To Lady Jane

Romance was always young.      You come today      Just eight years old      With marvellous dark hair.      Younger than Dante found you      When you turned      His heart into the way      That found the heavenly stair.      Perhaps we must be strangers.      I confess      My soul this hour is Dante's,      And your care      Should be for dolls      Whose painted hands caress      Your marvellous dark hair.      Romance, with moonflower face      And morning eyes,      And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies      The canticles of a coming king unknown,      Remember, when you join him      On his throne,      Even me, your far off troubadour,      And wear      For me some trifling rose      Beneath your veil,      Dying a royal death,      Happy and pale,      Choked by the passion,      The wonder and the snare,      The glory and despair      That still will haunt and own      Your marvellous dark hair.