The Love That Dares To Wait

A maiden of a race that heralds glory in, loved one

Whose single arm had wrought more deeds than on their blazon shone;

Loved him as none can love but once, and few can love at all;

But these lovers they must part, must part, whatever may befall.

Now Mortimer's fair Helen waits the hour when she must say

Farewell to love, and Walter Graeme, for ever and a day;

She sits amongst her people, in a groined and vaulted room,

Where portraits of a lordly line make phantoms in the gloom.

He comes, he greets her silently, and not so much as names

Her name to those cold Mortimers beneath the picture frames,

Who quit them in the measure that befits their haughty state;—

And the numbered minutes drop like threads from off the woof of fate.

The fitting moment now is come, and he with formal speech

Just moves before the gathered clan, and bids adieu to each;

Then stops awhile before his love, who rises up with haste;—

But not one word of idle breath does either true-love waste.