The Love That Dares To Wait Poem by Emily Pfeiffer

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.
A joining of their loyal hands, a meeting of true eyes,—
A moment's meeting, calm and firm—they parted on this wise,
And he went forth to do more deeds which, blazoned on a shield,
Had won for him the fair true hand he now is forced to yield.
She stands there still when he is gone, she neither speaks, nor stirs,
She stands there still—a Mortimer amongst the Mortimers;—
They know her true, and tender, and they turn their eyes aside
To let her struggle with her woe, and conquer by her pride.
She stands there still; they know her true, and tender, and they fear
That she will falter now, but no, she drops nor word nor tear;
Defying with a patient scorn the anguish of the hour,
She stands there still—a Mortimer in passion's guarded power.
Her father comes,—the stern old lord,—and looks her in the face,—
That smiling patient face,—quoth he: 'Go to, my friends, give place,
Her we may blight, but never bend,—Soh! stop him at the gate;
What might have we to match a love, that smiling dares to wait?'
And so they stopped and brought him in,—thrice noble Walter Graeme,
No hand could show more fair than his from carving of a name;
And Mortimer's true Helen he at Candlemas will wed,
In the teeth of all the Mortimers,—the living and the dead.