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[First published 1867.]
A THOUSAND knights have rein’d their steeds | |
| To watch this line of sand-hills run, | |
| Along the never silent Strait, | |
| To Calais glittering in the sun: | |
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| To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field | 5 |
| Across this wide aërial plain, | |
| Which glows as if the Middle Age | |
| Were gorgeous upon earth again. | |
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| Oh, that to share this famous scene | |
| I saw, upon the open sand, | 10 |
| Thy lovely presence at my side, | |
| Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand! | |
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| How exquisite thy voice would come, | |
| My darling, on this lonely air! | |
| How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze | 15 |
| Shake loose some lock of soft brown hair! | |
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| But now my glance but once hath royed | |
| O’er Calais and its famous plain; | |
| To England’s cliffs my gaze is turn’d, | |
| O’er the blue Strait mine eyes I strain. | 20 |
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| Thou comest! Yes, the vessel’s cloud | |
| Hangs dark upon the rolling sea!— | |
| Oh that yon seabird’s wings were mine | |
| To win one instant’s glimpse of thee! | |
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| I must not spring to grasp thy hand, | 25 |
| To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye; | |
| But I may stand far off, and gaze, | |
| And watch thee pass unconscious by, | |
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| And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, | |
| Mixt with the idlers on the pier.— | 30 |
| Ah, might I always rest unseen, | |
| So I might have thee always near! | |
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| To-morrow hurry through the fields | |
| Of Flanders to the storied Rhine! | |
| To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close | 35 |
| Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine. | |
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