Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/96

92 Not less for this it echoes all the tones of higher skill,

And trembles most with rapture when another's touch can thrill.

For this I love thee, Edith May, thy spirit's voice I hear,

Like the strain of some grand melody resounding in my ear;

And visions rise before my eyes of hosts in armor bound,

And like a voice within a dream, I hear the clarion's sound;

And gorgeous banners broidered o'er with many a strange design,

With burnished lance and waving plume, deck out the shadowy line—

Anon the sunset's crimson cloud is fading o'er the hill,

And the chieftain's farewell bugle-note is sounding sad and shrill;

And standing on the castle wall I see a lady fair,

With pallid face, and waving scarf, and unbound raven hair;

While winding up the distant hill the long defile hath passed,

And the lady on the chief she loved hath fondly looked her last.

All old-time scenes of war and pomp, of love and minstrelsy,

Of kingly sports, and courtly dames, and knightly rivalry;

All by-gone themes once wont to stir the blood of princely men,

Swell my dreaming heart with lofty pride, and the dead past lives again;

And I love thy harp's grand tone that wakes my spirit's high romance,

And praise thee that thou hast for thine this rich inheritance.

I have a sister, Edith May, a sister pure and young,

With a holy heart, and gifted mind, and sweetly eloquent tongue;

And to her I bear a feeling which can have no earthly name,

But our souls are linked, our hearts are joined, and our loves are aye the same;

And a glorious world of dreams have we, a rare poetic world,

Where fancy's restless golden wings are glittering unfurled—

Where love sits like a household form, a dear, familiar thing,

And countless fairy visions float forever on the wing;

And here amid the whispered strains of spirit-minstrelsy,

I listen with my dreaming soul for one wild note from thee.

I have not seen thee, Edith May—they call thy youthful face

The lovely index of the soul, its poetry and grace;