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Poor Carlotta
THE SCION of immemorial lines, | |
| August with histories hoary, | |
| Whose grand, imperial heirship shines | |
| With the starriest names of story,— | |
| Stands doomed to die:—and the grenadiers | 5 |
| In serried and silent column, | |
| Their pitiless eyes half hazed with tears, | |
| Are waiting the signal solemn. | |
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| The brave young Emperor lifts his brow,— | |
| It never has shown so regal; | 10 |
| Yet it is not the pride of the Hapsburg now, | |
| Nor the glance of the clefted eagle. | |
| No blazing coronet binds his head, | |
| No ermined purple is round him; | |
| But his manhood’s majesty instead | 15 |
| With royaller rank has crowned him. | |
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| An instant’s space he is caught away | |
| To Schönbrunn’s peaceful bowers; | |
| There ’s a lightning-dazzle of boyhood’s day; | |
| Vienna’s glittering towers | 20 |
| Flash back with a mocking, blinding glare; | |
| To barter such princely splendor, | |
| For wrecked ambition and stark despair, | |
| Betrayal and base surrender! | |
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| Wild, infinite, taunting memories thrill | 25 |
| His soul to its molten centre; | |
| Remorses that madden him clamor still, | |
| But he will not let them enter. | |
| The grovelling traffic of time all done, | |
| He would have the temple lonely, | 30 |
| Its sanctuaries emptied one by one, | |
| That God may fill it only. | |
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| But under the Austrian skies afar, | |
| Aglow with a light elysian, | |
| The mullioned windows of Miramar | 35 |
| Loom out on his tortured vision: | |
| He looks on its gray abeles again; | |
| He is threading its pleachèd alleys; | |
| He is guiding his darling’s slackened rein, | |
| As they scour the dimpled valleys. | 40 |
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| He can gaze his last on the earth and sky,— | |
| Step forth to his doom, nor shiver,— | |
| Eternity front his steadfast eye, | |
| And never a muscle quiver: | |
| But love’s heart-rackings, despairs, and tears | 45 |
| Wrench the fixt lips asunder; | |
| “My poor Carlotta!”—Now, grenadiers, | |
| Your volley may belch its thunder! | |
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