The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe PrincessThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The PrincessAuthor: Baron Alfred Tennyson TennysonRelease date: January 1, 1997 [eBook #791]Most recently updated: January 3, 2019Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by ddNg E-Ching, and David Widger*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The PrincessAuthor: Baron Alfred Tennyson TennysonRelease date: January 1, 1997 [eBook #791]Most recently updated: January 3, 2019Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by ddNg E-Ching, and David Widger
Title: The Princess
Author: Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson
Author: Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson
Release date: January 1, 1997 [eBook #791]Most recently updated: January 3, 2019
Language: English
Credits: Produced by ddNg E-Ching, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS ***
Prologue
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
CONCLUSION
PROLOGUESir Walter Vivian all a summer's dayGave his broad lawns until the set of sunUp to the people: thither flocked at noonHis tenants, wife and child, and thither halfThe neighbouring borough with their InstituteOf which he was the patron. I was thereFrom college, visiting the son,—the sonA Walter too,—with others of our set,Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place.And me that morning Walter showed the house,Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hallFlowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,Grew side by side; and on the pavement layCarved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;And on the tables every clime and ageJumbled together; celts and calumets,Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fansOf sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubsFrom the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,His own forefathers' arms and armour hung.And 'this' he said 'was Hugh's at Agincourt;And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon:A good knight he! we keep a chronicleWith all about him'—which he brought, and IDived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kingsWho laid about them at their wills and died;And mixt with these, a lady, one that armedHer own fair head, and sallying through the gate,Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.'O miracle of women,' said the book,'O noble heart who, being strait-besiegedBy this wild king to force her to his wish,Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunned a soldier's death,But now when all was lost or seemed as lost—Her stature more than mortal in the burstOf 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 whelmed with missiles of the wall,And some were pushed with lances from the rock,And part were drowned within the whirling brook:O miracle of noble womanhood!'So sang the gallant glorious chronicle;And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said,'To the Abbey: there is Aunt ElizabethAnd sister Lilia with the rest.' We went(I kept the book and had my finger in it)Down through the park: strange was the sight to me;For all the sloping pasture murmured, sownWith happy faces and with holiday.There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:The patient leaders of their InstituteTaught them with facts. One reared a font of stoneAnd drew, from butts of water on the slope,The fountain of the moment, playing, nowA twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ballDanced like a wisp: and somewhat lower downA man with knobs and wires and vials firedA cannon: Echo answered in her sleepFrom hollow fields: and here were telescopesFor azure views; and there a group of girlsIn circle waited, whom the electric shockDislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lakeA little clock-work steamer paddling pliedAnd shook the lilies: perched about the knollsA dozen angry models jetted steam:A petty railway ran: a fire-balloonRose gem-like up before the dusky grovesAnd dropt a fairy parachute and past:And there through twenty posts of telegraphThey flashed a saucy message to and froBetween the mimic stations; so that sportWent hand in hand with Science; otherwherePure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowledAnd stumped the wicket; babies rolled aboutLike tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maidsArranged a country dance, and flew through lightAnd shadow, while the twangling violinStruck up with Soldier-laddie, and overheadThe broad ambrosial aisles of lofty limeMade 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 lengthCame to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-claspt,Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire,Through one wide chasm of time and frost they gaveThe park, the crowd, the house; but all withinThe sward was trim as any garden lawn:And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,And Lilia with the rest, and lady friendsFrom neighbour 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 woundA scarf of orange round the stony helm,And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk,That made the old warrior from his ivied nookGlow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feastShone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,And there we joined them: then the maiden AuntTook this fair day for text, and from it preachedAn universal culture for the crowd,And all things great; but we, unworthier, toldOf college: he had climbed across the spikes,And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs; and oneDiscussed his tutor, rough to common men,But honeying at the whisper of a lord;And one the Master, as a rogue in grainVeneered with sanctimonious theory.But while they talked, above their heads I sawThe feudal warrior lady-clad; which broughtMy book to mind: and opening this I readOf old Sir Ralph a page or two that rangWith tilt and tourney; then the tale of herThat drove her foes with slaughter from her walls,And much I praised her nobleness, and 'Where,'Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head (she layBeside him) 'lives there such a woman now?'Quick answered Lilia 'There are thousands nowSuch women, but convention beats them down: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 wereSome might poetess, I would shame you then,That love to keep us children! O I wishThat I were some great princess, I would buildFar 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 asideThe hand that played the patron with her curls.And one said smiling 'Pretty were the sightIf our old halls could change their sex, and flauntWith 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 RalphWho 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 swardShe tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot:'That's your light way; but I would make it deathFor any male thing but to peep at us.'Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed;A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,And sweet as English air could make her, she:But Walter hailed a score of names upon her,And 'petty Ogress', and 'ungrateful Puss',And swore he longed at college, only longed,All else was well, for she-society.They boated and they cricketed; they talkedAt wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;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 missed the mignonette of Vivian-place,The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke,Part banter, part affection.'True,' she said,'We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much.I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.'She held it out; and as a parrot turnsUp through gilt wires a crafty loving eye,And takes a lady's finger with all care,And bites it for true heart and not for harm,So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriekedAnd wrung it. 'Doubt my word again!' he said.'Come, listen! here is proof that you were missed:We seven stayed at Christmas up to read;And there we took one tutor as to read:The hard-grained Muses of the cube and squareWere out of season: never man, I think,So mouldered in a sinecure as he:For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet,And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms,We did but talk you over, pledge you allIn wassail; often, like as many girls—Sick for the hollies and the yews of home—As many little trifling Lilias—playedCharades and riddles as at Christmas here,Andwhat's my thoughtandwhenandwhereandhow,As here at Christmas.'She remembered that:A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it moreThan magic music, forfeits, all the rest.But these—what kind of tales did men tell men,She wondered, by themselves?A half-disdainPerched on the pouted blossom of her lips:And Walter nodded at me; 'Hebegan,The rest would follow, each in turn; and soWe forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind?Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,Seven-headed monsters only made to killTime 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 warped his mouth at thisTo something so mock-solemn, that I laughedAnd Lilia woke with sudden-thrilling mirthAn echo like a ghostly woodpecker,Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt(A little sense of wrong had touched her faceWith colour) turned to me with 'As you will;Heroic if you will, or what you will,Or be yourself you hero if you will.''Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clamoured he,'And make her some great Princess, six feet high,Grand, epic, homicidal; and be youThe Prince to win her!''Then follow me, the Prince,'I answered, '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 experimentsFor which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all—Thiswerea medley! we should have him backWho told the "Winter's tale" to do it for us.No matter: we will say whatever comes.And let the ladies sing us, if they will,From time to time, some ballad or a songTo give us breathing-space.'So I began,And the rest followed: and the women sangBetween the rougher voices of the men,Like linnets in the pauses of the wind:And here I give the story and the songs.
A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,Of temper amorous, as the first of May,With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,For on my cradle shone the Northern star.There lived an ancient legend in our house.Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burntBecause he cast no shadow, had foretold,Dying, that none of all our blood should knowThe shadow from the substance, and that oneShould come to fight with shadows and to fall.For so, my mother said, the story ran.And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less,An old and strange affection of the house.Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what:On a sudden in the midst of men and day,And while I walked and talked as heretofore,I seemed to move among a world of ghosts,And feel myself the shadow of a dream.Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane,And pawed his beard, and muttered 'catalepsy'.My mother pitying made a thousand prayers;My mother was as mild as any saint,Half-canonized by all that looked on her,So gracious was her tact and tenderness:But my good father thought a king a king;He cared not for the affection of the house;He held his sceptre like a pedant's wandTo lash offence, and with long arms and handsReached out, and picked offenders from the massFor judgment.Now it chanced that I had been,While life was yet in bud and blade, bethrothedTo one, a neighbouring Princess: she to meWas proxy-wedded with a bootless calfAt eight years old; and still from time to timeCame murmurs of her beauty from the South,And of her brethren, youths of puissance;And still I wore her picture by my heart,And one dark tress; and all around them bothSweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen.But when the days drew nigh that I should wed,My father sent ambassadors with fursAnd jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought backA present, a great labour of the loom;And therewithal an answer vague as wind:Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts;He said there was a compact; that was true:But then she had a will; was he to blame?And maiden fancies; loved to live aloneAmong her women; certain, would not wed.That morning in the presence room I stoodWith Cyril and with Florian, my two friends:The first, a gentleman of broken means(His father's fault) but given to starts and burstsOf revel; and the last, my other heart,And almost my half-self, for still we movedTogether, twinned as horse's ear and eye.Now, while they spake, I saw my father's faceGrow long and troubled like a rising moon,Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet,Tore the king's letter, snowed it down, and rentThe wonder of the loom through warp and woofFrom skirt to skirt; and at the last he swareThat he would send a hundred thousand men,And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chewedThe thrice-turned cud of wrath, and cooked 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 liesIn this report, this answer of a king,Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable:Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen,Whate'er my grief to find her less than 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:Through her this matter might be sifted clean.'And Cyril whispered: 'Take me with you too.'Then laughing 'what, if these weird seizures comeUpon you in those lands, and no one nearTo point you out the shadow from the truth!Take me: I'll serve you better in a strait;I grate on rusty hinges here:' but 'No!'Roared the rough king, 'you shall not; we ourselfWill crush her pretty maiden fancies deadIn iron gauntlets: break the council up.'But when the council broke, I rose and pastThrough the wild woods that hung about the town;Found a still place, and plucked her likeness out;Laid it on flowers, and watched it lying bathedIn the green gleam of dewy-tasselled trees:What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth?Proud looked the lips: but while I meditatedA wind arose and rushed upon the South,And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieksOf the wild woods together; and a VoiceWent with it, 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win.'Then, ere the silver sickle of that monthBecame her golden shield, I stole from courtWith Cyril and with Florian, unperceived,Cat-footed through the town and half in dreadTo hear my father's clamour at our backsWith Ho! from some bay-window shake the night;But all was quiet: from the bastioned wallsLike threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt,And flying reached the frontier: then we crostTo a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange,And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness,We gained the mother city thick with towers,And in the imperial palace found the king.His name was Gama; cracked and small his voice,But bland the smile that like a wrinkling windOn glassy water drove his cheek in lines;A little dry old man, without a star,Not like a king: three days he feasted us,And on the fourth I spake of why we came,And my bethrothed. 'You do us, Prince,' he said,Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,'All honour. We remember love ourselvesIn our sweet youth: there did a compact passLong summers back, a kind of ceremony—I think the year in which our olives failed.I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart,With my full heart: but there were widows here,Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;They fed her theories, in and out of placeMaintaining that with equal husbandryThe woman were an equal to the man.They harped on this; with this our banquets rang;Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk;Nothing but this; my very ears were hotTo hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held,Was all in all: they had but been, she thought,As children; they must lose the child, assumeThe woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,Too awful, sure, for what they treated of,But all she is and does is awful; odesAbout this losing of the child; and rhymesAnd dismal lyrics, prophesying changeBeyond all reason: these the women sang;And they that know such things—I sought but peace;No critic I—would call them masterpieces:They masteredme. At last she begged a boon,A certain summer-palace which I haveHard by your father's frontier: I said no,Yet being an easy man, gave it: and there,All wild to found an UniversityFor maidens, on the spur she fled; and moreWe know not,—only this: they see no men,Not even her brother Arac, nor the twinsHer brethren, though they love her, look upon herAs on a kind of paragon; and I(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breedDispute betwixt myself and mine: but since(And I confess with right) you think me boundIn some sort, I can give you letters to her;And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chanceAlmost at naked nothing.'Thus the king;And I, though nettled that he seemed to slurWith garrulous ease and oily courtesiesOur formal compact, yet, not less (all fretsBut chafing me on fire to find my bride)Went forth again with both my friends. We rodeMany a long league back to the North. At lastFrom hills, that looked across a land of hope,We dropt with evening on a rustic townSet in a gleaming river's crescent-curve,Close at the boundary of the liberties;There, entered an old hostel, called mine hostTo council, plied him with his richest wines,And showed the late-writ letters of the king.He with a long low sibilation, staredAs blank as death in marble; then exclaimedAverring it was clear against all rulesFor any man to go: but as his brainBegan 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 looked 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 aboutWas tilled by women; all the swine were sows,And all the dogs'—But while he jested thus,A thought flashed through me which I clothed in act,Remembering how we three presented MaidOr Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast,In masque or pageant at my father's court.We sent mine host to purchase female gear;He brought it, and himself, a sight to shakeThe midriff of despair with laughter, holpTo lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumesWe rustled: him we gave a costly bribeTo guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds,And boldly ventured on the liberties.We followed up the river as we rode,And rode till midnight when the college lightsBegan to glitter firefly-like in copseAnd linden alley: then we past an arch,Whereon a woman-statue rose with wingsFrom four winged horses dark against the stars;And some inscription ran along the front,But deep in shadow: further on we gainedA little street half garden and half house;But scarce could hear each other speak for noiseOf clocks and chimes, like silver hammers fallingOn silver anvils, and the splash and stirOf fountains spouted up and showering downIn meshes of the jasmine and the rose:And all about us pealed the nightingale,Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign,By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and EarthWith constellation and with continent,Above an entry: riding in, we called;A plump-armed Ostleress and a stable wenchCame running at the call, and helped us down.Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed,Full-blown, before us into rooms which gaveUpon a pillared porch, the bases lostIn laurel: her we asked of that and this,And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche' she said,'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest,Best-natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we,'One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote,In such a hand as when a field of cornBows all its ears before the roaring East;'Three ladies of the Northern empire prayYour Highness would enroll them with your own,As Lady Psyche's pupils.'This I sealed: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 seemedTo float about a glimmering night, and watchA full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swellOn some dark shore just seen that it was rich.
As through the land at eve we went,And plucked the ripened ears,We fell out, my wife and I,O we fell out I know not why,And kissed again with tears.And blessings on the falling outThat all the more endears,When we fall out with those we loveAnd kiss again with tears!For when we came where lies the childWe lost in other years,There above the little grave,O there above the little grave,We kissed again with tears.
At break of day the College Portress came:She brought us Academic silks, in hueThe 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 knowThe Princess Ida waited: out we paced,I first, and following through the porch that sangAll round with laurel, issued in a courtCompact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengthsOf classic frieze, with ample awnings gayBetwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes,Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst;And here and there on lattice edges layOr 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 couched beside her throne,All beauty compassed in a female form,The Princess; liker to the inhabitantOf 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 downFrom over her arched brows, with every turnLived through her to the tips of her long hands,And to her feet. She rose her height, and said:'We give you welcome: not without redoundOf use and glory to yourselves ye come,The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,And that full voice which circles round the grave,Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.What! are the ladies of your land so tall?''We of the court' said Cyril. 'From the court'She answered, 'then ye know the Prince?' and he:'The climax of his age! as though there wereOne rose in all the world, your Highness that,He worships your ideal:' she replied:'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hearThis barren verbiage, current among men,Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seemAs arguing love of knowledge and of power;Your language proves you still the child. Indeed,We dream not of him: when we set our handTo this great work, we purposed with ourselfNever to wed. You likewise will do well,Ladies, in entering here, to cast and flingThe tricks, which make us toys of men, that so,Some future time, if so indeed you will,You may with those self-styled our lords allyYour fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'At those high words, we conscious of ourselves,Perused the matting: then an officerRose up, and read the statutes, such as these:Not for three years to correspond with home;Not for three years to cross the liberties;Not for three years to speak with any men;And many more, which hastily subscribed,We entered on the boards: and 'Now,' she cried,'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall!Our statues!—not of those that men desire,Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode,Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but sheThat taught the Sabine how to rule, and sheThe foundress of the Babylonian wall,The Carian Artemisia strong in war,The Rhodope, that built the pyramid,Clelia, Cornelia, with the PalmyreneThat fought Aurelian, and the Roman browsOf Agrippina. Dwell with these, and loseConvention, since to look on noble formsMakes noble through the sensuous organismThat which is higher. O lift your natures up:Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls,Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed:Drink deep, until the habits of the slave,The sins of emptiness, gossip and spiteAnd slander, die. Better not be at allThan not be noble. Leave us: you may go:Today the Lady Psyche will harangueThe fresh arrivals of the week before;For they press in from all the provinces,And fill the hive.'She spoke, and bowing wavedDismissal: back again we crost the courtTo Lady Psyche's: as we entered in,There sat along the forms, like morning dovesThat sun their milky bosoms on the thatch,A patient range of pupils; she herselfErect behind a desk of satin-wood,A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed,And on the hither side, or so she looked,Of twenty summers. At her left, a child,In shining draperies, headed like a star,Her maiden babe, a double April old,Aglaïa slept. We sat: the Lady glanced:Then Florian, but not livelier than the dameThat whispered 'Asses' ears', among the sedge,'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all that's fair,'Said Cyril. 'Oh hush, hush!' and she began.'This world was once a fluid haze of light,Till toward the centre set the starry tides,And eddied into suns, that wheeling castThe planets: then the monster, then the man;Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins,Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate;As yet we find in barbarous isles, and hereAmong the lowest.'Thereupon she tookA bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past;Glanced at the legendary AmazonAs emblematic of a nobler age;Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of thoseThat lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo;Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman linesOf empire, and the woman's state in each,How far from just; till warming with her themeShe fulmined out her scorn of laws SaliqueAnd little-footed China, touched on MahometWith much contempt, and came to chivalry:When some respect, however slight, was paidTo woman, superstition all awry:However then commenced the dawn: a beamHad slanted forward, falling in a landOf promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed,Their debt of thanks to her who first had daredTo leap the rotten pales of prejudice,Disyoke their necks from custom, and assertNone lordlier than themselves but that which madeWoman and man. She had founded; they must build.Here might they learn whatever men were taught:Let them not fear: some said their heads were less:Some men's were small; not they the least of men;For often fineness compensated size:Besides the brain was like the hand, and grewWith using; thence the man's, if more was more;He took advantage of his strength to beFirst in the field: some ages had been lost;But woman ripened earlier, and her lifeWas longer; and albeit their glorious namesWere fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truthThe 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 soWith woman: and in arts of governmentElizabeth and others; arts of warThe peasant Joan and others; arts of graceSappho and others vied with any man:And, last not least, she who had left her place,And bowed her state to them, that they might growTo use and power on this Oasis, laptIn the arms of leisure, sacred from the blightOf ancient influence and scorn.At lastShe rose upon a wind of prophecyDilating on the future; 'everywhereWho 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 abyssOf science, and the secrets of the mind:Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:And everywhere the broad and bounteous EarthShould bear a double growth of those rare souls,Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world.'She ended here, and beckoned us: the restParted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, sheBegan to address us, and was moving onIn gratulation, till as when a boatTacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voiceFaltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried'My brother!' 'Well, my sister.' 'O,' she said,'What do you here? and in this dress? and these?Why who are these? a wolf within the fold!A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me!A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all!''No plot, no plot,' he answered. 'Wretched boy,How saw you not the inscription on the gate,LET NO MAN ENTER IN ON PAIN OF DEATH?''And if I had,' he answered, 'who could thinkThe softer Adams of your Academe,O sister, Sirens though they be, were suchAs chanted on the blanching bones of men?''But you will find it otherwise' she said.'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vowBinds me to speak, and O that iron will,That axelike edge unturnable, our Head,The Princess.' 'Well then, Psyche, take my life,And nail me like a weasel on a grangeFor warning: bury me beside the gate,And cut this epitaph above my bones;Here lies a brother by a sister slain,All for the common good of womankind.''Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having seenAnd heard the Lady Psyche.'I struck in:'Albeit so masked, Madam, I love the truth;Receive it; and in me behold the PrinceYour countryman, affianced years agoTo the Lady Ida: here, for here she was,And thus (what other way was left) I came.''O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none;If any, this; but none. Whate'er I wasDisrooted, what I am is grafted here.Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breatheWithin this vestal limit, and how should I,Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderboltHangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls.''Yet pause,' I said: 'for that inscription there,I think no more of deadly lurks therein,Than in a clapper clapping in a garth,To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be,If more and acted on, what follows? war;Your own work marred: for this your Academe,Whichever side be Victor, in the hallooWill topple to the trumpet down, and passWith all fair theories only made to gildA stormless summer.' 'Let the Princess judgeOf that' she said: 'farewell, Sir—and to you.I shudder at the sequel, but I go.''Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoined,'The fifth in line from that old Florian,Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle browSun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights)As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell,And all else fled? we point to it, and we say,The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold,But branches current yet in kindred veins.''Are you that Psyche,' Florian added; 'sheWith whom I sang about the morning hills,Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly,And snared the squirrel of the glen? are youThat Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow,To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming draughtOf fever, tell me pleasant tales, and readMy sickness down to happy dreams? are youThat brother-sister Psyche, both in one?You were that Psyche, but what are you now?''You are that Psyche,' said Cyril, 'for whomI would be that for ever which I seem,Woman, if I might sit beside your feet,And glean your scattered sapience.'Then once more,'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began,'That on her bridal morn before she pastFrom all her old companions, when the kindKissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient tiesWould still be dear beyond the southern hills;That were there any of our people thereIn want or peril, there was one to hearAnd help them? look! for such are these and I.''Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to whom,In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawnCame flying while you sat beside the well?The creature laid his muzzle on your lap,And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the bloodWas sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept.That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept.O by the bright head of my little niece,You were that Psyche, and what are you now?''You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again,'The mother of the sweetest little maid,That ever crowed for kisses.''Out upon it!'She answered, 'peace! and why should I not playThe Spartan Mother with emotion, beThe Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind?Him you call great: he for the common weal,The fading politics of mortal Rome,As I might slay this child, if good need were,Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whomThe secular emancipation turnsOf half this world, be swerved from right to saveA prince, a brother? a little will I yield.Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.O hard, when love and duty clash! I fearMy conscience will not count me fleckless; yet—Hear my conditions: promise (otherwiseYou perish) as you came, to slip awayToday, tomorrow, soon: it shall be said,These women were too barbarous, would not learn;They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.'What could we else, we promised each; and she,Like some wild creature newly-caged, commencedA to-and-fro, so pacing till she pausedBy Florian; holding out her lily armsTook both his hands, and smiling faintly said:'I knew you at the first: though you have grownYou scarce have altered: I am sad and gladTo see you, Florian.Igive thee to deathMy brother! it was duty spoke, not I.My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.Our mother, is she well?'With that she kissedHis forehead, then, a moment after, clungAbout him, and betwixt them blossomed upFrom out a common vein of memorySweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth,And far allusion, till the gracious dewsBegan to glisten and to fall: and whileThey stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,'I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.'Back started she, and turning round we sawThe Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,Melissa, with her hand upon the lock,A rosy blonde, and in a college gown,That clad her like an April daffodilly(Her mother's colour) with her lips apart,And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes,As bottom agates seen to wave and floatIn crystal currents of clear morning seas.So stood that same fair creature at the door.Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah—Melissa—you!You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O pardon meI heard, I could not help it, did not wish:But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not,Nor think I bear that heart within my breast,To give three gallant gentlemen to death.''I trust you,' said the other, 'for we twoWere always friends, none closer, elm and vine:But yet your mother's jealous temperament—Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or proveThe Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fearThis whole foundation ruin, and I loseMy honour, these their lives.' 'Ah, fear me not'Replied Melissa; 'no—I would not tell,No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness,No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard thingsThat Sheba came to ask of Solomon.''Be it so' the other, 'that we still may leadThe new light up, and culminate in peace,For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.'Said Cyril, 'Madam, he the wisest manFeasted the woman wisest then, in hallsOf Lebanonian cedar: nor should you(Though, Madam,youshould answer,wewould ask)Less welcome find among us, if you cameAmong us, debtors for our lives to you,Myself for something more.' He said not what,But 'Thanks,' she answered 'Go: we have been too longTogether: keep your hoods about the face;They do so that affect abstraction here.Speak little; mix not with the rest; and holdYour promise: all, I trust, may yet be well.'We turned to go, but Cyril took the child,And held her round the knees against his waist,And blew the swollen cheek of a trumpeter,While Psyche watched them, smiling, and the childPushed her flat hand against his face and laughed;And thus our conference closed.And then we strolledFor half the day through stately theatresBenched crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heardThe grave Professor. On the lecture slateThe circle rounded under female handsWith flawless demonstration: followed thenA classic lecture, rich in sentiment,With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted outBy violet-hooded Doctors, elegiesAnd quoted odes, and jewels five-words-longThat on the stretched forefinger of all TimeSparkle for ever: then we dipt in allThat treats of whatsoever is, the state,The total chronicles of man, the mind,The morals, something of the frame, the rock,The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower,Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest,And whatsoever can be taught and known;Till like three horses that have broken fence,And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn,We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke:'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.''They hunt old trails' said Cyril 'very well;But when did woman ever yet invent?''Ungracious!' answered Florian; 'have you learntNo more from Psyche's lecture, you that talkedThe trash that made me sick, and almost sad?''O trash' he said, 'but with a kernel in it.Should I not call her wise, who made me wise?And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash,Than in my brainpan were an empty hull,And every Muse tumbled a science in.A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls,And round these halls a thousand baby lovesFly twanging headless arrows at the hearts,Whence follows many a vacant pang; but OWith me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy,The Head of all the golden-shafted firm,The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too;He cleft me through the stomacher; and nowWhat think you of it, Florian? do I chaseThe substance or the shadow? will it hold?I have no sorcerer's malison on me,No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. IFlatter myself that always everywhereI know the substance when I see it. Well,Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is sheThe sweet proprietress a shadow? If not,Shall those three castles patch my tattered coat?For dear are those three castles to my wants,And dear is sister Psyche to my heart,And two dear things are one of double worth,And much I might have said, but that my zoneUnmanned me: then the Doctors! O to hearThe Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plantsImbibing! once or twice I thought to roar,To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou,Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry!Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat;Abase those eyes that ever loved to meetStar-sisters answering under crescent brows;Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and looseA flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek,Where they like swallows coming out of timeWill wonder why they came: but hark the bellFor dinner, let us go!'And in we streamedAmong the columns, pacing staid and stillBy twos and threes, till all from end to endWith beauties every shade of brown and fairIn colours gayer than the morning mist,The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers.How might a man not wander from his witsPierced through with eyes, but that I kept mine ownIntent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams,The second-sight of some Astræan age,Sat compassed with professors: they, the while,Discussed a doubt and tost it to and fro:A clamour thickened, mixt with inmost termsOf art and science: Lady Blanche aloneOf faded form and haughtiest lineaments,With all her autumn tresses falsely brown,Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-catIn act to spring.At last a solemn graceConcluded, and we sought the gardens: thereOne walked reciting by herself, and oneIn this hand held a volume as to read,And smoothed a petted peacock down with that:Some to a low song oared a shallop by,Or under arches of the marble bridgeHung, shadowed from the heat: some hid and soughtIn the orange thickets: others tost a ballAbove the fountain-jets, and back againWith laughter: others lay about the lawns,Of the older sort, and murmured that their MayWas passing: what was learning unto them?They wished to marry; they could rule a house;Men hated learned women: but we threeSat muffled like the Fates; and often cameMelissa hitting all we saw with shaftsOf gentle satire, kin to charity,That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bellsCalled us: we left the walks; we mixt with thoseSix hundred maidens clad in purest white,Before two streams of light from wall to wall,While the great organ almost burst his pipes,Groaning for power, and rolling through the courtA long melodious thunder to the soundOf solemn psalms, and silver litanies,The work of Ida, to call down from HeavenA blessing on her labours for the world.