host

To council, plied him with his richest wines,

And show'd the late-writ letters of the king.

He with a long low sibilation, stared As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd

Averring it was clear against all rules For any man to go: but as his brain Began to mellow, "If the king," he said, "Had given us letters, was he bound to speak?

The king would bear him out"; and at the last

The summer of the vine in all his veins "No doubt that we might make it worth his while.

She once had past that way; he heard her speak;

She scared him; life! he never saw the like; She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave:

And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; He always made a point to post with mares; His daughter and his housemaid were the boys:

The land, he understood, for miles about Was till'd by women; all the swine were

Began to glitter firefly-like in copse

the stars;

And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow: further on we gain'd A little street half garden and half house; But scarce could hear each other speak for noise

Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling

On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose: And all about us peal'd the nightingale, Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth

With constellation and with continent,
Above an entry: riding in, we call'd;
A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable
wench

Came running at the call, and help'd us down.

Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd,

Full-blown, before.us into rooms which gave

Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost In laurel her we ask'd of that and this, And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche' she said, 'And Lady Psyche."

46

prettiest,

"Which was

Best-natured?" "Lady Psyche." "Hers are we,"

One voice, we cried; and I sat down and

As Lady Psyche's pupils."

This I seal'd: The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, And raised the blinding bandage from

his eyes:

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn; And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd

watch

On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,

And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love And kiss again with tears!

turn

We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kiss'd again with tears.

II.

Ar break of day the College Portress came: She brought us Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold; and now when these were on,

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know The Princess Ida waited: out we paced, I first, and following thro' the porch that sang

All round with laurel, issued in a court Compact with lucid marbles, boss'd with

lengths

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.

The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes,

Enring'da billowing fountain in the midst; And here and there on lattice edges lay Or book or lute; but hastily we past, And up a flight of stairs into the hall. There at a board by tome and paper sat, With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne

All beauty compass'd in a female form, The Princess; liker to the inhabitant Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, Than our man's earth; such eyes were

in her head,

And so much grace and power, breathing down

"We of the court" said Cyril.

the court"

66 'From

Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls,

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd:

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite And slander, die. Better not be at all Than not be noble. Leave us you may

go: To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue The fresh arrivals of the week before; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive."

:

She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal back again we crost the court To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves

That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch,

A patient range of pupils; she herself
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood,
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-
eyed,

And on the hither side, or so she look'd,
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child,
In shining draperies, headed like a star,
Her maiden babe, a double April old,
Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced :
Then Florian, but no livelier than the
dame

Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate;

As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here Among the lowest."

Thereupon she took A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past;

Glanced at the legendary Amazon
As emblematic of a nobler age;
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of
those

That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo; Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines

Of empire, and the woman's state in each, How far from just; till warming with her theme

She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomet

With much contempt, and came to chiv

sedge,

least of men ;

For often fineness compensated size: Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew

With using; thence the man's, if more

was more;

He took advantage of his strength to be First in the field: some ages had been lost; But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life Was longer; and albeit their glorious

names

Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth

The highest is the measure of the man,
And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay,
Nor those horn-handed breakers of the
glebe,

But Homer, Plato, Verulam; even so
With woman and in arts of government
Elizabeth and others; arts of war
The peasant Joan and others; arts of grace
Sappho and others vied with any man :
And, last not least, she who had left her
place,

And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow

To use and power on this Oasis, lapt In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight

Of ancient influence and scorn.

She rose upon a wind of prophecy
Dilating on the future; everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the
hearth,

Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropt for one to sound
the abyss

Of science, and the secrets of the mind:
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:
And everywhere the broad and bounteous
Earth

Should bear a double growth of those rare souls,

Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world."

She ended here, and beckon'd us: the

rest

Parted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she

Began to address us, and was moving on
In gratulation, till as when a boat
Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all
her voice

Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried

I struck in: "Albeit so mask'd, Madam, I love the truth;

Receive it; and in me behold the Prince
Your countryman, affianced years ago
To the Lady Ida: here, for here she was,
And thus (what other way was left) I
came."

none;

"O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe

Within this vestal limit, and how should I, Who am not mine, say, live: the thun

derbolt

Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls."

"Yet pause," I said: "for that inscription there,

I think no more of deadly lurks therein,