The Lay of the Captive Count

THE COUNT.
I KNOW a Flower of beauty rare,
And long with sweetest anguish
To go and cull this Flower so fair;

But here in thrall I languish.
All day I murmur, u Woe is me!"
For, while as yet my steps were free
This lovely flower was in my power.

From these hlank walls I gaze in vain
To find my cherished Flower;
The dell is lost, and dim the plain,

So lofty is this tower!
But, be he knave, or be he knight,
Who brings me here my heart's delight,
I'll call him nearest friend and dearest.

THE EOSE.
Behold! a Flower divinely bright
Below thy trellis bloweth;
Thou surely meanest me, Sir Knight,

The Rose that richly gloweth:
A princely mind is thine, I ween,
The flower of flowers, the garden-queen,
Methinks must blossom on thy bosom.

THE COUNT.
O Rose! we prize thy damask dyes
Through leafy darkness peering:
As precious thou in maiden's eyes

As pearl, or gold, or ear-ring.
Thou deckest well her braided hair;
Yet art not thou the wonder fair
Whereon I ponder, ever fonder.

THE LILY.
The flaunting Rose is proud of port,
And proud are they who seek her,
But modest minds will fainer court

A coyer flower and meeker.
The soft in soul, the pure in heart,
Methinks will chuse the better part,
And love with stilly love the Lily.

THE COUNT.
1 hold myself unstained and chaste,
And free from darker failings;
Yet here, a captive wretch, I waste

My heart in bitter wailings!
Meet emblem of the Undetiled
Art thou, a spotless flower and mild,
But mine is rarer, dearer, fairer.

THE PINK.
That rarer, fairer flower am I,
I bud and bloom so gaily
Here in mine arbour, tended by

The heedful warden daily;
With clustering petals breathing out
Voluptuous perfume round about,
And thousand glowing colours shewing.

THE COUNT.
The brilliant Pink let no man slight, —
The gardener's minion-floweret,
ISTow must it bask in garish light,

Now shadow must embower it;
But such will never heal my woe;
Mine is a meek-eyed flower, and, though
Serene and tender, hath no splendour.

THE VIOLET.
TJneyed and hidden here I bloom,
Wrapped in communings lonely;
Yet will I now, Sir Knight, presume

To speak, though this time only.
If I, the Violet, be thy flower,
It grieves me that I want the power
To lightly clamber tow'rds thy chamber.

THE COUNT.
I love the vestal Violet,
Her odour and her colour,
But even for her can ne'er forget

My lonely doom of dolour.
Hear, friends, my mournful riddle right:
In vain all round this rocky height
I cast mine eye for what I sigh for.

But far beneath, by streams and groves,
Her bosom overladen
With sorrow for my thraldom, roves

Earth's truest-hearted maiden.
And when she weeps my dreary lot,
And plucks the blue Forget-Me-Not,
It wakes Affection's recollections.

For love like her's hath mystic might,
Which breathes through sundering distance;
And feeds, even in my dungeon's night
My lamp of pale existence.

And, when my heart would break, this thought
Steals over it, Forget-Me-Not!
And I inherit Strength and Spirit.