Page:Poems Shore.djvu/224

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KING BALDWIN

This last fragment of all was written seven years after "Olga," from whose more modern theme she thus reverted to a medieval story of purely romantic interest. This was the history of Baldwin IV., King of Jerusalem (1173-1185), a youth of noble and brilliant qualities, who died early a victim to leprosy, which fate she substituted an unfortunate love and subsequent insanity. It seems to have been meant rather for a series of pictorial scenes than for a drama; and all that we have of it is a narrative of the first meeting of the lovers told by a friend and follower of King Baldwin. Maria of Antioch (betrothed in this story to the King of Hungary, though in point of fact she eventually married the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople) has been travelling from Antioch to Jerusalem, and is met half-way by

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