| |
| LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE, | |
| Of me you shall not win renown; | |
| You thought to break a country heart | |
| For pastime, ere you went to town. | |
| At me you smiled, but unbeguiled | 5 |
| I saw the snare, and I retired: | |
| The daughter of a hundred Earls, | |
| You are not one to be desired. | |
| |
| Lady Clara Vere de Vere, | |
| I know you proud to bear your name; | 10 |
| Your pride is yet no mate for mine, | |
| Too proud to care from whence I came. | |
| Nor would I break for your sweet sake | |
| A heart that dotes on truer charms. | |
| A simple maiden in her flower | 15 |
| Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. | |
| |
| Lady Clara Vere de Vere, | |
| Some meeker pupil you must find, | |
| For were you queen of all that is, | |
| I could not stoop to such a mind. | 20 |
| You sought to prove how I could love, | |
| And my disdain is my reply. | |
| The lion on your old stone gates | |
| Is not more cold to you than I. | |
| |
| Lady Clara Vere de Vere, | 25 |
| You put strange memories in my head. | |
| Not thrice your branching lines have blown | |
| Since I beheld young Laurence dead. | |
| O your sweet eyes, your low replies: | |
| A great enchantress you may be; | 30 |
| But there was that across his throat | |
| Which you had hardly cared to see. | |
| |
| Lady Clara Vere de Vere, | |
| When thus he met his mother’s view, | |
| She had the passions of her kind, | 35 |
| She spake some certain truths of you. | |
| Indeed I heard one bitter word | |
| That scarce is fit for you to hear; | |
| Her manners had not that repose | |
| Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. | 40 |
| |
| Lady Clara Vere de Vere, | |
| There stands a spectre in your hall: | |
| The guilt of blood is at your door: | |
| You changed a wholesome heart to gall. | |
| You held your course without remorse, | 45 |
| To make him trust his modest worth, | |
| And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, | |
| And slew him with your noble birth. | |
| |
| Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, | |
| From yon blue heavens above us bent | 50 |
| The grand old gardener and his wife | |
| Smile at the claims of long descent. | |
| Howe’er it be, it seems to me, | |
| ’T is only noble to be good. | |
| Kind hearts are more than coronets, | 55 |
| And simple faith than Norman blood. | |
| |
| I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: | |
| You pine among your halls and towers: | |
| The languid light of your proud eyes | |
| Is wearied of the rolling hours. | 60 |
| In glowing health, with boundless wealth, | |
| But sickening of a vague disease, | |
| You know so ill to deal with time, | |
| You needs must play such pranks as these. | |
| |
| Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, | 65 |
| If Time be heavy on your hands, | |
| Are there no beggars at your gate, | |
| Nor any poor about your lands? | |
| Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, | |
| Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, | 70 |
| Pray Heaven for a human heart, | |
| And let the foolish yeoman go. | |
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