Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER, by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LORD IVON AND HIS DAUGHTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!
Last Line: Thank god! Thank god!
Subject(s): Fathers & Daughters; Love - Nature Of


LORD IVON.

How beautiful it is! Come here, my daughter!
Is't not a face of most bewildering brightness?

ISIDORE.

The features are all fair, sir, but so cold --
I could not love such beauty!

LORD IVON.

Yet, e'en so
Look'd thy lost mother, Isidore! Her brow
Lofty like this -- her lips thus delicate,
Yet icy cold in their slight vermeil threads --
Her neck thus queenly, and the sweeping curve
Thus matchless, from the small and "pearl round ear"
To the o'er-polish'd shoulder. Never swan
Dream'd on the water with a grace so calm!

ISIDORE.

And was she proud, sir?

LORD IVON.

Or I had not loved her.

ISIDORE.

Then runs my lesson wrong. I ever read
Pride was unlovely.

LORD IVON.

Dost thou prate already
Of books, my little one? Nay, then, 'tis time
That a sad tale were told thee. Is thy bird
Fed for the day? Canst thou forget the rein
Of thy beloved Arabian for an hour,
And, the first time in all thy sunny life,
Take sadness to thy heart? Wilt listen, sweet?

ISIDORE.

Hang I not ever on thy lips, dear father?

LORD IVON.

As thou didst enter, I was musing here
Upon this picture. 'Tis the face of one
I never knew; but, for its glorious pride,
I bought it of the painter. There has hung
Ever the cunning curse upon my soul
To love this look in woman. Not the flower
Of all Arcadia, in the Age of Gold,
Look'd she a shepherdess, would be to me
More than the birds are. As th' astrologer
Worships the half-seen star that in its sphere
Dreams not of him, and tramples on the lily
That flings, unask'd, its fragrance in his way,
Yet both (as are the high-born and the low)
Wrought of the same fine Hand -- so, daringly,
Flew my boy-hopes beyond me. You are here
In a brave palace, Isidore! The gem
That sparkles in your hair imprisons light
Drunk in the flaming Orient; and gold
Waits on the bidding of those girlish lips
In measure that Aladdin never knew.
Yet was I -- lowly born!

ISIDORE.

Lord Ivon!

LORD IVON.

Ay,
You wonder; but I tell you that the lord
Of this tall palace was a peasant's child!
And, looking sometimes on his fair domain,
Thy sire bethinks him of a sickly boy,
Nursed by his mother on a mountain side,
His only wealth a book of poetry,
With which he daily crept into the sun,
To cheat sharp pains with the bewildering dream
Of beauty he had only read of there.

ISIDORE.

Have you the volume still, sir?

LORD IVON.

'Twas the gift
Of a poor scholar wandering in the hills,
Who pitied my sick idleness. I fed
My inmost soul upon the witching rhyme --
A silly tale of a low minstrel boy,
Who broke his heart in singing at a bridal.

ISIDORE.

Loved he the lady, sir?

LORD IVON.

So ran the tale.
How well I do remember it!

ISIDORE.

Alas!
Poor youth!

LORD IVON.

I never thought to pity him.
The bride was a duke's sister; and I mused
Upon the wonder of his daring love,
Till my heart changed within me. I became
Restless and sad; and in my sleep I saw
Beautiful dames all scornfully go by;
And one o'er-weary morn I crept away
Into the glen, and, flung upon a rock,
Over a torrent whose swift, giddy waters
Fill'd me with energy, I swore my soul
To better that false vision, if there were
Manhood or fire within my wretched frame.
I turn'd me homeward with the sunset hour,
Changed -- for the thought had conquer'd even disease;
And my poor mother check'd her busy wheel
To wonder at the step with which I came.

Oh, heavens! that soft and dewy April eve,
When, in a minstrel's garb, but with a heart
As lofty as the marble shafts uprear'd
Beneath the stately portico, I stood
At this same palace door!

ISIDORE.

Our own! and you
A minstrel boy!

LORD IVON.

Yes -- I had wander'd far
Since I shook off my sickness in the hills,
And, with some cunning on the lute, had learn'd
A subtler lesson than humility
In the quick school of want. A menial stood
By the Egyptian sphinx; and when I came
And pray'd to sing beneath the balcony
A song of love for a fair lady's ear,
He insolently bade me to begone.
Listening not, I swept my fingers o'er
The strings in prelude, when the base-born slave
Struck me!

ISIDORE.

Impossible!

LORD IVON.

I dash'd my lute
Into his face, and o'er the threshold flew;
And threading rapidly the lofty rooms,
Sought vainly for his master. Suddenly
A wing rush'd o'er me, and a radiant girl,
Young as myself, but fairer than the dream
Of my most wild imagining, sprang forth,
Chasing a dove, that, 'wilder'd with pursuit,
Dropp'd breathless on my bosom.

ISIDORE.

Nay, dear father!
Was't so indeed?

LORD IVON.

I thank'd my blessed star!
And, as the fair, transcendent creature stood
Silent with wonder, I resign'd the bird
To her white hands: and, with a rapid thought,
And lips already eloquent of love,
Turn'd the strange chance to a similitude
Of my own story. Her slight, haughty lip
Curl'd at the warm recital of my wrong,
And on the ivory oval of her cheek
The rose flush'd outward with a deeper red;
And from that hour the minstrel was at home,
And horse and hound were his, and none might cross
The minion of the noble Lady Clare.
Art weary of my tale?

ISIDORE.

Dear father!

LORD IVON.

Well!
A summer, and a winter, and a spring,
Went over me like brief and noteless hours.
Forever at the side of one who grew
With every morn more beautiful; the slave,
Willing and quick, of every idle whim;
Singing for no one's bidding but her own,
And then a song from my own passionate heart,
Sung with a lip of fire, but ever named
As an old rhyme that I had chanced to hear;
Riding beside her, sleeping at her door,
Doing her maddest bidding at the risk
Of life -- what marvel if at last I grew
Presumptuous?

A messenger one morn
Spurr'd through the gate -- "A revel at the court!
And many minstrels, come from many lands,
Will try their harps in presence of the king;
And 'tis the royal pleasure that my lord
Come with the young and lovely Lady Clare,
Robed as the queen of Faery, who shall crown
The victor with his bays."

Pass over all
To that bewildering day. She sat enthroned
Amid the court; and never twilight star
Sprang with such sweet surprise upon the eye,
As she with her rare beauty on the gaze
Of the gay multitude. The minstrels changed
Their studied songs, and chose her for a theme;
And ever at the pause all eyes upturn'd
And fed upon her loveliness.

The last
Long lay was ended, and the silent crowd
Waited the king's award -- when suddenly
The sharp strings of a lyre were swept without,
And a clear voice claim'd hearing for a bard
Belated on his journey. Mask'd, and clad
In a long stole, the herald led me in.
A thousand eyes were on me: but I saw
The new-throned queen, in her high place, alone;
And, kneeling at her feet, I press'd my brow
Upon her footstool, till the images
Of my past hours rush'd thick upon my brain;
Then, rising hastily, I struck my lyre;
And, in a story woven of my own,
I so did paint her in her loveliness --
Pouring my heart all out upon the lines
I knew too faithfully, and lavishing
The hoarded fire of a whole age of love
Upon each passionate word, that, as I sunk
Exhausted at the close, the ravish'd crowd
Flung gold and flowers on my still quivering lyre;
And the moved monarch in his gladness swore
There was no boon beneath his kingly crown
Too high for such a minstrel!

Did my star
Speak in my fainting ear? Heard I the king?
Or did the audible pulses of my heart
Seem to me so articulate? I rose,
And tore my mask away; and, as the stole
Dropp'd from my shoulders, I glanced hurriedly
A look upon the face of Lady Clare.
It was enough! I saw that she was changed --
That a brief hour had chill'd the open child
To calculating woman -- that she read
With cold displeasure my o'er-daring thought;
And on that brow, to me as legible
As stars to the rapt Arab, I could trace
The scorn that waited on me! Sick of life,
Yet, even then, with a half-rallied hope
Prompting my faltering tongue, I blindly knelt,
And claim'd the king's fair promise --

ISIDORE.

For the hand
Of Lady Clare?

LORD IVON.

No, sweet one -- for a sword.

ISIDORE.

You surely spoke to her?

LORD IVON.

I saw her face
No more for years. I went unto the wars;
And when again I sought that palace door,
A glory heralded the minstrel boy
That monarchs might have envied.

ISIDORE.

Was she there?

LORD IVON.

Yes -- and, O God! how beautiful! The last,
The ripest seal of loveliness, was set
Upon her form; and the all-glorious pride
That I had worshipp'd on her girlish lip,
When her scared dove fled to me, was matured
Into a queenly grace; and nobleness
Was bound like a tiara to her brow,
And every motion breathed of it. There lived
Nothing on earth so ravishingly fair.

ISIDORE.

And you still loved her?

LORD IVON.

I had perill'd life
In every shape -- had battled on the sea,
And burnt upon the desert, and outgone
Spirits most mad for glory, with this one
O'ermastering hope upon me. Honor, fame,
Gold, even, were as dust beneath my feet;
And war was my disgust, though I had sought
Its horrors like a bloodhound -- for her praise.
My life was drunk up with the love of her.

ISIDORE.

And now she scorn'd you not?

LORD IVON.

Worse, Isidore!
She pitied me! I did not need a voice
To tell my love. She knew her sometime minion --
And felt that she should never be adored
With such idolatry as his, and sigh'd
That hearts so true beat not in palaces --
But I was poor, with all my bright renown,
And lowly born; and she -- the Lady Clare!

ISIDORE.

She could not tell you this?

LORD IVON.

She broke my heart
As kindly as the fisher hooks the worm --
Pitying me the while!

ISIDORE.

And you --

LORD IVON.

Lived on!
But the remembrance irks me, and my throat
Chokes with the utterance!

ISIDORE.

Dear father!

LORD IVON.

Nay --
Thanks to sweet Mary Mother, it is past;
And in this world I shall have no more need
To speak of it.

ISIDORE.

But there were brighter days
In store. My mother and this palace --

LORD IVON.

You outrun
My tale, dear Isidore! But 'tis as well.
I would not linger on it.

Twenty years
From this heart-broken hour, I stood again,
An old man and a stranger, at the door
Of this same palace. I had been a slave
For gold that time! My star had wrought with me!
And I was richer than the wizard king
Throned in the mines of Ind. I could not look
On my innumerable gems, the glare
Pain'd so my sun-struck eyes! My gold was countless.

ISIDORE.

And Lady Clare?

LORD IVON.

I met upon the threshold
Her very self -- all youth, all loveliness --
So like the fresh-kept picture in my brain,
That for a moment I forgot all else,
And stagger'd back and wept. She pass'd me by
With a cold look --

ISIDORE.

Oh! not the Lady Clare!

LORD IVON.

Her daughter, yet herself! But what a change
Waited me here! My thin and grizzled locks
Were fairer now than the young minstrel's curls --
My sun-burnt visage and contracted eye
Than the gay soldier with his gallant mien!
My words were wit, my looks interpreted;
And Lady Clare -- I tell you, Lady Clare
Lean'd fondly -- fondly! on my wasted arm.
O God! how changed my nature with all this!
I, that had been all love and tenderness --
The truest and most gentle heart, till now,
That ever beat -- grew suddenly a devil!
I bought me lands, and titles, and received
Men's homage with a smooth hypocrisy;
And -- you will scarce believe me, Isidore --
I suffer'd them to wile their peerless daughter,
The image and the pride of Lady Clare,
To wed me!

ISIDORE.

Sir! you did not!

LORD IVON.

Ay! I saw
Th' indignant anger when her mother first
Broke the repulsive wish, and the degrees
Of shuddering reluctance as her mind
Admitted the intoxicating tales
Of wealth unlimited. And when she look'd
On my age-stricken features, and my form,
Wasted before its time, and turn'd away
To hide from me her tears, her very mother
Whisper'd the cursed comfort in her ear
That made her what she is!

ISIDORE.

You could not wed her,
Knowing all this!

LORD IVON.

I felt that I had lost
My life else. I had wrung, for forty years,
My frame to its last withers; I had flung
My boyhood's fire away -- the energy
Of a most sinless youth -- the toil, and fret,
And agony of manhood. I had dared,
Fought, suffer'd, slaved -- and never for an hour
Forgot or swerved from my resolve; and now --
With the delirious draught upon my lips --
Dash down the cup!

ISIDORE.

Yet she had never wrong'd you!

LORD IVON.

Thou'rt pleading for thy mother, my sweet child!
And angels hear thee. But, if she was wrong'd,
The sin be on the pride that sells its blood
Coldly and only for this damning gold.
Had I not offer'd youth first? Came I not,
With my hands brimm'd with glory, to buy love --
And was I not denied?

ISIDORE.

Yet, dearest father,
They forced her not to wed?

LORD IVON.

I call'd her back
Myself from the church threshold, and, before
Her mother and her kinsmen, bade her swear
It was her own free choice to marry me.
I show'd her my shrunk hand, and bade her think
If that was like a bridegroom, and beware
Of perjuring her chaste and spotless soul,
If now she loved me not.

ISIDORE.

What said she, sir?

LORD IVON.

Oh! they had made her even as themselves;
And her young heart was colder than the slab
Unsunn'd beneath Pentelicus. She press'd
My wither'd fingers in her dewy clasp,
And smiled up in my face, and chid "my lord"
For his wild fancies, and led on!

ISIDORE.

And no
Misgiving at the altar?

LORD IVON.

None! She swore
To love and cherish me till death should part us,
With a voice clear as mine.

ISIDORE.

And kept it, father!
In mercy tell me so!

LORD IVON.

She lives, my daughter!

* * * * * * * * *

Long ere my babe was born, my pride had ebb'd,
And let my heart down to its better founts
Of tenderness. I had no friends -- not one!
My love gush'd to my wife. I rack'd my brain
To find her a new pleasure every hour --
Yet not with me -- I fear'd to haunt her eye!
Only at night, when she was slumbering
In all her beauty, I would put away
The curtains till the pale night-lamp shone on her,
And watch her through my tears.

One night her lips
Parted as I gazed on them, and the name
Of a young noble, who had been my guest,
Stole forth in broken murmurs. I let fall
The curtains silently, and left her there
To slumber and dream on; and gliding forth
Upon the terrace, knelt to my pale star,
And swore, that if it pleased the God of light
To let me look upon the unborn child
Lying beneath her heart, I would but press
One kiss upon its lips, and take away
My life -- that was a blight upon her years.

ISIDORE.

I was that child!

LORD IVON.

Yes -- and I heard the cry
Of thy small "piping mouth" as 'twere a call
From my remembering star. I waited only
Thy mother's strength to bear the common shock
Of death within the doors. She rose at last,
And, oh! so sweetly pale! And thou, my child!
My heart misgave me as I look'd upon thee;
But he was ever at her side whose name
She murmur'd in her sleep; and, lingering on
To drink a little of thy sweetness more
Before I died, I watch'd their stolen love
As she had been my daughter, with a pure,
Passionless joy that I should leave her soon
To love him as she would. I know not how
To tell thee more. * * * * *

* * * Come, sweet! she is not worthy
Of tears like thine and mine! * * *

* * * * * She fled and left me
The very night! The poison was prepared --
And she had been a widow with the morn
Rich as Golconda. As the midnight chimed,
My star rose. Gazing on its mounting orb,
I raised the chalice -- but a weakness came
Over my heart; and, taking up the lamp,
I glided to her chamber, and removed
The curtains for a last, a parting look
Upon my child. * * * * *

* * * * Had she but taken thee,
I could have felt she had a mother's heart,
And drain'd the chalice still. I could not leave
My babe alone in such a heartless world!

ISIDORE.

Thank God! Thank God!





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