The Princess | Page 5

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 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 bathed?In the green gleam of dewy-tasselled trees:?What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth??Proud looked the lips: but while I meditated?A wind arose and rushed upon the South,?And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks?Of the wild woods together; and a Voice?Went with it, 'Follow,