement some ancestral strain Shall haply breed anew, and burn and bite, Curdling and whipping into froth the brain. Yet I, perchance, Iago-like, may be Too critical; our wretched planet shows No picture after all, so fair to see As this twined loveliness of bud and rose, And even I must grant a thrill of joy Wavers across my heart like mountain breeze Merely to contemplate the sleeping boy Eosily couched upon his mother s knees, And that young mother in her beauty s flower, An artist s idol, fancy-stellified, E en such a being as the gods should dower With all of earth s and heaven s good allied. Yet such a pair do presuppose a third, A child and mother form not a duet, But mere component trio-parts, unheard, Unknown, save when in triple sonance met, Where then was he, the master and the king, The chief musician, he should complete The harmony, and make the pinewoods ring Unto the trembling of their lutestrings sweet! Why did the boy, half rousing in his sleep, Soft iterate his father s name in vain! Why did her face so work in anguish deep That blood, not tears, had best expressed her pain? Why did he linger! Sure he must have felt Their need, and felt the luring golden day,- Alas ! their king in cringing horror dwelt, Shackled, dishonored, clad in felon s gray!