Page:Poems Holley.djvu/145

 She sits with her secret hid, unguessed,
 With her strange eyes bent on the distant west,
So the slow years come, and the slow year goes,
            O'er the Lady Cecile.

Forty years! and June the third
 Came with a storm—loud the winds did blow—
And up in her tower the lady heard
 The deep waves calling her far below;
 Wild they leaped and surged, wild the winds did blow,
And, listening alone, she thought she heard.
            "Cecile! Cecile!"

And, wrapping her cloak round her withered form,
 She crept down the stairs of crumbling stone;
Higher and fiercer raged the storm
 As she bent and plucked the rose—but one
 Had the tempest spared—and the winds did moan.
And she thought that she heard o'er the voice of the storm,
            "Cecile! Cecile!"

She placed the rose on her bloodless breast,
 And dizzy and faint she reached the tower,
And her strange eyes looked out again on the west,
 And a wave dashed up, as she looked from the tower,
 Like a hand, and lifted the roots of the flower.
And swept it-carried it out to the west,
            From the Lady Cecile.