You go to Cheltenham for the waters, And meet the Countess and her daughters; You take a cottage at Geneva Lo! Lady Anne and Lady Eva. In horror of another session, You just surrender at discretion, And live to curse the frauds of mothers, And envy all your younger brothers. Count Otto bowed, Count Otto smiled, When My Lady praised her darling child; Count Otto smiled, Count Otto bowed, When the child those praises disavowed; As a knight should gaze Count Otto gazed, Where Bertha in all her beauty blazed; As a knight should hear Count Otto heard, But he thought, I trow, about as long As the sun may think of the clouds that play Many a maid had dreams of state, As the Count rode up to her father's gate; Many a maid shed tears of pain, As the Count rode back to his Tower again; But little he cared, as it should seem, For the sad, sad tear, or the fond, fond dreamAlone he lived-alone, and free As the owl that dwells in the hollow tree : And the Baroness said, and the Baron swore, There never was knight so shy before! It was almost the first of May: The young Count clambered down the rock, And pushed the shallop from the shore. And care shuts fast her wearied eyes; The splendour of the hues that played As verdant slope and barren cliff The flowers, whose faint tips, here and there, To which some wild bird, now and then, You will not wonder that Count Otto Left Lady Hildegonde's ridotto. What melody glides o'er the star-lit stream? "Lurley! Lurley !" Angels of grace! does the young Count dream? "Lurley! Lurley!" Or is the scene indeed so fair That a nymph of the sea or a nymph of the air Has left the home of her own delight, To sing to our roses or rocks to-night? "Lurley! Lurley!" Words there are none; but the waves prolong The notes of that mysterious song] He listens, and listens, and all around Ripple the echoes of that sweet sound- No form appears on the river side; As fades one murmur on the ear, There comes another, just as clear; And the present is like to the parted strain "Lurley! Lurley !" Whether the voice be sad or gay, 'T were very hard for the Count to say; But pale are his cheeks and pained his brow, And the boat drifts on he recks not how; His pulse is quick and his heart is wild, O mighty music! they who know The witchery of thy wondrous bow, Forget, when thy strange spells have bound them, Or stares at spectral Paganini, To Lady Mary does it matter Who laugh, who love, who frown, who flatter? Oh no; she cannot heed or hear Reason or rhyme from prince or peer: Predicts the nation's future glories, |