When dead in her true love’s arms she fell,
For Love was still the lord of all!
XII
He pierc’d her brother to the heart,
Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall:
So perish all would true love part
That Love may still be lord of all!
And then he took the cross divine
(Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,)
And died for her sake in Palestine
So Love was still the lord of all!
Now all ye lovers that faithful prove,
(The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,)
Pray for their souls who died for love,
For Love shall still be lord of all!
XIII
As ended Albert’s simple lay,
Arose a bard of loftier port;
For sonnet, rhyme, and roundelay,
Renown’d in haughty Henry’s court:
There rung thy harp, unrivall’d long,
Fitztraver of the silver song!
The gentle Surrey lov’ed his lyre,
Who has not heard of Surrey’s fame?
His was the hero’s soul of fire,
And his the bard’s immortal name,
And his was love, exalted high
By all the glow of chivalry.
XIV
They sought, together, climes afar,
And oft, within some olive grove,
When even came with twinkling star,
They sung of Surrey’s absent love
His step the Italian peasant stay’d,
And deem’d that spirits from on high,
Round where some hermit saint was laid,
Were breathing heavenly melody;
So sweet did harp and voice combine
To praise the name of Geraldine.
XV
Fitztraver! O what tongue may say
The pangs thy faithful bosom knew,
When Surrey, of the deathless lay
Ungrateful Tudor’s sentence slew?
Regardless of the tyrant’s frown,
His harp call’d wrath and vengeance down.
He left, for Naworth’s iron towers,
Windsor’s green glades, and courtly bowers
And faithful to his patron’s name,
With Howard still Fitztraver came
Lord William’s foremost favorite he,
And chief of all his minstrelsy.
XVI
Fitztraver
‘Twas All-soul’s eve, and Surrey’s heart beat high;
He heard the midnight bell with anxious start,
Which told the mystic hour, approaching nigh,
When wise Cornelius promis’d, by his art,
To show to him the ladye of his heart
Albeit betwixt them roar’d the ocean grim
Yet so the sage had hight to play his part
That he should see her form in life and limb
And mark, if still she lov’d,
And still she thought of him.
XVII
Dark was the vaulted room of gramarye,
To which the wizard led the gallant Knight,
Save that before a mirror, huge and high,
A hallow’d taper shed a glimmering light
On mystic implements of magic might;
On cross, and character, and talisman,
And almagest, and altar, nothing bright:
For fitful was the lustre, pale and wan
As watchlight by the bed
Of some departing man.
XVIII
But soon, within that mirror huge and high,
Was seen a self-emitted light to gleam;
And forms upon its breast the Earl ‘gan spy
Cloudy and indistinct, as feverish dream;
Till, slow arranging, and defin’d, they seem
To form a lordly and a lofty room,
Part lighted by a lamp with silver beam,
Plac’d by a couch of Agra’s silken loom,
And part by moonshine pale,
And part was hid in gloom.
XIX
Fair all the pageant: but how passing fair
The slender form which lay on couch of Ind!
O’er her white bosom stray’d her hazel hair;
Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pin’d;
All in her night-robe loose she lay reclin’d,
And pensive read from tablet eburnine
Some strain that seem’d her inmost soul to find:
That favor’d strain was Surrey’s raptur’d line,
That fair and lovely form,
The Lady Geraldine.
XX
Slow roll’d the clouds upon the lovely form,
And swept the .goodly vision all away,
So royal envy roll’d the murky storm
O’er my beloved Master’s glorious day.
Thou jealous, ruthless tyrant! Heaven repay
On thee, and on thy children’s latest line,
The wild caprice of thy despotic sway,
The gory bridal bed, the plunder’d shrine,
The murder’d Surrey’s blood,
The tears of Geraldine!
XXI
Both Scots, and Southern chiefs, prolong
Applauses of Fitztraver’s song;
These hated Henry’s name as death,
And those still held the ancient faith.
Then from his seat, with lofty air,
Rose Harold, bard of brave St. Clair;
St. Clair, who, feasting high at Home,
Had with that lord to battle come.
Harold was born where restless seas
Howl round the storm-swept Orcades;
Where erst St. Clairs held princely sway
O’er isle and islet, strait and bay;,