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And me that morning Walter show'd the house,

Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,

Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the
park,

Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of
Time:

And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-
clubs

From the isles of palm and higher on
the walls,

A. TENNYSON

A good knight he! we keep a chronicls With all about him" which he brought and I

Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings

Who laid about them at their wills and died;

And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd

Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,

Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

"O miracle of women," said the book, "O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish, Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death,

But now when all was lost or seem'd as
lost-

Her stature more than mortal in the burst
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire-
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the

gate,

And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,

And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall,

And some were push'd with lances from the rock,

And part were drown'd within the whirling brook :

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and O miracle of noble womanhood!"

deer,

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.

And "this" he said 66
'was Hugh's at
Agincourt;
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle; And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said,

"To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth And sister Lilia with the rest." We went

(I kept the book and had my finger in it) | Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivyDown thro' the park: strange was the

sight to me;

For all the sloping pasture murmur'd,

sown

With happy faces and with holiday. There moved the multitude, a thousand

heads:

The patient leaders of their Institute Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone

And drew, from butts of water on the slope, The fountain of the moment, playing now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp and somewhat lower down

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired

A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep From hollow fields and here were telescopes

For azure views; and there a group of girls

In circle waited, whom the electric shock Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter:

round the lake

A little clock-work steamer paddling plied And shook the lilies: perch'd about the knolls

A dozen angry models jetted steam:
A petty railway ran a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science; other-
where

Pure sport a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd

And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about

Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light

And shadow, while the twangling violin Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end.

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time;

And long we gazed, but satiated at length

claspt,

Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave

The park, the crowd, the house; but all within

The sward was trim as any garden lawn:
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends
From neighbor seats: and there was
Ralph himself,

A broken statue propt against the wall,
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport,
Half child half woman as she was, had
wound

A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook

Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt

Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd

An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told

Of college he had climb'd across the spikes,

And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,

And he had breath'd the Proctor's dogs; and one

Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common

men,

But honeying at the whisper of a lord; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw

The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought

My book to mind and opening this I read

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls,

And much I praised her nobleness, and "Where,"

Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay Beside him) "lives there such a woman now?"

Quick answer'd Lilia "There are thou- | At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;

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It is but bringing up; no more than that: You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then,

That love to keep us children! OI wish That I were some great princess, I would build

Far off from men a college like a man's, And I would teach them all that men are taught;

We are twice as quick!" And here she shook aside

The hand that play'd the patron with her curls.

And one said smiling "Pretty were the sight

If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt

With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,

And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.

I think they should not wear our rusty gowns,

But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph

Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear, If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest,

Some boy would spy it."

At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : "That's your light way; but I would make it death

For any male thing but to peep at us."

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd;

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she

They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;

They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,

And caught the blossom of the flying terms,

But miss'd the mignonette of Vivianplace,

The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke,

Part banter, part affection.

"True," she said, "We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much.

I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did."

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But Walter hail'd a score of names upon | A pleasant game, she thought: she liked

her,

And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss,"

And swore he long'd at college, only long'd,

it more

Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these what kind of tales did men tell men, She wonder'd, by themselves? A half-disdain They boated and they cricketed; they Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips: And Walter nodded at me ; 66 He began,

All else was well, for she-society.

talk'd

SO

We forged a sevenfold story. Kind?

The rest would follow, each in turn; and, From time to time, some ballad or a song
To give us breathing-space."
So I began,
And the rest follow'd: and the women sang
Between the rougher voices of the men,
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind:
And here I give the story and the songs.

what kind?

Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill
Time by the fire in winter."

"Kill him now, The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,"

Said Lilia; "Why not now," the maiden

Aunt.

"Why not a summer's as a winter's tale?
A tale for summer as befits the time,
And something it should be to suit the
place

Heroic, for a hero lies beneath,
Grave, solemn !"

Walter warp'd his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd

And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling
mirth

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker,
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt
(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her
face

With color) turn'd to me with "As you

will;

Heroic if you will, or what you will,
Or be yourself your hero if you will."
"Take Lilia, then, for heroine" clam-
or'd he,

"And make her some great Princess, six
feet high,

Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you
The Prince to win her!"

"Then follow me, the Prince," I answer'd, "each be hero in his turn! Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream.

Heroic seems our Princess as required-
But something made to suit with Time

and place,

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And, yonder, shrieks and strange exper-
iments

For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt
them all-

This were a medley! we should have him back

Who told the Winter's tale' to do it

for us.

No matter we will say whatever comes.
And let the ladies sing us, they will,

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Now it chanced that I had been, And bring her in a whirlwind. then ho While life was yet in bud and blade, be

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And of her brethren, youths of puissance; And still I wore her picture by my heart, And one dark tress; and all around them both

chew'd

The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen,

Communing with his captains of the war.

At last I spoke. "My father, let me

go.

It cannot be but some gross error lies
In this report, this answer of a king,
Whom all men rate as kind and hospi-
table:

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about Whate'er my grief to find her less than

their queen.

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fame,

May rue the bargain made." And Florian said:

"I have a sister at the foreign court, Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,

Who

wedded with a nobleman from
thence :

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,
The lady of three castles in that land:
Thro' her this matter might be sifted
clean."

And Cyril whisper'd: "Take me with

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