Songs In Many Keys | Page 3

silent signal stays
The wearied cavalcade;
The
coachman reins his smoking bays
Beneath the elm-tree's shade.
A gathering on the village green!
The cocked-hats crowd to see,
On
legs in ancient velveteen,
With buckles at the knee.
A clustering round the tavern-door
Of square-toed village boys,

Still wearing, as their grandsires wore,
The old-world corduroys!
A scampering at the "Fountain" inn,---
A rush of great and small,--

With hurrying servants' mingled din
And screaming matron's call
Poor Agnes! with her work half done
They caught her unaware;
As,
humbly, like a praying nun,
She knelt upon the stair;
Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien
She knelt, but not to pray,--

Her little hands must keep them clean,
And wash their stains away.
A foot, an ankle, bare and white,
Her girlish shapes betrayed,--
"Ha!
Nymphs and Graces!" spoke the Knight;
"Look up, my beauteous
Maid!"
She turned,--a reddening rose in bud,
Its calyx half withdrawn,--

Her cheek on fire with damasked blood
Of girlhood's glowing dawn!
He searched her features through and through,
As royal lovers look

On lowly maidens, when they woo
Without the ring and book.
"Come hither, Fair one! Here, my Sweet!
Nay, prithee, look not down!

Take this to shoe those little feet,"--
He tossed a silver crown.
A sudden paleness struck her brow,--
A swifter blush succeeds;
It
burns her cheek; it kindles now
Beneath her golden beads.

She flitted, but the glittering eye
Still sought the lovely face.
Who
was she? What, and whence? and why
Doomed to such menial place?
A skipper's daughter,--so they said,--
Left orphan by the gale
That
cost the fleet of Marblehead
And Gloucester thirty sail.
Ah! many a lonely home is found
Along the Essex shore,
That
cheered its goodman outward bound,
And sees his face no more!
"Not so," the matron whispered,--"sure
No orphan girl is she,--
The
Surriage folk are deadly poor
Since Edward left the sea,
"And Mary, with her growing brood,
Has work enough to do
To
find the children clothes and food
With Thomas, John, and Hugh.
"This girl of Mary's, growing tall,--
(Just turned her sixteenth year,)--

To earn her bread and help them all,
Would work as housemaid
here."
So Agnes, with her golden beads,
And naught beside as dower,

Grew at the wayside with the weeds,
Herself a garden-flower.
'T was strange, 't was sad,--so fresh, so fair!
Thus Pity's voice began.

Such grace! an angel's shape and air!
The half-heard whisper ran.
For eyes could see in George's time,
As now in later days,
And lips
could shape, in prose and rhyme,
The honeyed breath of praise.
No time to woo! The train must go
Long ere the sun is down,
To
reach, before the night-winds blow,
The many-steepled town.
'T is midnight,--street and square are still;
Dark roll the whispering
waves
That lap the piers beneath the hill
Ridged thick with ancient
graves.
Ah, gentle sleep! thy hand will smooth
The weary couch of pain,


When all thy poppies fail to soothe
The lover's throbbing brain!
'T is morn,--the orange-mantled sun
Breaks through the fading gray,

And long and loud the Castle gun
Peals o'er the glistening bay.
"Thank God 't is day!" With eager eye
He hails the morning shine:--

"If art can win, or gold can buy,
The maiden shall be mine!"
PART THIRD
THE CONQUEST
"Who saw this hussy when she came?
What is the wench, and who?"

They whisper. "Agnes--is her name?
Pray what has she to do?"
The housemaids parley at the gate,
The scullions on the stair,
And
in the footmen's grave debate
The butler deigns to share.
Black Dinah, stolen when a child,
And sold on Boston pier,
Grown
up in service, petted, spoiled,
Speaks in the coachman's ear:
"What, all this household at his will?
And all are yet too few?
More
servants, and more servants still,--
This pert young madam too!"
"Servant! fine servant!" laughed aloud
The man of coach and steeds;

"She looks too fair, she steps too proud,
This girl with golden
beads!
"I tell you, you may fret and frown,
And call her what you choose,

You 'll find my Lady in her gown,
Your Mistress in her shoes!"
Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame,
God grant you never know

The little whisper, loud with shame,
That makes the world your foe!
Why tell the lordly flatterer's art,
That won the maiden's ear,--
The
fluttering of the frightened heart,
The blush, the smile, the tear?

Alas! it were the saddening tale
That every language knows,--
The
wooing wind, the yielding sail,
The sunbeam and the rose.
And now the gown of sober stuff
Has changed to fair brocade,
With
broidered hem, and hanging cuff,
And flower of silken braid;
And clasped around her blanching wrist
A jewelled bracelet shines,

Her flowing tresses' massive twist
A glittering net confines;
And mingling with their truant wave
A fretted chain is hung;
But ah!
the gift her mother gave,--
Its beads are all unstrung!
Her place is at the master's board,
Where none disputes her claim;

She walks beside the mansion's lord,
His bride in all but name.
The busy tongues have ceased to talk,
Or speak in softened tone,
So
gracious in her daily walk
The angel light has shown.
No want that kindness may relieve
Assails her heart in vain,
The
lifting of a ragged sleeve
Will check her palfrey's rein.
A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace
In every movement shown,
Reveal
her moulded for the place
She may not call