IV

'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,

If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'

Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we

Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,

By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft,

Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below

No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent

Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me,

Descending; once or twice she lent her hand,

And blissful palpitations in the blood,

Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell.

But when we planted level feet, and dipt

Beneath the satin dome and entered in,

There leaning deep in broidered down we sank

Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst

A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed

Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.

Then she, 'Let some one sing to us: lightlier move

The minutes fledged with music:' and a maid,

Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang.

'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

'Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

'Dear as remembered kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned

On lips that are for others; deep as love,

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;

O Death in Life, the days that are no more.'

She ended with such passion that the tear,

She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl

Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain

Answered the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt

About the mouldered lodges of the Past

So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men,

Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool

And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatched

In silken-folded idleness; nor is it

Wiser to weep a true occasion lost,

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be,

While down the streams that float us each and all

To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice,

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste

Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time

Toward that great year of equal mights and rights,

Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end

Found golden: let the past be past; let be

Their cancelled Babels: though the rough kex break

The starred mosaic, and the beard-blown goat

Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split

Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear

A trumpet in the distance pealing news

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns

Above the unrisen morrow:' then to me;

'Know you no song of your own land,' she said,

'Not such as moans about the retrospect,

But deals with the other distance and the hues

Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.'

Then I remembered one myself had made,

What time I watched the swallow winging south

From mine own land, part made long since, and part

Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far

As I could ape their treble, did I sing.

'O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,

Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,

And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,

That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,

And dark and true and tender is the North.

'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light

Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,

And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

'O were I thou that she might take me in,

And lay me on her bosom, and her heart

Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,

Delaying as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,

But in the North long since my nest is made.

'O tell her, brief is life but love is long,

And brief the sun of summer in the North,

And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,

Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,

And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each,

Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time,

Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips,

And knew not what they meant; for still my voice

Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said,

'O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan

Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid,

Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake

Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this

A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend,

We hold them slight: they mind us of the time

When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men,

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness,

And dress the victim to the offering up,

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise,

And play the slave to gain the tyranny.

Poor soul! I had a maid of honour once;

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one,

A rogue of canzonets and serenades.

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead.

So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song

Used to great ends: ourself have often tried

Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed

The passion of the prophetess; for song

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth

Of spirit than to junketing and love.

Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats,

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered

Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough!

But now to leaven play with profit, you,

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil,

That gives the manners of your country-women?'

She spoke and turned her sumptuous head with eyes

Of shining expectation fixt on mine.

Then while I dragged my brains for such a song,

Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought,

Or mastered by the sense of sport, began

To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch

Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him,

I frowning; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook;

The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows;

'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 'Forbear, Sir' I;

And heated through and through with wrath and love,

I smote him on the breast; he started up;

There rose a shriek as of a city sacked;

Melissa clamoured 'Flee the death;' 'To horse'

Said Ida; 'home! to horse!' and fled, as flies

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk,

When some one batters at the dovecote-doors,

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart,

In the pavilion: there like parting hopes

I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof,

And every hoof a knell to my desires,

Clanged on the bridge; and then another shriek,

'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!'

For blind with rage she missed the plank, and rolled

In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom:

There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch

Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave,

No more; but woman-vested as I was

Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left

The weight of all the hopes of half the world,

Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree

Was half-disrooted from his place and stooped

To wrench his dark locks in the gurgling wave

Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught,

And grasping down the boughs I gained the shore.

There stood her maidens glimmeringly grouped

In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew

My burthen from mine arms; they cried 'she lives:'

They bore her back into the tent: but I,

So much a kind of shame within me wrought,

Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes,

Nor found my friends; but pushed alone on foot

(For since her horse was lost I left her mine)

Across the woods, and less from Indian craft

Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length

The garden portals. Two great statues, Art

And Science, Caryatids, lifted up

A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves

Of open-work in which the hunter rued

His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows

Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon

Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates.

A little space was left between the horns,

Through which I clambered o'er at top with pain,

Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks,

And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue,

Now poring on the glowworm, now the star,

I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled

Through a great arc his seven slow suns.

A step

Of lightest echo, then a loftier form

Than female, moving through the uncertain gloom,

Disturbed me with the doubt 'if this were she,'

But it was Florian. 'Hist O Hist,' he said,

'They seek us: out so late is out of rules.

Moreover "seize the strangers" is the cry.

How came you here?' I told him: 'I' said he,

'Last of the train, a moral leper, I,

To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned.

Arriving all confused among the rest

With hooded brows I crept into the hall,

And, couched behind a Judith, underneath

The head of Holofernes peeped and saw.

Girl after girl was called to trial: each

Disclaimed all knowledge of us: last of all,

Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her.

She, questioned if she knew us men, at first

Was silent; closer prest, denied it not:

And then, demanded if her mother knew,

Or Psyche, she affirmed not, or denied:

From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her,

Easily gathered either guilt. She sent

For Psyche, but she was not there; she called

For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors;

She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face;

And I slipt out: but whither will you now?

And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled:

What, if together? that were not so well.

Would rather we had never come! I dread

His wildness, and the chances of the dark.'

'And yet,' I said, 'you wrong him more than I

That struck him: this is proper to the clown,

Though smocked, or furred and purpled, still the clown,

To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame

That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er

He deal in frolic, as tonight--the song

Might have been worse and sinned in grosser lips

Beyond all pardon--as it is, I hold

These flashes on the surface are not he.

He has a solid base of temperament:

But as the waterlily starts and slides

Upon the level in little puffs of wind,

Though anchored to the bottom, such is he.'

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near

Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names:'

He, standing still, was clutched; but I began

To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind

And double in and out the boles, and race

By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot:

Before me showered the rose in flakes; behind

I heard the puffed pursuer; at mine ear

Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not,

And secret laughter tickled all my soul.

At last I hooked my ankle in a vine,

That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne,

And falling on my face was caught and known.

They haled us to the Princess where she sat

High in the hall: above her drooped a lamp,

And made the single jewel on her brow

Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head,

Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each side

Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair

Damp from the river; and close behind her stood

Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men,

Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,

And labour. Each was like a Druid rock;

Or like a spire of land that stands apart

Cleft from the main, and wailed about with mews.

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove

An advent to the throne: and therebeside,

Half-naked as if caught at once from bed

And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay

The lily-shining child; and on the left,

Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong,

Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs,

Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect

Stood up and spake, an affluent orator.

'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days:

You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips:

I led you then to all the Castalies;

I fed you with the milk of every Muse;

I loved you like this kneeler, and you me

Your second mother: those were gracious times.

Then came your new friend: you began to change--

I saw it and grieved--to slacken and to cool;

Till taken with her seeming openness

You turned your warmer currents all to her,

To me you froze: this was my meed for all.

Yet I bore up in part from ancient love,

And partly that I hoped to win you back,

And partly conscious of my own deserts,

And partly that you were my civil head,

And chiefly you were born for something great,

In which I might your fellow-worker be,

When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme

Grew up from seed we two long since had sown;

In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd,

Up in one night and due to sudden sun:

We took this palace; but even from the first

You stood in your own light and darkened mine.

What student came but that you planed her path

To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise,

A foreigner, and I your countrywoman,

I your old friend and tried, she new in all?

But still her lists were swelled and mine were lean;

Yet I bore up in hope she would be known:

Then came these wolves: _they_ knew her: _they_ endured,

Long-closeted with her the yestermorn,

To tell her what they were, and she to hear:

And me none told: not less to an eye like mine

A lidless watcher of the public weal,

Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot

Was to you: but I thought again: I feared

To meet a cold "We thank you, we shall hear of it

From Lady Psyche:" you had gone to her,

She told, perforce; and winning easy grace

No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us

In our young nursery still unknown, the stem

Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat

Were all miscounted as malignant haste

To push my rival out of place and power.

But public use required she should be known;

And since my oath was ta'en for public use,

I broke the letter of it to keep the sense.

I spoke not then at first, but watched them well,

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done;

And yet this day (though you should hate me for it)

I came to tell you; found that you had gone,

Ridden to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought,

That surely she will speak; if not, then I:

Did she? These monsters blazoned what they were,

According to the coarseness of their kind,

For thus I hear; and known at last (my work)

And full of cowardice and guilty shame,

I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies;

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage,

I, that have lent my life to build up yours,

I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time,

And talent, I--you know it--I will not boast:

Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan,

Divorced from my experience, will be chaff

For every gust of chance, and men will say

We did not know the real light, but chased

The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.'

She ceased: the Princess answered coldly, 'Good:

Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go.

For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child)

Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself.'

Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat,

And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile.

'The plan was mine. I built the nest' she said

'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!' and stooped to updrag

Melissa: she, half on her mother propt,

Half-drooping from her, turned her face, and cast

A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer,

Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung,

A Niobëan daughter, one arm out,

Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while

We gazed upon her came a little stir

About the doors, and on a sudden rushed

Among us, out of breath as one pursued,

A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear

Stared in her eyes, and chalked her face, and winged

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell

Delivering sealed dispatches which the Head

Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood

Tore open, silent we with blind surmise

Regarding, while she read, till over brow

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom

As of some fire against a stormy cloud,

When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick

Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens;

For anger most it seemed, while now her breast,

Beaten with some great passion at her heart,

Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard

In the dead hush the papers that she held

Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feet

Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam;

The plaintive cry jarred on her ire; she crushed

The scrolls together, made a sudden turn

As if to speak, but, utterance failing her,

She whirled them on to me, as who should say

'Read,' and I read--two letters--one her sire's.

'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way,

We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt,

We, conscious of what temper you are built,

Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell

Into his father's hands, who has this night,

You lying close upon his territory,

Slipt round and in the dark invested you,

And here he keeps me hostage for his son.'

The second was my father's running thus:

'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head:

Render him up unscathed: give him your hand:

Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear

You hold the woman is the better man;

A rampant heresy, such as if it spread

Would make all women kick against their Lords

Through all the world, and which might well deserve

That we this night should pluck your palace down;

And we will do it, unless you send us back

Our son, on the instant, whole.'

So far I read;

And then stood up and spoke impetuously.

'O not to pry and peer on your reserve,

But led by golden wishes, and a hope

The child of regal compact, did I break

Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex

But venerator, zealous it should be

All that it might be: hear me, for I bear,

Though man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs,

From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life

Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you;

I babbled for you, as babies for the moon,

Vague brightness; when a boy, you stooped to me

From all high places, lived in all fair lights,

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south

And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn

With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods;

The leader wildswan in among the stars

Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light

The mellow breaker murmured Ida. Now,

Because I would have reached you, had you been

Sphered up with Cassiopëia, or the enthroned

Persephonè in Hades, now at length,

Those winters of abeyance all worn out,

A man I came to see you: but indeed,

Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue,

O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait

On you, their centre: let me say but this,

That many a famous man and woman, town

And landskip, have I heard of, after seen

The dwarfs of presage: though when known, there grew

Another kind of beauty in detail

Made them worth knowing; but in you I found

My boyish dream involved and dazzled down

And mastered, while that after-beauty makes

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour,

Within me, that except you slay me here,

According to your bitter statute-book,

I cannot cease to follow you, as they say

The seal does music; who desire you more

Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips,

With many thousand matters left to do,

The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth,

Than sick men health--yours, yours, not mine--but half

Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves

You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar

Your heart with system out from mine, I hold

That it becomes no man to nurse despair,

But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms

To follow up the worthiest till he die:

Yet that I came not all unauthorized

Behold your father's letter.'

On one knee

Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed

Unopened at her feet: a tide of fierce

Invective seemed to wait behind her lips,

As waits a river level with the dam

Ready to burst and flood the world with foam:

And so she would have spoken, but there rose

A hubbub in the court of half the maids

Gathered together: from the illumined hall

Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press

Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,

And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes,

And gold and golden heads; they to and fro

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale,

All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light,

Some crying there was an army in the land,

And some that men were in the very walls,

And some they cared not; till a clamour grew

As of a new-world Babel, woman-built,

And worse-confounded: high above them stood

The placid marble Muses, looking peace.

Not peace she looked, the Head: but rising up

Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so

To the open window moved, remaining there

Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves

Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye

Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light

Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and called

Across the tumult and the tumult fell.

'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head?

On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: _I_ dare

All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear?

Peace! there are those to avenge us and they come:

If not,--myself were like enough, O girls,

To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights,

And clad in iron burst the ranks of war,

Or, falling, promartyr of our cause,

Die: yet I blame you not so much for fear:

Six thousand years of fear have made you that

From which I would redeem you: but for those

That stir this hubbub--you and you--I know

Your faces there in the crowd--tomorrow morn

We hold a great convention: then shall they

That love their voices more than duty, learn

With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live

No wiser than their mothers, household stuff,

Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,

Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown,

The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time,

Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels

But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum,

To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour,

For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.'

She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd

Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that looked

A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff,

When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom

Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said:

'You have done well and like a gentleman,

And like a prince: you have our thanks for all:

And you look well too in your woman's dress:

Well have you done and like a gentleman.

You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks:

Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood--

Then men had said--but now--What hinders me

To take such bloody vengeance on you both?--

Yet since our father--Wasps in our good hive,

You would-be quenchers of the light to be,

Barbarians, grosser than your native bears--

O would I had his sceptre for one hour!

You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled

Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us--

_I_ wed with thee! _I_ bound by precontract

Your bride, your bondslave! not though all the gold

That veins the world were packed to make your crown,

And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir,

Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:

I trample on your offers and on you:

Begone: we will not look upon you more.

Here, push them out at gates.'

In wrath she spake.

Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough

Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed

Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause,

But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands,

The weight of destiny: so from her face

They pushed us, down the steps, and through the court,

And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.

We crossed the street and gained a petty mound

Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard the voices murmuring.

While I listened, came

On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt:

I seemed to move among a world of ghosts;

The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard,

The jest and earnest working side by side,

The cataract and the tumult and the kings

Were shadows; and the long fantastic night

With all its doings had and had not been,

And all things were and were not.

This went by

As strangely as it came, and on my spirits

Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy;

Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts

And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one

To whom the touch of all mischance but came

As night to him that sitting on a hill

Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun

Set into sunrise; then we moved away.

Thy voice is heard through rolling drums,

That beat to battle where he stands;

Thy face across his fancy comes,

And gives the battle to his hands:

A moment, while the trumpets blow,

He sees his brood about thy knee;

The next, like fire he meets the foe,

And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possessed,

She struck such warbling fury through the words;

And, after, feigning pique at what she called

The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime--

Like one that wishes at a dance to change

The music--clapt her hands and cried for war,

Or some grand fight to kill and make an end:

And he that next inherited the tale

Half turning to the broken statue, said,

'Sir Ralph has got your colours: if I prove

Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me?'

It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb

Lay by her like a model of her hand.

She took it and she flung it. 'Fight' she said,

'And make us all we would be, great and good.'

He knightlike in his cap instead of casque,

A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall,

Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince.

V

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,

We stumbled on a stationary voice,

And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I.

'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on;

His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms,

By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led

Threading the soldier-city, till we heard

The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake

From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent

Whispers of war.

Entering, the sudden light

Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seemed to hear,

As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes

A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies,

Each hissing in his neighbour's ear; and then

A strangled titter, out of which there brake

On all sides, clamouring etiquette to death,

Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old kings

Began to wag their baldness up and down,

The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,

The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew,

And slain with laughter rolled the gilded Squire.

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears,

Panted from weary sides 'King, you are free!

We did but keep you surety for our son,

If this be he,--or a dragged mawkin, thou,

That tends to her bristled grunters in the sludge:'

For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers,

More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,

And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel.

Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm

A whispered jest to some one near him, 'Look,

He has been among his shadows.' 'Satan take

The old women and their shadows! (thus the King

Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men.

Go: Cyril told us all.'

As boys that slink

From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye,

Away we stole, and transient in a trice

From what was left of faded woman-slough

To sheathing splendours and the golden scale

Of harness, issued in the sun, that now

Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth,

And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us.

A little shy at first, but by and by

We twain, with mutual pardon asked and given

For stroke and song, resoldered peace, whereon

Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away

Through the dark land, and later in the night

Had come on Psyche weeping: 'then we fell

Into your father's hand, and there she lies,

But will not speak, or stir.'

He showed a tent

A stone-shot off: we entered in, and there

Among piled arms and rough accoutrements,

Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's cloak,

Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot,

And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal,

All her fair length upon the ground she lay:

And at her head a follower of the camp,

A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood,

Sat watching like the watcher by the dead.

Then Florian knelt, and 'Come' he whispered to her,

'Lift up your head, sweet sister: lie not thus.

What have you done but right? you could not slay

Me, nor your prince: look up: be comforted:

Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought,

When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise I:

'Be comforted: have I not lost her too,

In whose least act abides the nameless charm

That none has else for me?' She heard, she moved,

She moaned, a folded voice; and up she sat,

And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth

As those that mourn half-shrouded over death

In deathless marble. 'Her,' she said, 'my friend--

Parted from her--betrayed her cause and mine--

Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith?

O base and bad! what comfort? none for me!'

To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet I pray

Take comfort: live, dear lady, for your child!'

At which she lifted up her voice and cried.

'Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child,

My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more!

For now will cruel Ida keep her back;

And either she will die from want of care,

Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say

The child is hers--for every little fault,

The child is hers; and they will beat my girl

Remembering her mother: O my flower!

Or they will take her, they will make her hard,

And she will pass me by in after-life

With some cold reverence worse than were she dead.

Ill mother that I was to leave her there,

To lag behind, scared by the cry they made,

The horror of the shame among them all:

But I will go and sit beside the doors,

And make a wild petition night and day,

Until they hate to hear me like a wind

Wailing for ever, till they open to me,

And lay my little blossom at my feet,

My babe, my sweet Aglaïa, my one child:

And I will take her up and go my way,

And satisfy my soul with kissing her:

Ah! what might that man not deserve of me

Who gave me back my child?' 'Be comforted,'

Said Cyril, 'you shall have it:' but again

She veiled her brows, and prone she sank, and so

Like tender things that being caught feign death,

Spoke not, nor stirred.

By this a murmur ran

Through all the camp and inward raced the scouts

With rumour of Prince Arab hard at hand.

We left her by the woman, and without

Found the gray kings at parle: and 'Look you' cried

My father 'that our compact be fulfilled:

You have spoilt this child; she laughs at you and man:

She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him:

But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire;

She yields, or war.'

Then Gama turned to me:

'We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time

With our strange girl: and yet they say that still

You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large:

How say you, war or not?'

'Not war, if possible,

O king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war,

The desecrated shrine, the trampled year,

The smouldering homestead, and the household flower

Torn from the lintel--all the common wrong--

A smoke go up through which I loom to her

Three times a monster: now she lightens scorn

At him that mars her plan, but then would hate

(And every voice she talked with ratify it,

And every face she looked on justify it)

The general foe. More soluble is this knot,

By gentleness than war. I want her love.

What were I nigher this although we dashed

Your cities into shards with catapults,

She would not love;--or brought her chained, a slave,

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord,

Not ever would she love; but brooding turn

The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance

Were caught within the record of her wrongs,

And crushed to death: and rather, Sire, than this

I would the old God of war himself were dead,

Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills,

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck,

Or like an old-world mammoth bulked in ice,

Not to be molten out.'

And roughly spake

My father, 'Tut, you know them not, the girls.

Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think

That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir!

Man is the hunter; woman is his game:

The sleek and shining creatures of the chase,

We hunt them for the beauty of their skins;

They love us for it, and we ride them down.

Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame!

Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them

As he that does the thing they dare not do,

Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes

With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in

Among the women, snares them by the score

Flattered and flustered, wins, though dashed with death

He reddens what he kisses: thus I won

You mother, a good mother, a good wife,

Worth winning; but this firebrand--gentleness

To such as her! if Cyril spake her true,

To catch a dragon in a cherry net,

To trip a tigress with a gossamer

Were wisdom to it.'

'Yea but Sire,' I cried,

'Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No:

What dares not Ida do that she should prize

The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose

The yesternight, and storming in extremes,

Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down

Gagelike to man, and had not shunned the death,

No, not the soldier's: yet I hold her, king,

True woman: you clash them all in one,

That have as many differences as we.

The violet varies from the lily as far

As oak from elm: one loves the soldier, one

The silken priest of peace, one this, one that,

And some unworthily; their sinless faith,

A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty,

Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need

More breadth of culture: is not Ida right?

They worth it? truer to the law within?

Severer in the logic of a life?

Twice as magnetic to sweet influences

Of earth and heaven? and she of whom you speak,

My mother, looks as whole as some serene

Creation minted in the golden moods

Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch,

But pure as lines of green that streak the white

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say,

Not like the piebald miscellany, man,

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire,

But whole and one: and take them all-in-all,

Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind,

As truthful, much that Ida claims as right

Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs

As dues of Nature. To our point: not war:

Lest I lose all.'

'Nay, nay, you spake but sense'

Said Gama. 'We remember love ourself

In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then

This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows.

You talk almost like Ida: _she_ can talk;

And there is something in it as you say:

But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.--

He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince,

I would he had our daughter: for the rest,

Our own detention, why, the causes weighed,

Fatherly fears--you used us courteously--

We would do much to gratify your Prince--

We pardon it; and for your ingress here

Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land,

you did but come as goblins in the night,

Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head,

Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milking-maid,

Nor robbed the farmer of his bowl of cream:

But let your Prince (our royal word upon it,

He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines,

And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice

As ours with Ida: something may be done--

I know not what--and ours shall see us friends.

You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will,

Follow us: who knows? we four may build some plan

Foursquare to opposition.'

Here he reached

White hands of farewell to my sire, who growled

An answer which, half-muffled in his beard,

Let so much out as gave us leave to go.

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns

Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring

In every bole, a song on every spray

Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke

Desire in me to infuse my tale of love

In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed

All o'er with honeyed answer as we rode

And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews

Gathered by night and peace, with each light air

On our mailed heads: but other thoughts than Peace

Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares,

And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers

With clamour: for among them rose a cry

As if to greet the king; they made a halt;

The horses yelled; they clashed their arms; the drum

Beat; merrily-blowing shrilled the martial fife;

And in the blast and bray of the long horn

And serpent-throated bugle, undulated

The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced

Three captains out; nor ever had I seen

Such thews of men: the midmost and the highest

Was Arac: all about his motion clung

The shadow of his sister, as the beam

Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance

Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone,

That glitter burnished by the frosty dark;

And as the fiery Sirius alters hue,

And bickers into red and emerald, shone

Their morions, washed with morning, as they came.

And I that prated peace, when first I heard

War-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force,

Whose home is in the sinews of a man,

Stir in me as to strike: then took the king

His three broad sons; with now a wandering hand

And now a pointed finger, told them all:

A common light of smiles at our disguise

Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest

Had laboured down within his ample lungs,

The genial giant, Arac, rolled himself

Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words.

'Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and he himself

Your captive, yet my father wills not war:

And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no?

but then this question of your troth remains:

And there's a downright honest meaning in her;

She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet

She asked but space and fairplay for her scheme;

She prest and prest it on me--I myself,

What know I of these things? but, life and soul!

I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs;

I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that?

I take her for the flower of womankind,

And so I often told her, right or wrong,

And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves,

And, right or wrong, I care not: this is all,

I stand upon her side: she made me swear it--

'Sdeath--and with solemn rites by candle-light--

Swear by St something--I forget her name--

Her that talked down the fifty wisest men;

_She_ was a princess too; and so I swore.

Come, this is all; she will not: waive your claim:

If not, the foughten field, what else, at once

Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will.'

I lagged in answer loth to render up

My precontract, and loth by brainless war

To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet;

Till one of those two brothers, half aside

And fingering at the hair about his lip,

To prick us on to combat 'Like to like!

The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.'

A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow!

For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff,

And sharp I answered, touched upon the point

Where idle boys are cowards to their shame,

'Decide it here: why not? we are three to three.'

Then spake the third 'But three to three? no more?

No more, and in our noble sister's cause?

More, more, for honour: every captain waits

Hungry for honour, angry for his king.

More, more some fifty on a side, that each

May breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow

Of these or those, the question settled die.'

'Yea,' answered I, 'for this wreath of air,

This flake of rainbow flying on the highest

Foam of men's deeds--this honour, if ye will.

It needs must be for honour if at all:

Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail,

And if we win, we fail: she would not keep

Her compact.' ''Sdeath! but we will send to her,'

Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why she should

Bide by this issue: let our missive through,

And you shall have her answer by the word.'

'Boys!' shrieked the old king, but vainlier than a hen

To her false daughters in the pool; for none

Regarded; neither seemed there more to say:

Back rode we to my father's camp, and found

He thrice had sent a herald to the gates,

To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim,

Or by denial flush her babbling wells

With her own people's life: three times he went:

The first, he blew and blew, but none appeared:

He battered at the doors; none came: the next,

An awful voice within had warned him thence:

The third, and those eight daughters of the plough

Came sallying through the gates, and caught his hair,

And so belaboured him on rib and cheek

They made him wild: not less one glance he caught

Through open doors of Ida stationed there

Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm

Though compassed by two armies and the noise

Of arms; and standing like a stately Pine

Set in a cataract on an island-crag,

When storm is on the heights, and right and left

Sucked from the dark heart of the long hills roll

The torrents, dashed to the vale: and yet her will

Bred will in me to overcome it or fall.

But when I told the king that I was pledged

To fight in tourney for my bride, he clashed

His iron palms together with a cry;

Himself would tilt it out among the lads:

But overborne by all his bearded lords

With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce

He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur:

And many a bold knight started up in heat,

And sware to combat for my claim till death.

All on this side the palace ran the field

Flat to the garden-wall: and likewise here,

Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts,

A columned entry shone and marble stairs,

And great bronze valves, embossed with Tomyris

And what she did to Cyrus after fight,

But now fast barred: so here upon the flat

All that long morn the lists were hammered up,

And all that morn the heralds to and fro,

With message and defiance, went and came;

Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand,

But shaken here and there, and rolling words

Oration-like. I kissed it and I read.

'O brother, you have known the pangs we felt,

What heats of indignation when we heard

Of those that iron-cramped their women's feet;

Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride

Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge;

Of living hearts that crack within the fire

Where smoulder their dead despots; and of those,--

Mothers,--that, with all prophetic pity, fling

Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops

The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart

Made for all noble motion: and I saw

That equal baseness lived in sleeker times

With smoother men: the old leaven leavened all:

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights,

No woman named: therefore I set my face

Against all men, and lived but for mine own.

Far off from men I built a fold for them:

I stored it full of rich memorial:

I fenced it round with gallant institutes,

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey

And prospered; till a rout of saucy boys

Brake on us at our books, and marred our peace,

Masked like our maids, blustering I know not what

Of insolence and love, some pretext held

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will

Sealed not the bond--the striplings! for their sport!--

I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these?

Or you? or I? for since you think me touched

In honour--what, I would not aught of false--

Is not our case pure? and whereas I know

Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood

You draw from, fight; you failing, I abide

What end soever: fail you will not. Still

Take not his life: he risked it for my own;

His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do,

Fight and fight well; strike and strike him. O dear

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you

The sole men to be mingled with our cause,

The sole men we shall prize in the after-time,

Your very armour hallowed, and your statues

Reared, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed aside,

We plant a solid foot into the Time,

And mould a generation strong to move

With claim on claim from right to right, till she

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself;

And Knowledge in our own land make her free,

And, ever following those two crownèd twins,

Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain

Of freedom broadcast over all the orbs

Between the Northern and the Southern morn.'

Then came a postscript dashed across the rest.

'See that there be no traitors in your camp:

We seem a nest of traitors--none to trust

Since our arms failed--this Egypt-plague of men!

Almost our maids were better at their homes,

Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think

Our chiefest comfort is the little child

Of one unworthy mother; which she left:

She shall not have it back: the child shall grow

To prize the authentic mother of her mind.

I took it for an hour in mine own bed

This morning: there the tender orphan hands

Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence

The wrath I nursed against the world: farewell.'

I ceased; he said, 'Stubborn, but she may sit

Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms,

And breed up warriors! See now, though yourself

Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs

That swallow common sense, the spindling king,

This Gama swamped in lazy tolerance.

When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,

And topples down the scales; but this is fixt

As are the roots of earth and base of all;

Man for the field and woman for the hearth:

Man for the sword and for the needle she:

Man with the head and woman with the heart:

Man to command and woman to obey;

All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills

From tile to scullery, and her small goodman

Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell

Mix with his hearth: but you--she's yet a colt--

Take, break her: strongly groomed and straitly curbed

She might not rank with those detestable

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl

Their rights and wrongs like potherbs in the street.

They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance:

_I_ like her none the less for rating at her!

Besides, the woman wed is not as we,

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,

The bearing and the training of a child

Is woman's wisdom.'

Thus the hard old king:

I took my leave, for it was nearly noon:

I pored upon her letter which I held,

And on the little clause 'take not his life:'

I mused on that wild morning in the woods,

And on the 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win:'

I thought on all the wrathful king had said,

And how the strange betrothment was to end:

Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer's curse

That one should fight with shadows and should fall;

And like a flash the weird affection came:

King, camp and college turned to hollow shows;

I seemed to move in old memorial tilts,

And doing battle with forgotten ghosts,

To dream myself the shadow of a dream:

And ere I woke it was the point of noon,

The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed

We entered in, and waited, fifty there

Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared

At the barrier like a wild horn in a land

Of echoes, and a moment, and once more

The trumpet, and again: at which the storm

Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears

And riders front to front, until they closed

In conflict with the crash of shivering points,

And thunder. Yet it seemed a dream, I dreamed

Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed,

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance,

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire.

Part sat like rocks: part reeled but kept their seats:

Part rolled on the earth and rose again and drew:

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down

From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down

From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail,

The large blows rained, as here and everywhere

He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists,

And all the plain,--brand, mace, and shaft, and shield--

Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil banged

With hammers; till I thought, can this be he

From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so,

The mother makes us most--and in my dream

I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front

Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes,

And highest, among the statues, statuelike,

Between a cymballed Miriam and a Jael,

With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us,

A single band of gold about her hair,

Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she

No saint--inexorable--no tenderness--

Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight,

Yea, let her see me fall! and with that I drave

Among the thickest and bore down a Prince,

And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream

All that I would. But that large-moulded man,

His visage all agrin as at a wake,

Made at me through the press, and, staggering back

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came

As comes a pillar of electric cloud,

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains,

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits,

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth

Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything

Gave way before him: only Florian, he

That loved me closer than his own right eye,

Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down:

And Cyril seeing it, pushed against the Prince,

With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough,

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms;

But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote

And threw him: last I spurred; I felt my veins

Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand,

And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung,

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced,

I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth

Flowed from me; darkness closed me; and I fell.

Home they brought her warrior dead:

She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:

All her maidens, watching, said,

'She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,

Called him worthy to be loved,

Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,

Lightly to the warrior stept,

Took the face-cloth from the face;

Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee--

Like summer tempest came her tears--

'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'