Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/273

 WILLIAM GORDON McCABE 255

DREAMING IN THE TRENCHES

I picture her there in the quaint old room, Where the fading firelight starts and falls, Alone in the twilight s tender gloom With the shadows that dance on the dim-lit walls. Alone, while those faces look silently down From their antique frames in a grim repose Slight scholarly Ralph in his Oxford gown, And stanch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose. There are gallants gay in crimson and gold, There are smiling beauties with powdered hair, But she sits there, fairer a thousandfold, Leaning dreamily back in her low armchair. And the roseate shadows of fading light Softly clear steal over the sweet young face, Where a woman s tenderness blends to-night With the guileless pride of a knightly race. Her small hands lie clasped in a listless way On the old Romance which she holds on her knee Of Tristram, the bravest of knights in the fray, And Iseult, who waits by the sounding sea. And her proud, dark eyes wear a softened look As she watches the dying embers fall: Perhaps she dreams of the knight in the book, Perhaps of the pictures that smile on the wall.