No More Learning

Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth? "

"If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born," she said, [4]
"And not the Lady Clare. "

"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"For I am yours in word and in deed.
Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"Your riddle is hard to read. "

O and proudly stood she up!
Her heart within her did not fail:
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes,
And told him all her nurse's tale.

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn:
He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood:
"If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the next in blood--

"If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare. "


[Footnote 1: All up to and including 1850. Brooch. ]

[Footnote 2: All up to and including 1850. Though. ]

[Footnote 3: The stanza beginning "The lily-white doe" is omitted in
1842 and 1843, and in the subsequent editions up to and including 1850
begins "A lily-white doe". ]

[Footnote 4: In a letter addressed to Tennyson the late Mr. Peter Bayne
ventured to object to the dramatic propriety of Lady Clare speaking of
herself as "a beggar born". Tennyson defended it by saying: "You make no
allowance for the shock of the fall from being Lady Clare to finding
herself the child of a nurse".
But the expression is Miss Ferrier's: "Oh
that she had suffered me to remain the beggar I was born"; and again to
her lover: "You have loved an impostor and a beggar". ]











THE LORD OF BURLEIGH

Written, as we learn from 'Life', i. , 182, by 1835. First published in
1842. No alteration since with the exception of "tho'" for "though".

This poem tells the well-known story of Sarah Hoggins who married under
the circumstances related in the poem. She died in January, 1797,
sinking, so it was said, but without any authority for such a statement,
under the burden of an honour "unto which she was not born". The story
is that Henry Cecil, heir presumptive to his uncle, the ninth Earl of
Exeter, was staying at Bolas, a rural village in Shropshire, where he
met Sarah Hoggins and married her. They lived together at Bolas, where
the two eldest of his children were born, for two years before he came
into the title. She bore him two other children after she was Countess
of Exeter, dying at Burleigh House near Stamford at the early age of
twenty-four. The obituary notice runs thus: "January, 1797. At Burleigh
House near Stamford, aged twenty-four, to the inexpressible surprise and
concern of all acquainted with her, the Right Honbl. Countess of
Exeter. " For full information about this romantic incident see Walford's
'Tales of Great Families', first series, vol. i. , 65-82, and two
interesting papers signed W.