Britain ... - Blue-Lite

306 THE VARANGIAN. [Act II.
MATILDA.
How long will you
Continue in that humour ? Had you heard,
Like me, the night gone by, those praises which
He lavished on your charms, comparing all
That's beautiful in Nature with your beauty ;
And then protesting that you beggared quite
His poor imagination, surely you
Would see him once again, if but to hear
The music of his love-inspired tongue ;
For when he of my mistress speaks, his voice
Sounds like a rich-toned harp.
So fondly of me ?
JUDITH.
And did he speak
MATILDA.
Did he, lady ? Ay.
I cannot talk in his bewitching phrase,
Or you would bid me stand from morn to night
His fondness to
repeat.
I never heard
Your gruff-voiced, huge, unmannered husband yet
Pay your rare beauty one brief compliment.
He stands before you ever, in my thoughts,
Like one, born blind, placed on a mountain top,
Unconscious of the lovely scene outspread
In vain around him, with its pomp of woods,
Valleys, and lakes, and streams, and glittering towers.
Is he then fit to husband such a lady,
The rose of Normandy, the Conqueror's niece ?
What is he but a bearded Saxon born ?
22
( )
An ? Englishman a name that honour scorns
And brands with infamy.