THE CAPTIVE CHILD

Child in girlhood's early grace,

Pale white rose of royal race,

Flower of France, and England's flower,

What dost here at twilight hour

Captive bird in castle-hold,

Picture-fair and calm and cold,

Cold and still as marble stone

In gray Carisbrook alone?

— Fold thy limbs and take thy rest,

Nestling of the silent nest!

Ah fair girl! So still and meek,

One wan hand beneath her cheek,

One on the holy texts that tell

Of God's love ineffable;—

Last dear gift her father gave

When, before to-morrow's grave,

By no unmanly grief unmann'd,

To his little orphan band

In that stress of anguish sore

He bade farewell evermore.

Doom'd, unhappy King! Had he

Known the pangs in store for thee,

Known the coarse fanatic rage

That,— despite her flower-soft age,

Maidenhood's first blooming fair,—

Fever-struck in the imprison'd air

As rosebud on the dust-hill thrown

Cast a child to die alone,—

He had shed, with his last breath,

Bitterer tears than tears of death!

As in her infant hour she took

In her hand the pictured book

Where Christ beneath the scourger bow'd,

Crying‘ O poor man!’ aloud,

And in baby tender pain

Kiss'd the page, and kiss'd again,

While the happy father smiled

On his sweet warm-hearted child;

— So now to him, in Carisbrook lone,

All her tenderness has flown.

Oft with a child's faithful heart

She has seen him act his part;

Nothing in his life so well

Gracing him as when he fell;

Seen him greet his bitter doom

As the mercy-message Home;

Seen the scaffold and the shame,

The red shower that fell like flame;

Till the whole heart within her died,

Dying in fancy by his side.

— Statue-still and statue-fair

Now the low wind may lift her hair,

Motionless in lip and limb;

E'en the fearful mouse may skim

O'er the window-sill, nor stir

From the crumb at sight of her;

Through the lattice unheard float

Summer blackbird's evening note;—

E'en the sullen foe would bless

That pale utter gentleness.

— Eyes of heaven, that pass and peep,

Do not question, if she sleep!

She has no abiding here,

She is past the starry sphere;

Kneeling with the children sweet

At the palm-wreathed altar's feet;

— Innocents who died like thee,

Heaven-ward through man's cruelty,

To the love-smiles of their Lord

Borne through pain and fire and sword.