His rare, kind smile, low tones, and manly face
Lent to his quick imperiousness a grace
And winning charm, completely stripping it
Of what might otherwise have seemed unfit.
Leaving no trace of tyranny, but just
That nameless force that seemed to say, “You must.”
Suiting its pretty title of the Dawn,
(So named, he said, that it might rhyme with Swan),
Vivian’s sail-boat was carpeted with blue,
While all its sails were of a pale rose hue.
The daintiest craft that flirted with the breeze;
A poet’s fancy in an hour of ease.
Whatever Vivian had was of the best.
His room was like some Sultan’s in the East.
His board was always spread as for a feast,
Whereat, each meal, he was both host and guest.
He would go hungry sooner than he’d dine
At his own table if ’twere illy set.
He so loved things artistic in design—
Order and beauty, all about him. Yet
So kind he was, if it befell his lot
To dine within the humble peasant’s cot,
He made it seem his native soil to be,
And thus displayed the true gentility.
Under the rosy banners of the Dawn,
Around the lake we drifted on, and on.
It was a time for dreams, and not for speech.
And so we floated on in silence, each
Weaving the fancies suiting such a day.
Helen leaned idly o’er the sail-boat’s side,
And dipped her rosy fingers in the tide;
And I among the cushions half reclined,
Half sat, and watched the fleecy clouds at play,
While Vivian with his blank-book, opposite,
In which he seemed to either sketch or write,
Was lost in inspiration of some kind.
No time, no change, no scene, can e’er efface
My mind’s impression of that hour and place;
It stands out like a picture. O’er the years,
Black with their robes of sorrow—veiled with tears,
Lying with all their lengthened shapes between,
Untouched, undimmed, I still behold that scene.
Just as the last of Indian-summer days,
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