Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/280

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272
"BONES AND I."

modulated and kept down, runs the wild, mournful accompaniment, the wail of a kindly, tortured heart, of a love that can never die—


"And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vext with thee,
In hanging robe—or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.
For think not, though thou wouldst not love thy lord,
Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee.
I am not made of such slight elements.
Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame."


How wonderful, how exhaustive, and how practical seems the familiarity of great poets with the niceties and workings of the human heart! It has been said of them, prettily enough, that


"They learn in suffering what they teach in song."


God forbid! If it were so, their lot would indeed be unenviable; and what an eternity of torture would such a genius as Byron, or Shelley, or Tennyson himself have