PIPPA PASSES.
37
There already, to eternally reprove me?
(“Hist?”—said Kate the Queen;
But “Oh!”—cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
“’Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Crumbling your hounds their messes!”)
(“Hist?”—said Kate the Queen;
But “Oh!”—cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
“’Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Crumbling your hounds their messes!”)
Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honor,
My heart!
Is she poor?—What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
(“Nay, list”—bade Kate the Queen;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
“’T is only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!”)
My heart!
Is she poor?—What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
(“Nay, list”—bade Kate the Queen;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
“’T is only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!”)
[Pippa passes.
Jules resumes.
What name was that the little girl sang forth?
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here
At Asolo, where still her memory stays,
And peasants sing how once a certain page
Pined for the grace of her so far above
His power of doing good to, “Kate the Queen—
She never could be wronged, be poor,” he sighed,
“Need him to help her!”
“Need him to help her!” Yes, a bitter thing
To see our lady above all need of us;
Yet so we look ere we will love; not I,
But the world looks so. If whoever loves
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper,
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page,
Why should we always choose the page’s part?
