The Princess | Page 7

each other speak for noise?Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling?On silver anvils, and the splash and stir?Of fountains spouted up and showering down?In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:?And all about us pealed the nightingale,?Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.
There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign,?By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth?With constellation and with continent,?Above an entry: riding in, we called;?A plump-armed Ostleress and a stable wench?Came running at the call, and helped us down.?Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed,?Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave?Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost?In laurel: her we asked of that and this,?And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche' she said,?'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest,?Best-natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we,'?One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote,?In such a hand as when a field of corn?Bows all its ears before the roaring East;
'Three ladies of the Northern empire pray?Your Highness would enroll them with your own,?As Lady Psyche's pupils.'
This I sealed:?The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll,?And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung,?And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes:?I gave the letter to be sent with dawn;?And then to bed, where half in doze I seemed?To float about a glimmering night, and watch?A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell?On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.
As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,?We fell out, my wife and I,?O we fell out I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.?And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,?When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!?For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,?There above the little grave,?O there above the little grave,
We kissed again with tears.
II
At break of day the College Portress came:?She brought us Academic silks, in hue?The lilac, with a silken hood to each,?And zoned with gold; and now when these were on,?And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons,?She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know?The Princess Ida waited: out we paced,?I first, and following through the porch that sang?All round with laurel, issued in a court?Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths?Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay?Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.?The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes,?Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst;?And here and there on lattice edges lay?Or book or lute; but hastily we past,?And up a flight of stairs into the hall.
There at a board by tome and paper sat,?With two tame leopards couched beside her throne,?All beauty compassed in a female form,?The Princess; liker to the inhabitant?Of some clear planet close upon the Sun,?Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head,?And so much grace and power, breathing down?From over her arched brows, with every turn?Lived through her to the tips of her long hands,?And to her feet. She rose her height, and said:
'We give you welcome: not without redound?Of use and glory to yourselves ye come,?The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,?And that full voice which circles round the grave,?Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.?What! are the ladies of your land so tall?'?'We of the court' said Cyril. 'From the court'?She answered, 'then ye know the Prince?' and he:?'The climax of his age! as though there were?One rose in all the world, your Highness that,?He worships your ideal:' she replied:?'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear?This barren verbiage, current among men,?Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.?Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem?As arguing love of knowledge and of power;?Your language proves you still the child. Indeed,?We dream not of him: when we set our hand?To this great work, we purposed with ourself?Never to wed. You likewise will do well,?Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling?The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so,?Some future time, if so indeed you will,?You may with those self-styled our lords ally?Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'
At those high words, we conscious of ourselves,?Perused the matting: then an officer?Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these:?Not for three years to correspond with home;?Not for three years to cross the liberties;?Not for three years to speak with any men;?And many more, which hastily subscribed,?We entered on the boards: and 'Now,' she cried,?'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall!?Our statues!--not of those that men desire,?Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode,?Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she?That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she?The foundress of the Babylonian wall,?The Carian Artemisia strong in war,?The Rhodope, that built the pyramid,?Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene?That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows?Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose?Convention, since