Poems MacCarthy, Florence Denis

193
Supports the mightiest crown on earth.
A pleasing type of all the change
Permitted to our eyes to see,
When she herself is free to range
Throughout the realm her rule makes free.
Not prison'd in a golden cage,
To sigh or sing her lonely state,
A show for youth or doating age,
With idiot eyes to contemplate.
But when the season sends a thrill
To ev'ry heart that lives and moves,
She seeks the freedom of the hill,
Or shelter of the noontide groves.
There, happy with her chosen mate,
And circled by her chirping brood,
Forgets the pain of being great
In the mere bliss of being good.
And thus the festive summer yields
No sight more happy, none so gay,
As when amid her subject-fields
She wanders on from day to day.
Resembling her, whom proud and fond,
The bard hath sung of--she of old,
Who bore upon her snow-white wand,
All Erin through, the ring of gold.
Thus, from her castles coming forth,
She wanders many a summer hour,
Bearing the ring of private worth
Upon the silver wand of Power.
Thus musing, while around me flew
Sweet airs from fancy's amaranth bowers,
Methought, what this fair queen doth do,
Hath yearly done the queen of flowers.