The Princess | Page 5

her some
great Princess, six feet high,
Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you

The 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 experiments
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, if they will,
From time
to time, some ballad or a song
To give us breathing-space.'
So I began,
And the rest followed: 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.
I
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 burnt
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,

Dying, that none of all our blood should know
The shadow from the
substance, and that one
Should 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 wand
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands

Reached out, and picked offenders from the mass
For judgment.
Now it chanced that I had been,
While life was yet in bud and blade,
bethrothed
To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me
Was
proxy-wedded with a bootless calf
At eight years old; and still from
time to time
Came 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 both
Sweet thoughts
would swarm as bees about their queen.
But when the days drew nigh that I should wed,
My father sent
ambassadors with furs
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought
back
A 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 alone
Among
her women; certain, would not wed.
That morning in the presence room I stood
With Cyril and with
Florian, my two friends:
The first, a gentleman of broken means

(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts
Of revel; and the last,
my other heart,
And almost my half-self, for still we moved

Together, twinned as horse's ear and eye.
Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face
Grow long and

troubled like a rising moon,
Inflamed with wrath: he started on his
feet,
Tore the king's letter, snowed it down, and rent
The wonder of
the loom through warp and woof
From skirt to skirt; and at the last he
sware
That he would send a hundred thousand men,
And bring her
in a whirlwind: then he chewed
The 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 lies
In 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 come
Upon you in those lands, and no
one near
To 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 ourself
Will crush her
pretty maiden fancies dead
In iron gauntlets: break the council up.'
But when the council broke, I rose and past
Through