The Princess | Page 9

if I had,' he answered, 'who could think

The softer Adams of your Academe,
O sister, Sirens though they be,
were such
As chanted on the blanching bones of men?'
'But you
will find it otherwise' she said.
'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools!
my vow
Binds 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 grange
For 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 seen
And heard the Lady Psyche.'
I struck in:
'Albeit so masked, 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.'
'O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none;
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 thunderbolt


Hangs 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
halloo
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass
With all fair
theories only made to gild
A stormless summer.' 'Let the Princess
judge
Of 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 brow
Sun-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; 'she
With whom I sang about the morning hills,
Flung ball,
flew kite, and raced the purple fly,
And snared the squirrel of the glen?
are you
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow,
To smoothe
my pillow, mix the foaming draught
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales,
and read
My sickness down to happy dreams? are you
That
brother-sister Psyche, both in one?
You were that Psyche, but what
are you now?'
'You are that Psyche,' said Cyril, 'for whom
I 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 past
From all her old companions, when the
kind

Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties
Would still be
dear beyond the southern hills;
That were there any of our people
there
In want or peril, there was one to hear
And help them? look!
for such are these and I.'
'Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to
whom,
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn
Came flying

while you sat beside the well?
The creature laid his muzzle on your
lap,
And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood
Was
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 play
The
Spartan Mother with emotion, be
The 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 whom
The secular
emancipation turns
Of half this world, be swerved from right to save

A 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 fear
My
conscience will not count me fleckless; yet--
Hear my conditions:
promise (otherwise
You perish) as you came, to slip away
Today,
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, commenced
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she
paused
By Florian; holding out her lily arms
Took both his hands,
and smiling faintly said:
'I knew you at the first: though you have
grown
You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad
To see you,
Florian. ~I~ give thee to death
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I.

My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.
Our mother, is she well?'
With that she kissed
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung

About him, and betwixt them blossomed up
From out a common vein
of memory
Sweet household