Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The Aiii iista Seminary Annual. 11 that passionate outburst of sorrow, love and despair at his part- ing from her in the holy house at Almesbury touched some sleeijing chord within her heart, and awakened her love. What higher tribute could be paid to her beauty than is expressed in these lines. But how to take last leave of all I loved ? O golden hair, with which I used to play, Not knowing! O imperial moulded form, And beauty such as never woman wore Until it came a Kingdom ' s curse with thee. Let us wander from this epic and speak of the women de- scribed in his other peoms ; of the child-Uke witchery of fair Lilian, who clasps her tiny hands above her, So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple From beneath her gather ' d wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks Then away she flies. Or we might fix our attention on that vale of Ida lovelier than all the valleys of Ionian hills. whither came at noon the once beautiful CEnone, mourning the faithlessness of that perfidious, yet handsome shepherd, Prince Paris, and breathing out her sad history to Mother Ida in word of deepest despair. In many of his poems the Laureate has spoken of the rapture of love, but its peace and pure contentment are best given in the Miller ' s Daughter, Goethe ' s, Schiller ' s, Burns ' lovers speak of moments of delight, this lover speaks of the peace that has been the atmosphere of his life for many years. Look thro ' mine eyes with thine true wife, Round my true heart tkine arms entvdne ; My other dearer life in life, Look thro ' my very soul with thine. The timid, gende Amy is one of the daintiest of Tennyson ' s creations. She excites such a sensation of pleasure as we feel ' ' in seeing a delicately tinted, quaindy shaped china cup, or in finding a curiously veined, richly flushed shell on the sea shore ' As the heart-broken old wanderer paces up and down the sandy tracts lying before the stately pile of Locksley Hall, his mind strays back to the love of his boy-hood, Amy loved me, Amy failed me, Amy was a timid child.

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10 The A igusta Seminary Annual. perfume and so spotless in purity. A child in years and appear- ance, a woman in sad experience, who so tenderly guarded the shield of lyancelot in the old stone tower, and who faded away like the delicate April blossoms under the noonday sun, when she found herself unloved. We often wonder how I ancelot could have withstood the charm of her innocent purity and beauty, but we must remember that his heart was filled with a guilty pas- sion for the queen. I will paint her, as I see her. Ten times have the lilies blown Since she looked upon the sun. And her face is lily-clear, Lily-shaped and dropped in dut} ' , To the law of its own beauty. Oval cheeks encolored faintly. Which a trail of golden hair. Keeps from fading off to air. And a forehead fair and saintly Which two blue eyes under shine, Like meek prayers before a shrine. Just as the longer we look at one of Raphael ' s Madonnas the more it grows upon us and delights us by some added charm, so in reading the story of Elaine, every step increases our ad- admiration and love until she attains, in our minds, the ideal of a woman nobly planned, the perfect work of God. But we are lost in delight when we gaze upon the peerless loveliness of Guinevere, around whom, all the others circle, as the lesser lights around the radiant moon. A woman not un- usual except for her queenly beauty, only a woman capable of a great pas.sion, who says: One who loves me must have a touch of earth; The low sun makes the color, and who mirrors the soul of the ordinary woman in her jealousy of her rival — the little maid, Elaine. True to human nature, which does not ap preciate the bright flowers of summer, until their petals are blasted by the icy hand of winter, and which only, hears the melody of the bird ' s song when he has winged his flight to southern lands, Guinevere did not prize until too late, the wealth of love lavi-shed upon her by the noble King Arthur. Perhaps

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12 llie Augusta Seminary Amiiial. And out of the dim past a remembrance comes to him of a picture painted in the happy days of youth, In the hall there hangs a painting — Amy ' s arms about my neck — Happy children a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck. Lady Clara Vere de Vere is a type of the modern society girl, we may find her in the crowded ball room in winter, or upon the grassy tennis court in summer, a mere butterfly basking in the smiles of her admirers. Who trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, As her thoughts were beyond recalling, With a glance for one and a glance for some, From her eye-lids rising and falling, Speaks common words with a blushful air, Hears told words unreproving, She lures her victims on by the witchery of her bright eyes and the coquetry of her manner, valuing the love of a true heart as she would some new song, pleasing until its place is filled by another, newer and more charming. And many other pictures are equally as fine, such as that of rare, pale Margaret, of faintly smiling Adeline, or of Maud concerning whom the poet says. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. Come hither, the dances are done, ■ In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. Queen lily and rose in one ; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flo wers, and be their sun. - - % She is coming, my own, my sweet ; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed ; My dust would hear her and beat. Had T lain for a century dead ; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red. All of these are very delicately and tenderly sketched, form- ing in themselves a gallery worthy of any great artist of the Italian school, a gallery which not only pleases us as we wander through it in youth, but which remains throughout life a pleasant memory, its pictures rising unbidden before our eyes as we sit alone in the twilight of many a summer day. Mary McCulloch.