Perchance you were a Mourning Bride, And conscious of a heart that died With one who fell by Rodney’s side In blood-stained Spanish bays. Perchance ’twas no such thing, and you Dwelt happy with your knight and true, And, like Aurora, watched a crew Of rosy little Days!
Oh, lovely face and innocent! Whatever way your fortunes went, And if to earth your life was lent For little space or long, In your kind eyes we seem to see What Woman at her best may be, And offer to your memory An unavailing song!
[Scribie, on the north-east littoral of Bohemia, is the land of stage conventions. It is named after the discoverer, M. Scribe.]
A pleasant land is Scribie, where The light comes mostly from below, And seems a sort of symbol rare Of things at large, and how they go, In rooms where doors are everywhere And cupboards shelter friend or foe.
This is a realm where people tell Each other, when they chance to meet, Of things that long ago befell— And do most solemnly repeat Secrets they both know very well, Aloud, and in the public street!
A land where lovers go in fours, Master and mistress, man and maid; Where people listen at the doors Or ’neath a table’s friendly shade, And comic Irishmen in scores Roam o’er the scenes all undismayed:
A land where Virtue in distress Owes much to uncles in disguise; Where British sailors frankly bless Their limbs, their timbers, and their eyes; And where the villain doth confess, Conveniently, before he dies!
A land of lovers false and gay; A land where people dread a “curse;” A land of letters gone astray, Or intercepted, which is worse; Where weddings false fond maids betray, And all the babes are changed at nurse.
Oh, happy land, where things come right! We of the world where things go ill; Where lovers love, but don’t unite; Where no one finds the Missing Will— Dominion of the heart’s delight, Scribie, we’ve loved, and love thee still!
Ah, listen through the music, from the shore, The “melancholy long-withdrawing roar”; Beneath the Minster, and the windy caves, The wide North Ocean, marshalling his waves Even so forlorn—in worlds beyond our ken— May sigh the seas that are not heard of men; Even so forlorn, prophetic of man’s fate, Sounded the cold sea-wave disconsolate, When none but God might hear the boding tone, As God shall hear the long lament alone, When all is done, when all the tale is told, And the gray sea-wave echoes as of old!