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Page:Helen of Troy and Other Poems.djvu/132

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112
On the Tower

Swept noiselessly with damosels and knights
To tourneys where the trumpet made no sound,
Blow as he might, the scarlet trumpeter;
And were the dreams not sometimes brimmed with tears
That waked you when the night was loneliest?
Will you not bring me to your oratory
Where prayers arose like little birds set free
Still upward, upward without sound of flight?
Shall I not find your turrets toward the north,
Where you defied white winter armed for war;
Your southern casements where the sun blows in
Between the leaf-bent boughs the wind has lifted?
Shall we not see the sunrise toward the east,
Watch dawn by dawn the rose of day unfolding
Its golden-hearted beauty sovereignly;
And toward the west look quietly at evening?
Shall I not see all these and all your treasures?
In carven coffers hidden in the dark
Have you not laid a sapphire lit with flame
And amethysts set round with deep-wrought gold,
Perhaps a ruby?

L. All my gems are yours
And all my chambers curtained from the sun.
My lord shall see them all, in time, in time.
(The sun begins to sink.)
K. Shall I not see them now? To-day, to-night?
L. How could I show you in one day, my lord,
My castle and my treasures and my tower?
Let all the days to come suffice for this