The Story
of Saville
Destined to uses unlawful and stamped with a scarlet brand?
Not oft in this century’s languid end do the fingers itch to garrote
Like the Moor’s the blue-veined animate snow of a darling delicate throat,—
No, no! ’twas a virginal soul, Saville’s,—the eyes of his mind were not seared,
And his heart fell calm and he said “Speak on!” and she never wist what he had feared.
Then she told her story,—how she herself was the beautiful chatelaine
Of L’Estrange,—how her wealth and beauty were tawdriest baubles and vain,
For of all the suitors that asked her hand never a one could convince
The maid that he wooed for herself alone, a genuine Fairy Prince,
And then when he came in triumph at last, her hero, her king, her Kyrle,
And offered his tiny pittance as to a dowerless girl,
What could she do but accept it and dwell with him down by the sea
In a world where romance and passion and bygone miracles be?
