The Princess | Page 3

licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This Etext prepared by ddNg E-Ching >
This is a prototype copy! A more presentable version will be coming up after my exams.
The Princess?by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
PROLOGUE
Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day?Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun?Up to the people: thither flocked at noon?His tenants, wife and child, and thither half?The neighbouring borough with their Institute?Of which he was the patron. I was there?From college, visiting the son,--the son?A 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 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,?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 chronicle?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 armed?Her 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-besieged?By 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 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 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 Elizabeth?And 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, 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 reared 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 answered 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?Dislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lake?A little clock-work steamer paddling plied?And shook the lilies: perched 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 through twenty posts of telegraph?They flashed a saucy message to and fro?Between the mimic stations; so that sport?Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere?Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowled?And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about?Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids?Arranged a country dance, and flew through 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?Came to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-claspt,?Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire,?Through 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 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 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 joined them: then the maiden Aunt?Took this fair day for text, and from it preached?An universal culture for the crowd,?And all things great; but we, unworthier, told?Of