Unknown to her the maids supplied

Her wants, and gliding noiseless round Passed out again, while Leon's hound Stole in and slumbered at her side: Then Cloten came, a silly ape,

And wooed her in his boorish way, Barring the door against escape;

But the hound woke, and stood at bay,
Defiant at the lady's feet,
And made the ruffian retreat.

Then for a little moment's space
A smile did flit across the face
Of Lady Imogen.

Without the morning dried the dews

ΤΟ

From shaven lawns and pastures green: Meantime the court dames and the queen Did pace the shaded avenues: And Cymbeline amid his train

Rode down the winding palace walks, Behind the hounds that snuffed the plain, And in the track of wheeling hawks; 21 And soon in greenwood shaws anear They blew their horns, and chased the deer. But she nor saw nor heard it there, But sat, a statue of despair,

The mournful Imogen.

She shook her ringlets round her head, And clasped her hands, and thought, and thought,

As every faithful lady ought, Whose lord is far away or dead. She pressed in books his faded flowers, That never seemed so sweet before; Upon his picture gazed for hours, And read his letters o'er and o'er, Dreaming about the loving Past, Until her tears were flowing fast.

30

With aches of heart, and aches of
brain,
Bewildered in the realms of pain,
The wretched Imogen!

The pale moon walked the waste o'erhead,

And filled the room with sickly light; 80 Then she arose in piteous plight, Disrobed herself, and crept to bed. The wind without was loud and deep, The rattling casements made her start: At last she slept, but in her sleep

She pressed her fingers o'er her heart, And moaned, and once she gave a scream, To break the clutches of a dream.

Even in her sleep she could not sleep,
For ugly visions made her weep,

The troubled Imogen.

90

But dream in her chamber, holding a flower,

Or reading my letters - she'd better read me.

50

Even now, while I am freezing with cold, She is cosily sipping her tea.

If I ever reach home I shall laugh aloud At the sight of a roaring fire once more; She must wait, I think, till I thaw myself, For the nightly kiss at the door.

I'll have with my dinner a bottle of port, To warm up my blood and soothe my mind;

Then a little music, for even I

Like music-when I have dined.

I'll smoke a pipe in the easy-chair,

60

And feel her behind me patting my head;

Or drawing the little one on my knee,
Chat till the hour for bed.

II

Will he never come? I have watched for him

Till the misty panes are roughened with
sleet;

I can see no more: shall I never hear
The welcome sound of his feet?

I think of him in the lonesome night,
Tramping along with a weary tread, 70
And wish he were here by the cheery fire,
Or I were there in his stead.

I sit by the grate, and hark for his step, And stare in the fire with a troubled mind;

The glow of the coals is bright in my face,

But my shadow is dark behind.

I think of woman, and think of man,
The tie that binds and the wrongs that

I should die if he changed, or loved me

less,

For I live at best but a restless life; Yet he may, for they say the kindest men Grow tired of a sickly wife.

120

O, love me, Arthur, my lord, my life, If not for my love, and my womanly fears,

At least for your child. But I hear his step

He must not find me in tears.

A dream? What means this pageant, then?

These multitudes of solemn men,

Who speak not when they meet,
But throng the silent street?

The flags half-mast that late so high
Flaunted at each new victory?

(The stars no brightness shed,
But bloody looks the red!)

The black festoons that stretch for miles,
And turn the streets to funeral aisles? 70
(No house too poor to show
The nation's badge of woe.)

The cannon's sudden, sullen boom,
The bells that toll of death and doom,
The rolling of the drums,

The dreadful car that comes?

Cursed be the hand that fired the shot, The frenzied brain that hatched the plot, Thy country's Father slain

Be thee, thou worse than Cain! 80