Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A MAN'S HEART: THE EARL AND THE GIRL, by CHARLES MACKAY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A MAN'S HEART: THE EARL AND THE GIRL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Westwood, sitting sadly by himself
Last Line: And issued bulletins from day to day.
Subject(s): Betrayal; Boys; Youth


[The betrayal]

WESTWOOD, sitting sadly by himself,
Read and re-read a letter just received
From his best friend, and comrade of his heart,
The Vicar.
"My poor boy!" the father said,
"How will he bear it?—how shall I make known
This utter blight of his fast blossoming hopes?
The desecration of the holy shrine
Which he imagined in a woman's heart?
And she has yielded!—yielded to her aunt,
Her father and her brother—all her kin,
And given her hand to that superb old Earl—
Alas, poor Arthur!—hush! the victim comes!"

[Arthur learns the news_____]

"Had any other name been signed but that,
I should have called him liar to his teeth!
But do not comfort me. I'm sick at heart!
Where is The Times? no doubt 'tis blazoned there,
In the broad columns, 'Marriage in High Life.
The Earl Fitz-Neville and his youthful bride,
The daughter of Sir Thomas Arundel,
Left Erlwood Abbey yesterday for France.' "

[—and, accompanied by his father, seeks oblivion in foreign travel]
They went to Naples, thence to Sicily,
And thence to Athens. Arthur could not rest.
He thought he'd like to row upon the Nile,
And see the Pyramids; and so they went,
And rowed upon the Nile, and thought it dull;
And saw the Pyramids, and thought them small.
And next they tried the Desert—what of that?
It was a desert,—but in their degree,
Pall Mall, the Boulevards, and the Grand Canal,
Are they not deserts also, if the heart
Find not another heart in all their scope?

[Deathbed of the superb old Earl]

They took him home,
And plied the electric wire for speedy help,
And brought physicians from the capital,
Who came express by horses and by steam,
And issued bulletins from day to day.





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