THE ARENA.

No. VII.

JUNE, 1890.

QUEEN CHRISTINA AND DE LIAR.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

GLAD the day that saw Christina, broad of brain though young in

years,

Take the crown of glorious Vasa, girt with Sweden's proudest

peers.

Regal was the face they looked at, regal were the form and guise,

Regal were the light-blue splendors of her Scandinavian eyes.

"She will rule us," cried the people, "like her sire, Gustavus

Great;

War at this girl's frown shall thunder; peace upon her smile shall wait.

"Yet below her kingdom ever, civic wisdom, patriot love, Shall be pediments majestic to the monument above!"

Time with happy confirmation proved the praise whose welcome strain,

Like an archway for a conqueror, spanned the threshold of her reign.

Ten bright years her lifted sceptre loomed in power o'er lands and

seas;

Norway, Prussia, Denmark, Austria trembled at her calm decrees.

War in righteous loathing held she, yet no dastard armistice

made;

Half Minerva, half Brunhilda, Sweden's destiny she swayed.

Oxenstiern, the astute old statesman, oft her might of mind would

own;

Grotius, poet and historian, laid allegiance at her throne.

Torstenston, the unrivalled soldier, served her with his valiant

men;

Blunt Salmacius, wily Vossius, flattered her with tongue and pen.

Keen Descartes, who grandly brooded on the spells of time and

space,

Lost his learning in the sorcery fashioned by her virgin face.

Milton, he whose thought was earthquake in an age of sloth and

swoon,

Praised her as the lark the morning, as the nightingale the moon.

Many a suitor sought her favor; princes hotly vied with peers; Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie sued her with tempestuous tears.

Uladislaus, king of Poland, tried her maiden heart to thrill;
Spain's fourth Philip strove to tempt her with alliance loftier still.

But alike entreaty or protest ineffectual found her mood;
She was adamant to all men, howsoever subtly wooed.

Yet would sages, wits and pundits, bards, philosophers and priests,

In her palace at Upsala, throng to share her stately feasts.

Here, one evening, 'tis recorded, lights in plenteous measure played

Through the imperial apartments on a mirthful masquerade;

And of multitudes assembled none so lured the royal glance
As De Liar, the chevalier, jovial, handsome, fresh from France.

He, like all except Christina, wore a mask of envious fold,
Yet the Queen, through secret signal, his identity had told.

Speech urbane her lips addressed him; radiant looks on him she bent;

Other suitors, keenly watching, gnawed their beards in discontent.

i

""Tis the Frenchman," they would whisper; "fortunate he should be wed,

Else perchance our bold young sovereign by some wild caprice were led."

Later, when the night grew merrier, when the feasting-hall was gay,

Stealthily De Liar glided to a chamber yards away.

Here, where old Norse gods were pictured on the drapery's fold and flow,

Glided stealthily to meet him a mysterious domino.

From a face of blooming witchery soon its mask of velvet fell; The Chevalier stood confronted by the wife that loved him well.

"Come," she laughs, "my wandering gallant, say me frank and say me fair:

Have you left your heart entangled in the Swedish queen's gold hair?"

Laughing back with amorous ardor, the Chevalier makes reply: "Nay, already in your brown tresses doth my heart entangled lie."

"Flatterer!" mocks the wife but kisses all her raillery swiftly choke,

Fond as those that lily or poppy may from buoyant bee invoke.

"Fear not, lady of mine," he murmurs, "lest new love your rights profane;

I to this crowned queen am colder than the ice-flowers on her pane!

"Pettier is her dull self-worship, fed by parasitic prate, Than the crowd of salaried pedants truckling to her trivial state!

"Hers a royalty to reverence! Nay, we witnessed, you and I, Our own lordly and gracious Louis, on his white stairs at Versailles !

"Hers, forsooth, a court of splendor! Nay, we saw, in other years,

Those great pomps that made the Tuileries one pale blaze of chandeliers!"