O, FAIRER than vermilion | |
| Shed upon western skies | |
| Was the blush of that sweet Castilian | |
| Girl, with the deep brown eyes, | |
| As her happy heart grew firmer, | 5 |
| In the strange bright days of yore, | |
| When she heard young Edward murmur, | |
| “I love thee, Eleänore!” | |
| |
| Sweeter than musical cadence | |
| Of the wind mid cedar and lime | 10 |
| Is love to a timorous maiden’s | |
| Heart, in the fresh spring-time; | |
| Sweeter than waves that mutter | |
| And break on a sinuous shore, | |
| Are the songs her fancies utter | 15 |
| To brown-eyed Eleänore. | |
| |
| They twain went forth together | |
| Away o’er the Midland Main, | |
| Through the golden summer weather | |
| To Syria’s mystic plain. | 20 |
| Together, toil and danger | |
| And the death of their loved ones bore, | |
| And perils from Paynim, stranger | |
| Than death to Eleänore. | |
| |
| Where Lincoln’s towers of wonder | 25 |
| Soar high o’er the vale of Trent, | |
| Their lives were torn asunder; | |
| To her home the good Queen went. | |
| Her corse to the tomb he carried, | |
| With grief at his heart’s stern core; | 30 |
| And where’er at night they tarried | |
| Rose a cross to Eleänore. | |
| |
| As ye trace a meteor’s onset | |
| By a line of silver rain, | |
| As ye trace a regal sunset | 35 |
| By streaks of a saffron stain, | |
| So to the minster holy | |
| At the west of London’s roar | |
| May ye mark how, sadly, slowly, | |
| Passed the corse of Eleänore. | 40 |
| |
| Back to where lances quiver,— | |
| Straight back, by tower and town, | |
| By hill and wold and river,— | |
| For the love of Scotland’s crown. | |
| But ah! there is woe within him | 45 |
| For the face he shall see no more; | |
| And conquest cannot win him | |
| From the love of Eleänore. | |
| |
| Years after, sternly dying | |
| In his tent by the Solway sea, | 50 |
| With the breezes of Scotland flying | |
| O’er the wild sands, wide and free, | |
| His dim thoughts sadly wander | |
| To the happy days of yore, | |
| And he sees, in the gray sky yonder, | 55 |
| The eyes of his Eleänore. | |
| |
| Time must destroy those crosses | |
| Raised by the Poet-King; | |
| But as long as the blue sea tosses, | |
| As long as the skylarks sing, | 60 |
| As long as London’s river | |
| Glides stately down to the Nore, | |
| Men shall remember ever | |
| How he loved Queen Eleänore. | |
| |
