The Story
of Saville
Past willowy wands and stalwart rods to the crookedest staff in the glade?
Her heart had bled for him, blind and banned, as any true woman’s had done,—
He flung back her pity,—a goodly gift, mayhap; but he would have none.
Pity? no,—she was orphaned and sad; she dwelt in the hall of L’Estrange,
A mere companion and hanger on, forbidden to roam and to range
Past the walls of the park, lest her mistress should call, for she was capricious and strange,
And bitter as aloes her bread to Saville, who joyed as a bird to exchange
Her gilded dull cage for a wider bourne, her chrysalis wings to unfurl
In the ether of freedom and float for an hour in blessed communion with Kyrle.
“Ah sweet! for a rainbow hour ’twere well; but now you have tangled your life
With a pariah’s, unto whom God denies the having of home or of wife.”
“But dearest! that is the blazing star in this galaxy-bond of ours,
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