ALICE OF MONMOUTH
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Worldlings, who say the eagle should mate with eagle, after his kind,
Nor have learned from what far and diverse cliffs the twain each other find,
Yours is the old, old story, of age forgetting its wiser youth;
Of eyes which are keen for others' good and blind to an inward truth.
But the pride which closed the father's doors swelled in the young man's veins,
And he led his bride, in the sight of all, through the pleasant Monmouth lanes,
To the little farm his grandsire gave, years since, for a birthday gift:
Unto such havens unforeseen the barks of our fortune drift!
There, for a happy pastoral year, he tilled the teeming field,
Scattered the marl above his land, and gathered the orchard's yield;
And Alice, in fair and simple guise, kissed him at evenfall;
And her face was to him an angel's face, and love was all in all.
—What is this light in the southern sky, painting a red alarm?
What is this trumpet call, which sounds through peaceful village and farm,—
Jarring the sweet idyllic rest, stilling the children's throng,
Hushing the cricket on the hearth, and the lovers' evening song?
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