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[249] Laughing, the Critic bowed. “I yield
The point without another word;
Who ever yet a case appealed
Where beauty's judgment had been heard?
And you, my good friend, owe to me
Your warmest thanks for such a plea,
As true withal as sweet. For my offence
Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense.”
Across the sea one lighthouse star,
With crimson ray that came and went,
Revolving on its tower afar,
Looked through the doorway of the tent.
While outward, over sand-slopes wet,
The lamp flashed down its yellow jet
On the long wash of waves, with red and green
Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam wreaths seen.
“ ‘ Sing while we may,—another day May bring enough of sorrow;
’ —thus
Our Traveller in his own sweet lay,
His Crimean camp-song, hints to us,” 1
The lady said. “So let it be;
Sing us a song,” exclaimed all three.
She smiled: “I can but marvel at your choice
To hear our poet's words through my poor borrowed voice.”
Her window opens to the bay,
On glistening light or misty gray,
And there at dawn and set of day
In prayer she kneels:
1 The reference is to Bayard Taylor's poem, The Song of the Camp.
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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