The Princess | Page 6

follow, thou shalt win.'
Then, ere the silver sickle of that month?Became her golden shield, I stole from court?With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived,?Cat-footed through the town and half in dread?To hear my father's clamour at our backs?With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night;?But all was quiet: from the bastioned walls?Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt,?And flying reached the frontier: then we crost?To 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 wind?On 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 ourselves?In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass?Long 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 place?Maintaining that with equal husbandry?The 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 hot?To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held,?Was all in all: they had but been, she thought,?As children; they must lose the child, assume?The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,?Too awful, sure, for what they treated of,?But all she is and does is awful; odes?About this losing of the child; and rhymes?And dismal lyrics, prophesying change?Beyond all reason: these the women sang;?And they that know such things--I sought but peace;?No critic I--would call them masterpieces:?They mastered ~me~. At last she begged a boon,?A certain summer-palace which I have?Hard by your father's frontier: I said no,?Yet being an easy man, gave it: and there,?All wild to found an University?For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more?We know not,--only this: they see no men,?Not even her brother Arac, nor the twins?Her brethren, though they love her, look upon her?As on a kind of paragon; and I?(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed?Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but since?(And I confess with right) you think me bound?In some sort, I can give you letters to her;?And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance?Almost at naked nothing.'
Thus the king;?And I, though nettled that he seemed to slur?With garrulous ease and oily courtesies?Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets?But chafing me on fire to find my bride)?Went forth again with both my friends. We rode?Many a long league back to the North. At last?From hills, that looked across a land of hope,?We dropt with evening on a rustic town?Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve,?Close at the boundary of the liberties;?There, entered an old hostel, called mine host?To council, plied him with his richest wines,?And showed the late-writ letters of the king.
He with a long low sibilation, stared?As blank as death in marble; then exclaimed?Averring it was clear against all rules?For any man to go: but as his brain?Began 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 about?Was 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 Maid?Or 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 shake?The midriff of despair with laughter, holp?To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes?We rustled: him we gave a costly bribe?To 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 lights?Began to glitter firefly-like in copse?And linden alley: then we past an arch,?Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings?From four winged horses dark against the stars;?And some inscription ran along the front,?But deep in shadow: further on we gained?A little street half garden and half house;?But scarce could hear