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<Xbe Xafce JEngliab Classics 
 
 THE PRINCESS 
 
 A MEDLEY 
 
 BY J 
 
 ALFRED, LOUD TENNYSON 
 
 EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
 
 CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND 
 
 LECTURER OX ENGLISH LITERATURE IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 HENRY MILNOR RIDEOUT 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
'7i?5T / 
 
 7063 
 
 Copyright 1899 
 By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
 TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 
 
 
 
 iiuVP- *0tP 
 
 SECOND COPY, 
 
 «*& 
 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 The editors of this volume wish to acknowledge 
 their indebtedness to Mr. S. E. Dawson's Study 
 of The Princess, to the memoir of "Alfred, Lord 
 Tennyson" by his son, and to the editions of The 
 Princess by Doctor William J. Eolfe, Professor 
 G. E.Woodberry, and Mr. Henry AY. Boynton. 
 
 For further criticism of The Princess and of 
 Tennyson's work in general, students are referred 
 to Tennyson, by the Keverend Stopford Brooke; 
 Literary Studies, by Mr. Joseph Jacobs; Cor- 
 rected Impressions, by Professor Saintsbury; 
 Victorian Poets, by Mr. E. C. Stedman; The 
 Poetry of Tennyson, by Mr. Henry Van Dyke; 
 and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by Mr. Arthur Waugh. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Tennyson 9 
 
 The Princess 19 
 
 Text 33 
 
 Chronological Table 158 
 
 Versification 159 
 
 Notes 161 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 "Half-way between Horncastle and Spilsby," 
 writes the present Lord Tennyson — "in a land of 
 quiet villages, large fields, gray hillsides and noble 
 tall -towered churches, on the lower slope of a Lin- 
 colnshire wold, the pastoral hamlet of Somersby 
 nestles, embosomed in trees. Here, on the 6th of 
 August, 1809, was born, in his father's rectory, 
 Alfred Tennyson. He was the fourth of twelve 
 children, eight sons and four daughters, most of 
 them more or less true poets, and of whom all 
 except two have lived to 70 and upward." 
 
 The rectory, within and without, held a great 
 place in the poet's imagination through his whole 
 life. Garden, orchard, lawn, and brook, — all are 
 celebrated directly or indirectly in his verse. 
 "Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea" (but not, 
 as many persons have supposed, The Brook) , was 
 suggested by the Somersby stream. 
 
 County, as well as village and parish, gave 
 Tennyson many pictures, though these he 
 almost always generalized. The "moated grange, ' ' 
 for a good example, which has so often been taken 
 to be a red-brick farm-house near the Rectory, is 
 "an imaginary house in the fen." The fens and 
 9 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the wolds, however, the hills and rich fields, and 
 many a church-towered landscape, lived in the 
 memory and the verse of this native of Lincoln- 
 shire, to whom the sea, also, was oftenest the North 
 Sea. The shire, indeed, however long Tennyson 
 was a stranger to it in the flesh, was seldom absent 
 from his spirit, and he did for the quiet expanses 
 of Mid-Lincolnshire and the ocean that beats upon 
 its low shore, what Scott did for the Highlands, 
 Wordsworth for the English Lake Country, and 
 Virgil for Mantua. 
 
 The passion for poetry, as well as the passion 
 for nature, awoke early in Tennyson. So early, 
 that the most vivid incident recorded of his boy- 
 hood is his carving on a rock, when, in April, 
 1824, he heard of Byron's death, the words, 
 "Byron is dead." 
 
 Kemarkable in mind, the boy was not less re- 
 markable in body. The description in The 
 Grandmother was used of him : — 
 
 "Here's a leg for a babe of a week!" says doctor; and 
 
 he would be bound, 
 There was not his like that year in twenty parishes 
 
 round. 
 
 And his son says, writing of his young man- 
 hood: — "Not only was my father fond of walk- 
 ing, but of 'putting the stone' and other 
 athletic feats. Mrs. Lloyd of Louth writes: 'In 
 proof of his strong muscular power, when show- 
 ing us a little pet pony on the lawn at Somersby 
 
TENNYSON 11 
 
 one day he surprised us by taking it up and 
 carrying it.' Brookfield remarked: 'It is nob 
 fair, Alfred, that you should be Hercules as well 
 as Apollo.' Fitzgerald notes : 'Alfred could hurl 
 the crowbar further than any of the neighboring 
 clowns, whose humours, as well as those of their 
 betters, knight, squire, landlord, and lieutenant, he 
 took quiet note of, like Chaucer himself.' " 
 
 So much for Hercules. The youth's first notable 
 offering to Apollo was Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 
 published in 1830, when he had been two 
 years at the University of Cambridge. This tiny 
 volume, if it contained few or no new ideas, was 
 full of a strange new music, which was developed 
 and more definitely sounded in the far more im- 
 portant collection of 1832. The slow, dream-like 
 movement with which the world has been familiar 
 in so much of Tennyson's verse for sixty years and 
 over, is, in varying measures, the movement of 
 The Lotos Eaters, The Lady of Shalott, Oenone, 
 The Palace of Art, and A Dream of Fair Women. 
 
 In the year before the publication of this volume, 
 Tennyson had left Cambridge without taking his 
 degree. Among his closest friends at the Univer- 
 sity were Richard Monckton Milnes, afterward 
 Lord Houghton; Trench, who became Archbishop 
 of Dublin; Thompson, who was so widely known 
 later as Master of Trinity ; and, above all — though 
 this nearest friend was two years younger — Arthur 
 Hallam. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The death of Hallam in 1833 touched Tenny- 
 son's genius and spirit to higher potency, 
 and from that time his work showed a deeper 
 sympathy with human thought, grief, and aspi- 
 ration. The larger sense of life, however, had 
 no early opportunity to reveal itself to English 
 readers in general, for as the professional critics 
 were almost unanimously adverse to the 1832 vol- 
 ume, Tennyson subjected himself to a silent and 
 severe apprenticeship for another ten years. Much 
 work, much solitude in London lodgings, were 
 cheered by the frequent companionship of old 
 Cambridge friends, aud of new friends also, — 
 among them Mill, Landor, Thackeray, and Carlyle. 
 
 Immeasurably the best descriptions of Tennyson 
 are two from the pen of Carlyle, who was portrait- 
 painter-in-chief to his contemporaries. One of 
 these he sketched for his brother John. The 
 other, more vivid still, is to be found in a letter to 
 Emerson: — "One of the finest looking men in the 
 world. A great shock of rough dusky dark hair; 
 bright, laughing, hazel eyes ; massive aquiline face, 
 most massive yet most delicate; of sallow brown 
 complexion, almost Indian looking, clothes cyn- 
 ically loose, free-and-easy, smokes infinite tobacco. 
 His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter 
 and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; 
 speech and speculation free and plenteous. I do 
 not meet in these late decades such company over 
 a pipe!" 
 
TENNYSON 13 
 
 As an illustration of the abundance in Tennyson 
 of what may be called merely human force and 
 qualities — in distinction from his eminence as poet 
 or thinker — it is well to remember the saying of 
 Edward Fitzgerald, that Tennyson, Thackeray, 
 and a certain sea-captain, were "the three greatest 
 men" he had ever known. 
 
 In 1842 came the publication of Poems ~by 
 Alfred Tennyson, in two volumes. The first was 
 made up chiefly of previously issued pieces, some 
 of them almost rewritten: the second was almost 
 entirely new. In striking contrast to the reception 
 of some of these very verses ten years before, the 
 literary world, now trained by Tennyson into a 
 Tennyson public, hastened to welcome the two vol- 
 umes, which included Ulysses, the Morte d'' Arthur, 
 St. Simeon Stylites, Bora, Locksley Hall, A 
 Vision of Sin, The Two Voices, and that perfect 
 song, Break, Break, Break. " Ulysses," Tennyson 
 said to his son, "was written soon after Arthur 
 Hallam's death, and gave my feeling about the 
 need of going forward, and braving the struggle 
 of life, perhaps more simply than anything in In 
 Memoriam.y 
 
 Within the next few years several new editions 
 of the Poems testified to Tennyson's growing 
 popularity. In 1845, through Sir Robert Peel, 
 then prime minister, came a pension from the 
 crown of two hundred pounds a year. In 1847 
 appeared The Princess, the earliest of the 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 poet's longer works. The year 1850 stands as 
 annus mirabilis in his life, for within the twelve- 
 month In Memoriam — which had been twenty 
 years in writing — was given to the world ; Tenny- 
 son was appointed Poet Laureate ; and he married 
 Emily Sellwood, a beautiful and accomplished 
 woman. 
 
 In Memoriam records the bitter grief and the 
 final resignation of an individual soul. As the 
 expression of impassioned friendship, it greatly 
 surpasses anything in English literature since 
 Shakspere's sonnets, and among modern elegies 
 in our language only Lycidas and Adonais 
 are worthy to be put beside it. But In Me- 
 moriam is something more, at all events something 
 other, than the celebration of a noble and tender 
 friendship, than "a testament of noble-ending 
 love." What a political upheaval is to a nation, 
 the death of Arthur Hallam was to Tennyson, and 
 this revolution in his state of man changed him 
 from a melodious dreamer, a singer of exquisite 
 music, into a sad and thoughtful man, whose func- 
 tion it was to interpret to itself the time in which 
 he lived. The student of Tennyson will find, I 
 think, that after the death of Hallam his most 
 important work seldom failed to give back a poetic 
 reflection of the intellectual, moral and religious 
 thinking of the age. Lochsley Hall is a kind 
 of English Carmen Seculare: In Memoriam, 
 inspired by a personal sorrow which it everywhere 
 
TENNYSON 15 
 
 utters, is also a meditation upon the immortality 
 of the soul — an impartment of faith and doubt and 
 hope. 
 
 Tennyson's first official poem was the Ode on 
 the Death of the Duke of Wellington, in 1852. 
 In 1854, The Charge of the Light Brigade 
 trumpeted its way through the world. Maud 
 was published in 1855. This poem, if not Tenny- 
 son's favorite, was the one among all his works 
 that he was fondest of reading — chanting, rather 
 — to his friends. The public has not shared his 
 predilection, although the poem has had no lack 
 of delighted readers. Most men are inclined to 
 believe, in spite of the poet, that so tremulous an 
 egotist as the hero could not have made a good 
 soldier, and to wonder how Maud could have been 
 in love with him. The technical objection holds 
 against Maud that, notwithstanding its many 
 beautiful details and unusual variety of rhythm, a 
 too constant intensity makes the "monodrama" a 
 monotone. But we must not be ungrateful for 
 those enchanting passages, which, once read, can 
 never be forgotten. The love song beginning 
 
 Birds in the high Hall-garden, 
 
 is full of dramatic significance at the point where 
 it occurs, and is memorable even among Tennyson's 
 songs for its charm of first love. Even in so brief 
 an enumeration of notable works place must be 
 found for the few lines out of which the whole 
 
16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 poem grew — like Browning's Saul from two verses 
 of the Bible:— 
 
 O that 'twere possible, 
 
 After long grief and pain, 
 
 To find the arms of my true love 
 
 Round me once again ! 
 
 The nocturne, 
 
 Come into the garden, Maud, 
 
 has in it the soul of all gardens, just as in Tenny- 
 son's early song, 
 
 A spirit haunts the year's last hours, 
 
 walks the ghost of all gardens. 
 
 In 1859 appeared the first group of the epic 
 series called Idylls of the King, — Tennyson's long- 
 est work. Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere, 
 were followed in 1869 by The Coming of Arthur, 
 The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre and The Pass- 
 ing of Arthur. The year 1872 yielded Gareth and 
 Lynette and The Last Tournament; Tiresias and 
 Other Poems, published in 1885, contained Balin 
 and Balan. The division of Enid into The 
 Marriage of Geraint and Geraint and Enid, gives 
 the epic its final form of twelve idylls. Each 
 idyll revives and modernizes an ancient legend of 
 King Arthur. Each is independent enough to be 
 read alone with understanding, but through them 
 all is woven the threefold love-story of Arthur, 
 Guinevere, and Lancelot. Although the Idylls 
 are not allegories — indeed, the human interest of 
 
TENNYSON 17 
 
 the sequence is direct and engrossing — the tenor of 
 the whole work is to show the war of Spirit 
 against Flesh in a world where Sense has many 
 helpers. In spite of frequent over-elaboration 
 on Tennyson's part, and the inevitable feeling 
 of the reader that King Arthur and his knights 
 are moving in a nineteenth -century atmosphere, 
 the noble theme of the Idylls is urged and 
 illustrated in fluent, rich, blank verse, which, in 
 Guinevere and The Passing of Arthur especially, 
 often rivals the harmonies of the greatest masters 
 of that characteristic English measure. 
 
 Between 1875 and 1892 appeared Queen Mary, 
 Harold, The Cup, Becket, The Foresters, and 
 three other dramas. These are of course poetic, 
 but only fitfully dramatic; nor could even Irving 's 
 talent for acting or his genius for stage manage- 
 ment commend to the public as acting plays these 
 evidences that a great poet had been working in an 
 unfriendly medium. 
 
 Volumes not yet mentioned were: Enoch Arden, 
 published in 1864; The Lover's Tale, in 1879; 
 Ballads, in 1880; Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
 After, in 1886; and Demeter, in 1889. The 
 Death of Oenone was brought out after Tennyson's 
 death in 1892. 
 
 In 1883 the poet accepted an honor that he had 
 before declined, and was raised to the peerage as 
 Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford, — 
 the title being taken from a house of his in Sussex 
 
18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and another in the Isle of Wight. On the sixth 
 day of October, 1892, he slept his life away into 
 death, after an extraordinarily long period of poetic 
 production, and a career as quiet as that of so 
 famous a man could well have been. 
 
 "The second period of English poetry in the 
 nineteenth century," says Mr. Saintsbury, "dis- 
 plays a variety and abundance of poetical accom- 
 plishment which must rank it very little below 
 either its immediate predecessor, or even the great 
 so-called Elizabethan era. But it is distinguished 
 from both these periods, and, indeed, from almost 
 all others, by the extraordinary predominance of a 
 single poet in excellence, in influence, and in dura- 
 tion. There is probably no other instance any- 
 where of a poet who for more than sixty years 
 wrote better poetry than any one of his contem- 
 poraries who were not very old men when he 
 began, and for exactly fifty of those years was 
 recognized by the best judges as the chief poet of 
 his country if not of his time." Some critics, 
 dominated by the influence of Tennyson and 
 charmed by his manifold excellence, have gone so 
 far as to give him third place among English 
 poets, and place him next to Shakspere and 
 Milton. We shall rest, I think, in a judgment 
 less clouded by contemporary prepossession, by 
 freely admitting that Spenser and Shelley are 
 greater poets than he. Wordsworth, also, sur- 
 passes him, if Wordsworth may stand with the 
 
THE PRINCESS 19 
 
 small amount of his best work. Keats, too, if his 
 marvelous promise may be taken as earnest of what 
 he would have done in the years of performance 
 that were denied, him. Such hard-and-fast com- 
 parisons, however, are of little use except as checks 
 upon unreasoning enthusiasm. What must not be 
 forgotten is that no English poet save Tennyson 
 was so long and so unfailingly an artist. Still 
 more memorable is the fact that, through the last 
 fifty of his sixty years of writing, he reflected the 
 best thought of the age, and at the same time 
 bettered the ideals of multitudes of English-speak- 
 ing men and women. 
 
 THE PRINCESS 
 
 In the case of a work so celebrated and so much 
 discussed as The Princess, persons who look at 
 literature from the point of view of students will 
 like to enquire what relation Tennyson's poem 
 may have to the past, and how the same subject 
 may have been treated by earlier writers. Natu- 
 rally, the aspirations of women in the state were 
 considered in Plato's Republic, and as naturally 
 they were rather lightly considered. In English, 
 Ascham and Milton touched upon the matter ; but 
 probably the first college for women proposed in 
 detail was The Female Academy of Margaret 
 Cavendish. Defoe proposed, with apparent sin- 
 cerity, to found a college for women where they 
 might study branches of learning "suitable to both 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 their genius and their quality." "I need not 
 enlarge," writes Defoe, in his Essay on Projects, 
 "on the loss the defect of education is to women, 
 nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice; it 
 is a thing will be more easily granted than 
 remedied. This chapter is not an essay at the 
 thing, and I refer the practice to those happy days, 
 if ever they shall be, when men shall be wise 
 enough to mend it." Whatever Defoe's real feel- 
 ing — and it is always safe to prefix the adjective 
 apparent whenever we use the noun sincerity, of 
 the great Trimmer of literature — Addison and 
 Steele were well known as advocates of a better 
 education for women, and Mary Wollstonecraft was 
 its ardent partisan. 
 
 All these discussions, however, could have been 
 but vague echoes in the ears of a poet of our own 
 day. Two works only are likely to have furnished 
 him anything, — Shakspere's Love's Labours Lost 
 and Johnson's Rasselas. Johnson's Princess 
 "desired first to learn all sciences, and then pro- 
 posed to found a college of learned women in 
 which she would preside, that, by conversing with 
 the old and educating the young, she might divide 
 her time between the acquisition and communica- 
 tion of wisdom, and raise up for the next age 
 models of prudence and patterns of piety." But 
 the Johnsonian heaven and the Johnsonian earth 
 are not the Tennysonian. The Princess in 
 Rasselas, though closely related to Miss Pinkerton 
 
THE PRINCESS 21 
 
 of Chiswick and Miss Jenkyns of Cranford, is 
 scarce cater-cousin to the Princess Ida. 
 
 At first sight, perhaps, Tennyson would seem to 
 have been considerably indebted to Love's Labours 
 Lost. The scheme of the poem and that of the 
 play are alike by contraries. Shakspere paints the 
 retirement from the world, for study and medita- 
 tion, of a king and three lords. Their sequestered 
 course is to be for three years, during which they 
 bind themselves not to look upon a woman. Then 
 come a princess and her three ladies, who play 
 parts similar to those of the invading men in The 
 Princess. It is the opinion of Mr. Morton Luce, 
 — who raises the question in his Handbook to 
 Tennyson's Works — that the passage quoted from 
 Rasselas (he adds also Johnson's statement: "The 
 Princess thought that of all sublunary things 
 knowledge was the best"), taken "together with 
 Love's Labours Lost, supplies more than the foun- 
 dation of Tennyson's famous College. " Gama, the 
 father of Ida, says, indeed, — "Knowledge, so my 
 daughter held, was all in all." But Gama need 
 not have looked to Dr. Johnson or to any other 
 one person for his saying. 
 
 As to Love's Labours Lost, the ground-plan of 
 The Princess and no more, I am disposed to admit 
 as Tennyson's debt to Shakspere. In Shakspere the 
 elements are differently mixed. Not only would the 
 reversal of the parts have shut out any considera- 
 tion of the education or the "rights" of women, 
 
22 INTRODUCTION 
 
 but Shakspere's purpose was so far from discussing 
 the education or rights of either sex, as evidently 
 to have been a brilliant young intention of satiriz- 
 ing Lilly and the other euphuists. The doggerel, 
 the introduction of sonnets as speeches, the extrav- 
 agant alliteration, the crackling fire of quibble, 
 quip, antithesis, and epigram — all these, with the 
 odd grammatical forms and the antiphonal 
 speeches of the characters in rhyming verse, are 
 none the less parts of this satirical design because 
 they are also, in less glaring degree, marks of 
 Shakspere's own early style. In another way, 
 quite as important, the nineteenth-century poem 
 differs from the sixteenth-century play. The 
 comic spirit breathes very lightly upon the King of 
 Navarre, the Princess of France, and their attend- 
 ants. Shakspere reserved his farce for Armado 
 and the rest, — "the pedant, the braggart, the 
 hedge priest, the fool, and the boy." The noble 
 persons move with enchanting grace through a love 
 story that is more than half a pageant or a masque. 
 Tennyson, to be sure, retains Cupid, and conducts 
 his arguments in the court of love. He, too, gives 
 himself the aid of pageantry. Yet in the humor- 
 ous treatment which is an essential part of the 
 Medley he often burlesques — more often, one 
 fancies, than he is always aware — both his argu- 
 ment and his love scenes. Even the masque, 
 when the chorus of men is opposed to the chorus 
 of Amazons, comes perilously near opera louffe. 
 
THE PRINCESS 23 
 
 Tennyson's debt to Basselas, then, is slight. 
 His real, though not burdensome obligation to 
 Love's Labours Lost, it has become too much a 
 matter of course to take too seriously. 
 
 The simple plot of The Princess is as follows : 
 A Prince of the North, after being affianced as a 
 child to a Princess of the South, has fallen in love 
 with her portrait and a lock of her hair. When, 
 however, the embassy appears to fetch home the 
 bride, she sends back the message that she is not 
 disposed to be married. Upon receipt of this word 
 the Prince and two friends, Florian and Cyril, 
 steal away to seek the Princess, and learn on reach- 
 ing her father's court that she has established a 
 Woman's College on a distant estate. Having got 
 letters authorizing them to visit the Princess, they 
 ride into her domain, where they determine to go 
 dressed like girls and apply for admission as stu- 
 dents in the College. They arrive in disguise, and 
 are admitted. On the first day the young men 
 enroll themselves as students of Lady Psyche, who 
 recognizes Florian as her brother and agrees not to 
 expose them, since — by a law of the College 
 inscribed above the gates, which darkness has kept 
 them from seeing — the penalty of their discovery 
 would be death. Melissa, a student, overhears 
 them, and is bound over to keep the secret. Lady 
 Blanche, mother of Melissa and rival to Lady 
 Psyche, also learns of the alarming invasion, and 
 remains silent for sinister reasons of her own. On 
 
24 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the second day the principal personages picnic in a 
 wood. At dinner Cyril sings a song that is better 
 fit for the smoking-room than for the ears of ladies ; 
 the Prince, in his anger, betrays his sex by a too 
 masculine reproof; and dire confusion is the 
 result. The Princess in her flight falls into the 
 river, from which she is rescued by the Prince. 
 Cyril and Lady Psyche escape together, but the 
 Prince and Florian are brought before the Princess. 
 At this important moment despatches are brought 
 from her father saying that the Prince's father has 
 surrounded her palace with soldiers, taken him 
 prisoner, and holds him as a hostage. The 
 Prince, after pleading to deaf ears, is sent away at 
 dawn with Florian, and goes with him to the 
 camp. Meantime during the night, the Princess's 
 three brothers have come to her aid with an army. 
 An agreement is reached to decide the case and 
 end the war by a tournament between the brothers, 
 with fifty men, on one side; the Prince and his 
 two friends, with fifty men, on the other. This 
 happens on the third day. The Prince and his men 
 are vanquished, and he himself is badly wounded. 
 But the Princess is now gradually to discover 
 that she has "overthrown more than her enemy," 
 — that she has defeated yet saved herself. She has 
 said of Lady Psyche's little child: 
 
 I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
 This morning : there the tender orphan hands 
 Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
 The wrath I nursed against the world. 
 
THE PRINCESS 25 
 
 When Cyril pleads with her to give the child back 
 to its mother, she kisses it and feels that "her 
 heart is barren." When she passes near the 
 wounded Prince, and is shown by his father — his 
 beard wet with his son's blood — her hair and pic- 
 ture on her lover's heart, 
 
 Her iron will was broken in her mind, 
 Her noble heart was broken in her breast. 
 
 From the Princess's cry then, "Grant me your 
 3on to nurse," it is but a natural result that 
 she should bring the Prince's wounded men with 
 him into the College, now a hospital. Through 
 ministering to her lover, she comes to love him; 
 and theories yield to "the lord of all." 
 
 Throughout the piece, the imaginary poet who 
 appears in the Prologue as the author represents 
 himself as being divided between two parties in the 
 audience. One party demands a burlesque; the 
 other asks for the "true-heroic." So, explains 
 he, — 
 
 I moved as in a strange diagonal, 
 
 And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 
 
 Mr. S. E. Dawson was the first to discover, or at 
 all events the first to state — in a careful and min- 
 ute "Study" of The Princess — the right line from 
 which the diagonal diverges. In other words, Mr. 
 Dawson points out that the unifying principle of 
 the whole poem is the child Aglai'a, daughter to 
 
26 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Lady Psyche. "The babe," he 
 poem as in the songs, is made the central point 
 upon which the plot turns; for the unconscious 
 child is the concrete embodiment of Nature herself, 
 clearing away all merely intellectual theories by her 
 silent influence. Ida feels the power of the child. 
 Whenever the plot thickens, the babe appears. It 
 is with Ida upon her judgment seat. In the top- 
 most height of the storm the wail of the 'lost lamb 
 at her feet' reduces her eloquent anger into inco- 
 herence. She carries it when she sings her song of 
 triumph. When she goes to tend her wounded 
 brothers on the battlefield she carries it. Through 
 it and for it Cyril pleads his successful suit, and 
 wins it for the mother. For its sake the mother is 
 pardoned." 
 
 In remembering the serious meaning of The 
 Princess, of which the child is the symbol and 
 central force, we must not forget that the work is 
 — as it is entitled — a Medley, of which burlesque is 
 a pervading element. The controlling serious 
 force — the child — is outside of the plot, as I 
 have briefly summarized it. The controlling 
 burlesque force, on the other hand, is a highly 
 important motive of the plot, and lies in the 
 feminine masquerade of the Prince and his 
 friends. 
 
 Tennyson himself said much that was of interest 
 concerning The Princess to his son, who has pub- 
 lished it in the Memoir ', together with comment of 
 
THE PRINCESS 27 
 
 his own, and other apposite information and 
 criticism. Some of the facts were known before : 
 others were there stated for the first time. 
 
 "The park round the [Lushingtons'] house is 
 described in the Prologue to The Princess. . . . 
 The subject of The Princess, my father believed, 
 was original, and certainly the story is full of 
 original incident, humour and fancy. It may 
 have suggested itself when the project of a 
 Women's College was in the air, or it may have 
 arisen in its mock-heroic form from a Cambridge 
 joke, such as he commemorated in these lines, 
 which I found in one of his old MSS. books : 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Sweet Kitty Sandilands, 
 
 The daughter of the doctor, 
 We drest her in the Proctor's bands, 
 
 And past her for the Proctor. 
 
 All the men ran from her 
 That would have hasten'd to her, 
 
 All the men ran from her 
 That would have come to woo her. 
 
 Up the street we took her 
 
 As far as to the Castle, 
 Jauntily sat the Proctor's cap 
 
 And from it hung the tassel. 
 
 . . . His friends report my father to have said 
 that the two great social questions impending in 
 England were 'the housing and education of the 
 poor man before making him our master, and the 
 higher education of women;' and that the sooner 
 woman finds out, before the great educational 
 movement begins, that 'woman is not undevelopt 
 
28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 man, but diverse,' the better it will be for the 
 progress of the world. ... It was no mere 
 dramatic sentiment, but one of my father's strong- 
 est convictions of the true relation between man 
 and woman, which impelled him to write : 
 
 Let this proud watchword rest 
 
 Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
 
 Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
 
 Nor equal nor unequal : each fulfils 
 
 Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
 
 Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
 
 The single pure and perfect animal, 
 
 The two-cell' d heart beating, with one full stroke, 
 
 Life. 
 
 . . . After 1847 The Princess underwent con- 
 siderable alterations. The second edition was 
 published in 1848 with a few amendments, and 
 dedicated to Henry Lushington, but in 1850 a 
 third edition appeared with omissions and many 
 additions, and notably six songs were introduced, 
 which help to express more clearly the meaning of 
 'the medley.' These songs 
 
 The woman sang 
 Between the rougher voices of the men, 
 Like linnets in the pauses of the wind. 
 
 "In 1851 the 'weird seizures' of the Prince were 
 inserted. His too emotional temperament was 
 intended from an artistic point of view to empha- 
 size his comparative want of power. 'Moreover,' 
 my father writes, 'the words "dream-shadow," 
 "were and were not," doubtless refer to the 
 anachronisms and improbabilities of the story. . . . 
 It may be remarked that there is scarcely anything 
 in the story which is not prophetically glanced at 
 in the Prologue.' My father added: 'It is true 
 that some of the blank verse in this poem is among 
 the best I ever wrote.' " 
 
THE PRINCESS 29 
 
 Among the passages of verse mentioned by- 
 Tennyson were the eight lines beginning, — 
 
 Not peace she look'd — the Head: but rising up; 
 the description of a storm seen from Snowdon ; and 
 thirteen lines from the last canto, beginning, — 
 
 Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine. 
 
 He might have added that the description of the 
 tournament is notable for swiftness in his verse, 
 which is markedly deliberate, and of which almost 
 the only fault is that it is sometimes too slow for 
 the subject. 
 
 In The Princess are to be found a number of 
 characteristic qualities, which students will appre- 
 ciate the better the more they compare them with 
 like qualities in Tennyson's poetry as a whole. 
 Thus The Princess, like most of Tennyson's other 
 works, is remarkable for the music everywhere to 
 be heard in words and cadences as well as in 
 metres ; for the truth and beauty of its descriptions 
 of nature; for sympathy, much tempered by con- 
 servatism, with the intellectual, the scientific, and 
 the social movements of the time ; for its reverent 
 sense of law as the harmony of the world ; and for 
 its still deeper sense of religion as the source of that 
 harmonic order. 
 
 I have just spoken of the truth and beauty of 
 Tennyson's representation of nature, and, as this 
 was one of the first among his gifts to attract 
 wide attention, so there is no gift of his which 
 
30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 young men and young women can more profitably 
 study. For the comparison between the poet's art 
 and the scenes and objects on which it is so directly 
 founded, besides being in itself a delight, is also 
 one of the readiest and richest means of education. 
 In a little book entitled Cranford, published about 
 half a century ago, there is a whimsical old-world 
 bachelor who loves books as well as he loves the 
 country and simple ways. Mrs. Gaskell, the 
 author of Cranford, tells of a walk on which this 
 delightful old Mr. Holbrook was accompanied by a 
 young woman. Says she : 
 
 "He strode along, either wholly forgetting my 
 existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe — and 
 yet it was not silence exactly. He walked before 
 me, with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind 
 him; and, as some tree or cloud, or glimpse of 
 distant upland pastures, struck him, he quoted 
 poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a grand, 
 sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true 
 feeling and appreciation give. We came upon an 
 old cedar-tree, which stood at one end of the 
 house — 
 
 'The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade. ' 
 
 "' Capital term — "layers"! Wonderful man!' 
 I did not know whether he was speaking to me 
 or not; but I put in an assenting 'wonderful,' 
 although I knew nothing about it, just because I 
 was tired of being forgotten, and of being conse- 
 quently silent. 
 
 "He turned sharp round. 'Ay! you may say 
 "wonderful." Why, when I saw the review of 
 
THE PRINCESS 31 
 
 his poems in Blackivood, I set off within an hour, 
 and walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses 
 were not in the way) and ordered them. Now, 
 what colour are ash-buds in March?' 
 
 "Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very 
 like Don Quixote. 
 
 " 'What colour are they, I say?' repeated he 
 vehemently. 
 
 " 'I am sure I don't know, sir,' said I, with the 
 meekness of ignorance. 
 
 " 'I knew you didn't. No more did I — an old 
 fool that I am ! — till this young man comes and 
 tells me. "Black as ash-buds in March." And 
 I've lived all my life in the country; more shame 
 for me not to know. Black : they are jet-black, 
 madam.' And he went off again, swinging along 
 to the music of some rhyme he had got hold of. ' ' 
 
 Now, although Mr. Holbrook misquoted the line 
 from The Gardener's Daughter, in both cases he 
 kept the essence of the description. And many of 
 us, even after living all our lives in the country, 
 have been made ashamed by Tennyson of not see- 
 ing what goes on about us. American readers, of 
 course, cannot always test the exactness of his 
 observation, but they often find it possible to do 
 so. In The Princess, when King Gama is out- 
 lined, his voice is "crack'd and small": 
 
 But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind 
 On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines. 
 
 In the night-scene of the last canto, the Prince 
 dared not break the pause that had fallen between 
 him and the Princess, 
 
32 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Till notice of a change in the dark world 
 "Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 
 That early woke to feed her little ones, 
 Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light. 
 
 Earlier in the poem the scornful smile of the 
 Princess is compared to 
 
 A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 
 
 When all the glens are drown' d in azure gloom 
 
 Of thunder-shower. 
 
 In these images, as in many another, one need 
 not know any peculiarly English phase of the 
 natural world to marvel at the exactness with 
 which Tennyson has made his observation, or the 
 beauty with which he has expressed it. A com- 
 parison of the Book of Nature with the Book of 
 Tennyson is one among many good ways of read- 
 ing both Poetry and Nature. 0. T. 0. 
 
THE PRINCESS; 
 
 A MEDLEY. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
 Gave Lis broad lawns until the set of sun 
 Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon 
 His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
 5 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. 
 
 10 And me that morning Walter show'd 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, 
 
 15 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, 
 
 20 Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 
 
 33 
 
34 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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; 25 
 And that was old Sir Ealph'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 30 
 
 Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
 And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
 Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, 
 Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 
 
 f"0 miracle of women," said the book, 35 
 
 "0 noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
 By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
 Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, 
 But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost — 
 Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 
 
 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 whelm'd with missiles of the wall, 45 
 And some were push'd with lances from the rock, 
 And part were drown 'd within the whirling brook : 
 miracle of noble womanhood!" > 
 
PROLOGUE 35 
 
 So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
 
 50 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 thro' the park : strange was the sight to me; 
 
 55 For all the sloping pasture murmur 'd, 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 rear'd a font of 
 stone 
 
 60 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 
 
 65 A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
 A cannon: Echo answer 'd 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 
 
 70 Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter : round the 
 lake 
 A little clock-work steamer paddling plied 
 And shook the lilies : perch'd about the knolls 
 A dozen angry models jetted steam : 
 A pretty railway ran : a fire-balloon 
 
 75 Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 
 And dropt a fairy parachute and past : 
 
36 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
 
 They flash 'd a saucy message to and fro 
 
 Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 
 
 Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere so 
 
 Pare sport: a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd 
 
 And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about 
 
 Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 
 
 Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 
 
 And shadow, while the twangling violin 85 
 
 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 90 
 
 Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
 Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, 
 Thro' 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 : 95 
 
 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, 100 
 
 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 105 
 
PROLOGUE 37 
 
 Shone, silver -set; about it lay the guests, 
 And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt 
 Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
 An universal culture for the crowd, 
 
 no And all things great; but we, unworthier, told 
 Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes, 
 And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 
 And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs; and one 
 Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 
 
 us But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
 And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
 Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 
 
 But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
 The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought 
 
 120 My book to mind : and opening this I read 
 Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
 With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her 
 That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
 And much I praised her nobleness, and "Where 
 
 125 Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
 Beside him) "lives there such a woman now?" 
 
 jj 
 
 Quick answer 'd Lilia "There are thousands now 
 Such women, but convention beats them down: 
 It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 
 130 You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 
 Ah, were I something great! I wish I were 
 Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, 
 That love to keep us children ! I wish 
 
38 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 That I were some great princess, I would build 
 Far off from men a college like a man's, 135 
 
 And I would teach them all that men are taught ; 
 We are twice as quick !" And here she shook aside 
 The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 
 
 And one said smiling " Pretty were the sight 
 If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 140 
 With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
 And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
 I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, 
 But move as rich as Emperor -moths, or Ralph 
 Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 145 
 
 If there were many Lilias in the brood, 
 However deep you might embower the nest, 
 Some boy would spy it." 
 
 At this upon the sward 
 She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot: 
 ''That's your light way; but I would make it death 150 
 For any male thing but to peep at us." 
 
 Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd; 
 A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
 And sweet as English air could make her, she: 
 But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 155 
 
 And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss," 
 And swore he long'd at college, only long'd, 
 All else was well, for she-society. 
 They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd 
 At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics; 160 
 
PROLOGUE 39 
 
 They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of deans ; 
 They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends, 
 And caught the blossoms of the flying terms, 
 But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
 165 The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke. 
 Part banter, part affection. 
 
 "True," she said, 
 "We doubt not that. yes, you miss'd us much. 
 I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." 
 
 She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
 
 170 Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 
 And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
 And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
 So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
 And wrung it. "Doubt my word again!" he said. 
 
 its "Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: 
 We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read; 
 And there we took one tutor as to read : 
 The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square 
 Were out of season: never man, I think, 
 
 180 So moulder 'd in a sinecure as he: 
 
 For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, 
 
 And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 
 
 We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
 
 In wassail ; often, like as many girls — 
 
 185 Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 
 As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
 Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
 And ivhafs my thought and ivhen and ivhere and hotv. 
 
40 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 
 
 As here at Christmas." 190 
 
 She remember 'd that: 
 A pleasant game, she thought : she liked it more 
 Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
 But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, 
 She wonder 'd, by themselves? 
 
 A half-disdain 
 Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : 195 
 
 And Walter nodded at me; il He began, 
 The rest would follow, each in turn; and so 
 We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? 
 Chimeras, crochets, Christmas solecisms, 
 Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 
 
 Time by the fire in winter." 
 
 "Kill him now, 
 The tyrant! kill him in the summer too," 
 Said Lilia; "Why not now?" the maiden Aunt 
 "Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
 A tale for summer as befits the time, 205 
 
 And something it should be to suit the place, 
 Heroic, for a hero lies beneath, 
 Grave, solemn!" 
 
 Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
 To something so mock-solemn, that I langh'd 
 And Lilia woke with sudden -shrilling mirth 210 
 
 An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
 Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
 (A little sense of wrong had touch 'd her face 
 With colour) turn'd to me with "As you will; 
 
PROLOGUE 41 
 
 215 Heroic if you will, or what you will, 
 Or be yourself your hero if you will." 
 
 "Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamour 'd he, 
 "And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
 Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
 
 220 The Prince to win her!" 
 
 "Then follow me, the Prince," 
 I answer' d, "each be hero in his turn! 
 Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
 Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
 But something made to suit with Time and place, 
 
 225 A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
 A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
 A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
 And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
 For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all — 
 
 230 This tvere 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 
 
 235 To give us breathing-space." 
 
 So I began, 
 And the rest follow'd: 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. 
 
PART 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. 5 
 
 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. 10 
 
 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, 15 
 
 And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, 
 I seem'd 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 paw'd his beard, and mutter 'd "catalepsy." 20 
 My mother pitying made a thousand prayers ; 
 My mother was as mild as any saint, 
 Half -canonised by all that look'd on her, 
 So gracious was her tact and tenderness : 
 But my good father thought a king a king ; 25 
 
PART I 43 
 
 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 
 Eeach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 
 
 30 For judgment. 
 
 Now it chanced that I had been 
 While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
 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 
 
 35 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. 
 
 40 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 : 
 
 45 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. 
 
 so That morning in the presence room I stood 
 With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: 
 
44 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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 55 
 
 Together, twinn'd 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, snow'd it down, and rent 60 
 The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
 From skirt to skirt ; and at last he sware 
 That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
 And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chew'd 
 The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his 65 
 
 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: 7o 
 
 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, 75 
 Who wedded with a nobleman from thence : 
 He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 
 The lady of three castles in that land : 
 Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 
 
PART I 45 
 
 80 And Cyril whisper 'd: "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; 
 
 85 I grate on rusty hinges here:" but "No!" 
 
 Eoar'd the rough king, "you shall not; weourself 
 Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 
 In iron gauntlets : break the council up." 
 
 But when the council broke, I rose and past 
 90 Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; 
 Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out; 
 Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed 
 In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees: 
 What were those fancies? wherefore break her 
 troth? 
 95 Proud look'cl the lips : but while I meditated 
 A wind arose, and rush'd upon the South, 
 And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
 Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
 Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 
 
 ioo Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
 Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
 With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, 
 Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread 
 To hear my father's clamour at our backs 
 
 105 With Ho ! from some bay-window shake the night ; 
 But all was quiet : from the bastion' d walls 
 
46 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 
 
 And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost 
 
 To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 
 
 And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, no 
 
 We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, 
 
 And in the imperial palace found the king. 
 
 His name was Gama ; crack 'd and small his voice, 
 But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind 
 On glassy water drove his cheek in lines ; 115 
 
 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 betroth' d. "You do us, Prince," he said, 
 Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120 
 
 "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 fail'd. 
 I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, 125 
 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. 130 
 
 They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang; 
 Our dances broke and buzz'd 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, 135 
 
PART I 47 
 
 As children ; they must lose the child, assume 
 The woman t then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 
 Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 
 But all she is and does is awful ; odes 
 
 140 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 : 
 
 145 They mastered me. At last she begg'd 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 
 
 150 For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 
 We know not, — only this : they see no men, 
 Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins 
 Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 
 As on a kind of paragon ; and I 
 
 155 (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 
 
 160 Almost at naked nothing." 
 
 Thus the king ; 
 And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
 With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
 Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
 
48 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 
 
 Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 165 
 
 Many a long league back to the North. At last 
 
 From hills, that look'd 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 ; 170 
 
 There, enter 'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 
 
 To council, plied him with his richest wines, 
 
 And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 
 
 He with a long low sibilation, stared 
 As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd 175 
 
 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 — iso 
 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 look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: 185 
 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 till'd by women; all the swine were sows, 190 
 
 And all the dogs" — 
 
 But while he jested thus, 
 
PART I 49 
 
 A thought flash'cl thro' me which I clothed in act, 
 Remembering how we three presented Maid 
 Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
 
 195 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 
 
 200 We rustled: him we gave a costly bribe 
 
 To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 
 And boldly ventured on the liberties. 
 
 We follow'd up the river as we rode, 
 And rode till midnight when the college lights 
 
 205 Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
 And linden alley : then we past an arch, 
 Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
 From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
 And some inscription ran along the front, 
 
 210 But deep in shadow : further on we gain'd 
 A little street half garden and half house ; 
 But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
 Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
 On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
 
 215 Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
 In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
 And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
 Eapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 
 
 There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign,, 
 
50 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 By two sphere lamps blazon' d like Heaven and 220 
 
 Earth 
 With constellation and with continent, 
 Above an entry: riding in, we call'd; 
 A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench 
 Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
 Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 225 
 
 Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
 Upon a pillar' d porch, the bases lost 
 In laurel: her we ask'd of that and this, 
 And who were tutors. "Lady Blanche," she said, 
 "And Lady Psyche." "Which was prettiest, 230 
 
 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 235 
 
 Your Highness would enroll them with your own, 
 As Lady Psyche's pupils." 
 
 Thislseal'd: 
 The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 
 And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, 
 And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes : 240 
 I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 
 And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
 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. 245 
 
PART II 
 
 As thro' the land at eve we went, 
 
 And pluck' d the ripen 'd ears, 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 we fell out I know not why, 
 
 And kiss'd 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 kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 At break of clay the College Portress came : 
 She bought us Academic silks, in hue 
 The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 
 And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 
 5 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 thro' the porch that sang 
 All round with laurel, issued in a court 
 Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 
 Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
 Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 
 The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 
 51 
 
 10 
 
52 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst; 
 
 And here and there on lattice edges lay 15 
 
 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 couch 'd beside her throne, 
 All beauty compass 'd in a female form, 20 
 
 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 arch'd brows, with every turn 25 
 
 Lived thro' 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 : af tertime, 30 
 
 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 answer'd, "then ye know the Prince?" and he: 35 
 "The climax of his age! as tho' 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, 40 
 
 Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
 
PART II 53 
 
 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, 
 
 45 We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
 To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
 Never to wed. r You likewise will do well, 
 Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
 The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, 
 
 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 
 55 Eose 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, 
 60 We enter 'd on the boards: and "Now," she cried, 
 
 4 '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 
 65 That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
 
 The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
 
 The Carian Artemisia strong in war, 
 
 The Ehodope, that built the pyramid, 
 
54 THE PRINCESS- A MEDLEY 
 
 Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
 
 That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows to 
 
 Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
 
 Convention, since to look on noble forms 
 
 Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
 
 That which is higher. lift your natures up: 
 
 Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 75 
 
 Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd: 
 
 Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
 
 The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
 
 And slander, die. Better not be at all 
 
 Than not be noble. Leave us : you may go : so 
 
 To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
 
 The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 
 
 For they press in from all the provinces, 
 
 And fill the hive." 
 
 She spoke, and bowing waved 
 Dismissal : back again we crost the court 85 
 
 To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, 
 There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
 That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
 A patient range of pupils ; she herself 
 Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 
 
 A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
 And on the hither side, or so she look'd, 
 Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
 In shining draperies, headed like a star, 
 Her maiden babe, a double April old, 95 
 
 Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 
 Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame 
 
PART II 55 
 
 That whisper'd "Asses' ears" among the sedge, 
 "My sister." "Comely, too, by all that's fair," 
 100 Said Cyril. "0 hush, hush!" and she began. 
 
 "This world was once a fluid haze of light, 
 Till toward the centre set the starry tides, 
 And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
 The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
 
 105 Tattoo 'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 
 
 Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate ; 
 As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
 Among the lowest." 
 
 Thereupon she took 
 A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; 
 
 no Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
 As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
 Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
 That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
 Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
 
 us Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
 
 How far from just ; till warming with her theme 
 She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 
 And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomet 
 With much contempt, and came to chivalry: 
 
 120 When some respect, however slight, was paid 
 To woman, superstition all awry : 
 However then commenced the dawn : a beam 
 Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
 Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 
 
 125 Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 
 
56 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 
 Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
 None lordlier than themselves but that which made 
 Woman and man. She had founded; they must 
 
 build. 
 Here might they learn whatever men were taught : 130 
 Let them not fear : some said their heads were less : 
 Some men's were small; not they the least of men; 
 For often fineness compensated size : 
 Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 
 With using; thence the man's, if more was more; 135 
 He took advantage of his strength to be 
 First in the field : some ages had been lost ; 
 But woman ripen 'd earlier, and her life 
 Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 
 Were fewer, scatter 'd stars, yet since in truth 140 
 
 The highest is the measure of the man, 
 And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 
 Nor those horn -handed breakers of the glebe, 
 But Homer, Plato, Verulam; even so 
 With woman: and in arts of government 145 
 
 Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 
 The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 
 Sappho and others vied with any man : 
 And, last not least, she who had left her place, 
 And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow iso 
 To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 
 In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 
 Of ancient influence and scorn. 
 
 At last 
 
PART II 57 
 
 She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
 
 155 Dilating on the future; "everywhere 
 
 Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
 Two in the tangled business of the world, 
 Two in the liberal offices of life, 
 Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
 
 160 Of science, and the secrets of the mind: 
 Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: 
 And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
 Should bear a double growth of those rare souls , 
 Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the 
 world." 
 
 165 She ended here, and beckon'cl us: the rest 
 Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
 Began to address us, and was moving on 
 In gratulation, till as when a boat 
 Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 
 
 170 Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried 
 "My brother!" "Well, my sister." "0," she 
 
 said, 
 "What do you here? and in this dress? and these? 
 Why who are these? a wolf within the fold ! 
 A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 
 
 its A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all!" 
 
 "No plot, no plot," he answer 'd. "Wretched 
 
 boy, 
 How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 
 Let no man enter in on pain of death?" 
 "And if I had," he answer'd, "who could think 
 
58 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The softer Adams of your Academe, iso 
 
 sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such 
 
 As chanted on the blanching bones of men?" 
 
 "But you will find it otherwise," she said. 
 
 "You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow 
 
 Binds me to speak, and that iron will, 185 
 
 That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 
 
 The Princess. " "Well then, Psyche, take my life, 
 
 And nail me like a weasel on a grange 
 
 For warning : bury me beside the gate, 
 
 And cut this epitaph above my bones ; 190 
 
 Here lies a brother by a sister slain. 
 
 All for the common good of womankind." 
 
 "Let me die too," said Cyril, "having seen 
 
 And heard the Lady Psyche." 
 
 I struck in : 
 "Albeit so mask'd, Madam, I love the truth; 195 
 
 Eeceive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
 Your countryman, affianced years ago 
 To the Lady Ida: here, for here she was, 
 And thus (what other way was left) I came." 
 "0 Sir, Prince, I have no country; none; 200 
 
 If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was 
 Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
 Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe 
 Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
 Who am not mine, say, live : the thunderbolt 205 
 
 Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls." 
 "Yet pause," I said: "for that inscription there, 
 
 1 think no more of deadly lnrks therein, 
 
PART II 59 
 
 Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 
 210 To scare the fowl from fruit : if more there be, 
 If more and acted on, what follows? war ; 
 Your own work marr'd: for this your Academe, 
 Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
 Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
 215 With all fair theories only made to gild 
 
 A stormless summer." ''Let the Princess judge 
 Of that," she said: "farewell, Sir — and to you. 
 I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 
 
 "Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
 
 220 "The fifth in line from that old Florian, 
 Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
 (The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 
 Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
 As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 
 
 225 And all else fled? we point to it, and we say, 
 The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold 
 But branches current yet in kindred veins." 
 "Are you that Psyche," Florian added; "she 
 With whom I sang about the morning hills, 
 
 230 Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 
 And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you 
 That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 
 To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
 Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
 
 235 My sickness down to happy dreams? are you 
 That brother -sister Psyche, both in one? 
 You were that Psyche, but what are you now? 
 
60 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 "You are that Psyche," Cyril said, "for whom 
 I would be that forever which I seem, 
 Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 240 
 
 And glean your scatter'd sapience." 
 
 Then once more, 
 "Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
 "That on her bridal morn before she past 
 From all her old companions, when the king 
 Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 245 
 Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 
 That were there any of our people there 
 In want or peril, there was one to hear 
 And help them? look! for such are these and I." 
 "Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, "to whom, 250 
 In gentler days, your arrow- wounded fawn 
 Came flying while you sat beside the well? 
 The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
 And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 
 Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 255 
 
 That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
 by the bright head of my little niece, 
 You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" 
 "You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 
 "The mother of the sweetest little maid, 260 
 
 That ever crow'd for kisses." 
 
 "Out upon it!" 
 She answer 'd, "peace! and why should I not play 
 The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
 The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? 
 Him you call great : he for the common weal, 265 
 
PART II 61 
 
 The fading politics of mortal Rome, 
 As I might slay this child, if good need were, 
 Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 
 The secular emancipation turns 
 
 270 Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 
 A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. 
 Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
 hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 
 My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 
 
 275 Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 
 You perish) as you came, to slip away 
 To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said, 
 These women were too barbarous, would not learn; 
 They fled, who might have shamed us : promise 
 all." 
 
 280 What could we else, we promised each ; and she, 
 Like some wild creature newly caged, commenced 
 A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
 By Florian ; holding out her lily arms 
 Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said: 
 
 285 "I knew you at the first: tho' you have grown 
 You scarce have alter'd: I am sad and glad 
 To see you, Florian. I give thee to death 
 My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
 My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
 
 290 Our mother, is she well?" 
 
 With that she kiss'd 
 His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
 About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
 
62 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 From out a common vein of memory 
 
 Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
 
 And far allusion, till the gracious dews 295 
 
 Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
 
 They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
 
 "I brought a message here from Lady Blanche." 
 
 Back started she, and turning round we saw 
 
 The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood 300 
 
 Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
 
 A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, 
 
 That clad her like an April daffodilly 
 
 (Her mother's colour) with her lips apart, 
 
 And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes. 305 
 
 As bottom agates seem to wave and float 
 
 In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 
 
 So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
 Then Lady Psyche, "Ah — Melissa — you! 
 You heard us!" and Melissa, "0 pardon me, 810 
 
 I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
 But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
 Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 
 To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 
 "I trust you," said the other, "for we two 315 
 
 Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: 
 But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 
 Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
 The Danaiid of a leaky vase, for fear 
 This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 
 
 My honour, these their lives." "Ah, fear me not," 
 
PART II 63 
 
 Replied Melissa; "no — I would not tell, 
 
 No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, 
 
 No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things 
 
 325 That Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 
 
 "Be it so" the other, "that we still may lead 
 The new light np, and culminate in peace, 
 For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 
 Said Cyril, "Madam, he the wisest man 
 
 330 Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 
 Of Lebanonian cedar : nor should you 
 (Tho', Madam, you should answer, we would ask) 
 Less welcome find among us, if you came 
 Among us, debtors for our lives to you, 
 
 335 Myself for something more." He said not what 
 But "Thanks," she answered "Go: we have been 
 
 too long 
 Together: keep your hoods about the face; 
 They do so that affect abstraction here. 
 Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
 
 340 Your promise: all, I trust, may yet be well." 
 
 We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
 And held her round the knees against his waist, 
 And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter, 
 While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
 345 Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd; 
 And thus our conference closed. 
 
 And then we stroll 'd 
 For half the day thro' stately theatres 
 Bench 'd crescent -wise. In each we sat, we heard 
 
64 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
 
 The circle rounded under female hands 350 
 
 With flawless demonstration: follow'd then 
 
 A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
 
 With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out 
 
 By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
 
 And quoted odes, and jewels five-words long 355 
 
 That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
 
 Sparkle for ever : then we dipt in all 
 
 That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 
 
 The total chronicles of man, the mind, 
 
 The morals, something of the frame, the rock, 360 
 
 The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 
 
 Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, 
 
 And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
 
 Till like three horses that have broken fence 
 
 And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 365 
 
 We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke : 
 
 "Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 
 
 "They hunt old trails," said Cyril, "very well; 
 
 But when did woman ever yet invent?" 
 
 "Ungracious!" answer 'd Elorian; "have you 370 
 
 learnt 
 No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 
 The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?" 
 "0 trash," he said, "but with a kernel in it. 
 Should I not call her wise, who made me wise? 
 And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash 375 
 
 Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 
 And every Muse tumbled a science in. 
 
PART II 65 
 
 A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
 And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
 
 380 Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts 
 Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but 
 With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, 
 The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 
 The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too; 
 
 385 He cleft me thro' the stomacher; and now 
 What think you of it, Florian? do I chase 
 The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 
 I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 
 No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 
 
 390 Flatter myself that always everywhere 
 
 I know the substance when I see it. Well, 
 Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she 
 The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not, 
 Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat? 
 
 395 For dear are those three castles to my wants, 
 And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 
 And two dear things are one of double worth, 
 And much I might have said, but that my zone 
 Unmann'd me: then the Doctors! to hear 
 
 400 The Doctors ! to watch the thirsty plants 
 Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, 
 To break my chain, to shake my mane : but thou 
 Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry ! 
 Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 
 
 405 Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
 Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 
 Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 
 
66 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 
 
 Where they like swallows coming out of time 
 
 Will wonder why they came : but hark the bell 410 
 
 For dinner, let us go!" 
 
 And in we stream'd 
 Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
 By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
 With beauties every shade of brown and fair 
 In colours gayer than the morning mist, 415 
 
 The long hall glitter 'd like a bed of flowers. 
 How might a man not wander from his wits 
 Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
 Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 
 The second-sight of some Astraean age, 420 
 
 Sat compass 'd with professors: they, the while, 
 Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro: 
 A clamour fchicken'd, mixt with inmost terms 
 Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone 
 Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 425 
 
 With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
 Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
 In act to spring. 
 
 At last a solemn grace 
 Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 
 One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 430 
 
 In this hand held a volume as to read, 
 And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 
 Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 
 Or under arches of the marble bridge 
 Hung shadow 'd from the heat : some hid and sought 435 
 
PART II 67 
 
 In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 
 Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
 With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 
 Of the older sort, and murmur 'd that their May 
 
 440 Was passing : what was learning unto them? 
 They wish'd to marry; they could rule a house; 
 Men hated learned women : but we three 
 Sat muffled like the Fates : and often came 
 Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
 
 445 Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
 
 That harm'd not: then day droopt; the chapel 
 
 bells 
 Call'd us: we left the walks; we mixt with those 
 Six hundred maidens clad in purest white, 
 Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 
 
 450 While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 
 Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
 A long melodious thunder to the sound 
 Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, 
 The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
 
 455 A blessing on her labours for the world. 
 
PART III 
 
 Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
 
 Wind of the western sea, 
 
 Low, low, breathe and blow, 
 
 Wind of the western sea ! 
 Over the rolling waters, go, 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow, 
 
 Blow him again to me ; 
 While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps, 
 
 Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
 Silver sails all out of the west 
 
 Under the silver moon : 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 
 
 Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
 Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
 We rose, and each by other drest with care, 
 Descended to the conrt that lay three parts 
 In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd 
 Above the darkness from their native East. 
 
 There while we stood beside the fount, and 
 watch' d 
 Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
 68 
 
PART III 69 
 
 Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 
 10 Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 
 
 The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
 
 ''And fly," she cried, "0 fly, while yet you may! 
 
 My mother knows;" and when I ask'd her "how," 
 
 "My fault," she wept, "my fault! and yet not 
 mine ; 
 15 Yet mine in part. hear me, pardon me. 
 
 My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 
 
 To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
 
 She says the Princess should have been the Head, 
 
 Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 
 20 And so it was agreed when first they came ; 
 
 But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 
 
 And she the left, or not, or seldom used; 
 
 Hers more than half the students, all the love. 
 
 And so last night she fell to canvass you : 
 25 Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 
 
 'Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 
 
 Girls? — more like men!' and at these words the 
 snake, 
 
 My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast; 
 
 And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 
 30 Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
 
 To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh 'd: 
 
 '0 marvellously modest maiden, you! 
 
 Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men 
 
 You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 
 35 For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am ashamed 
 
 That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
 
70 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 What looks so little graceful: 'men' (for still 
 
 My mother went revolving on the word) 
 
 'And so they are — very like men indeed — 
 
 And with that woman closeted for hours !' 40 
 
 Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 
 
 ' Why — these — are — men : ' I shudder 'd : ' and you 
 
 know it.' 
 '0 ask me nothing,' I said: 'And she knows too, 
 And she conceals it.' So my mother clutch'd 
 The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 45 
 And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
 The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crush'd; 
 But you may yet be sav'd, and therefore fly: 
 But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 
 
 "What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?" 50 
 Said Cyril; "Pale one, blush again: than wear 
 Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
 Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven," 
 He added, "lest some classic Angel speak 
 In scorn of us, 'They mounted, Ganymedes, 55 
 
 To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.' 
 But I will melt this marble into wax 
 To yield us farther furlough:" and he went. 
 
 Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
 He scarce would prosper. "Tell us," Florian 60 
 
 ask'd, 
 "How grew this feud betwixt the right and left." 
 "0, long ago," she said, "betwixt these two 
 
PART III 71 
 
 Division smoulders hidden ; 'tis my mother. 
 Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
 
 65 Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 
 I never knew my father, but she says 
 (God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
 And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
 She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
 
 70 And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 
 But when your sister came she won the heart 
 Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
 (For so they said themselves) inosculated; 
 Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
 
 75 One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
 Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, 
 And angled with them for her pupil's love: 
 She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
 But I must go: I dare not tarry," and light, 
 
 so As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 
 
 Then murmur 'd Florian gazing after her, 
 "An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
 If I could love, why this were she: how pretty 
 Her blushing was, and how she blush 'd again, 
 85 As if to close with Cyril's random wish: 
 
 Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
 Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 
 
 "The crane," I said, "may chatter of the crane,. 
 The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
 90 An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
 
72 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 My princess, my princess! trne she errs, 
 
 But in her own grand way : being herself 
 
 Three times more noble than three score of men, 
 
 She sees herself in every woman else, 
 
 And so she wears her error like a crown 95 
 
 To blind the truth and me ; for her, and her, 
 
 Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
 
 The nectar ; but — ah she — whene'er she moves 
 
 The Samian Here rises and she speaks 
 
 A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun." 100 
 
 So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
 The terrace ranged along the Northern front, 
 And leaning there on those balusters, high 
 Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
 That blown about the foliage underneath, 105 
 
 And sated with the innumerable rose, 
 Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
 Cyril, and yawning, "0 hard task," he cried; 
 "No fighting shadows here! I forced a way 
 Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 110 
 
 Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
 A league of street in summer solstice down, 
 Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
 I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd: found her there 
 At point to move, and settled in her eyes 115 
 
 The green malignant light of coming storm. 
 Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd, 
 As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
 Concealment : she demanded who we were, 
 
PART III 73 
 
 120 And why we came? I fabled nothing fair, 
 But, your example pilot, told her all. 
 Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
 But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, 
 She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 
 
 125 I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 
 
 And our three lives. True — we had limed our- 
 selves 
 With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
 But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 
 The woman's cause. 'Not more than now, ' she said, 
 
 130 'So puddled as it is with favouritism.' 
 
 I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 
 Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 
 Her answer was, 'Leave me to deal with that.' 
 I spoke of war to come and many deaths, 
 
 135 And she replied, her duty was to speak, 
 And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
 I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew 
 No rock so hard but that a little wave 
 May beat admission in a thousand years, 
 
 140 I re-commenced; 'Decide not ere you pause. 
 I find you here but in the second place, 
 Some say the third — the authentic foundress you 
 I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 
 Wink at our advent : help my prince to gain 
 
 145 His rightful bride, and here I promise }^ou 
 Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 
 The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 
 And your great name flow on with broadening time 
 
74 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 For ever.' Well, she balanced this a little, 
 
 And told me she would answer us to-day, 150 
 
 Meantime be mute ; thus much, nor more I gain'd. " 
 
 He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
 "That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
 The dip of certain strata to the North. 
 Would we go with her? we should find the land 155 
 Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
 Out yonder;" then she pointed on to where 
 A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
 Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 
 
 Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all ieo 
 
 Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
 Then summon 'd to the porch we went. She stood 
 Among her maidens, higher by the head, 
 Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
 Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roll'd 165 
 
 And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near; 
 I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
 Upon me, the weird vision of our house: 
 The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
 Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, 170 
 
 Her college and her maidens empty masks, 
 And I myself the shadow of a dream, 
 For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
 My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 
 Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 175 
 
 Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
 
PART III 75 
 
 That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
 My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
 Went forth in long retinue following up 
 180 The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 
 
 I rode beside her and to me she said : 
 "0 friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
 Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
 Unwillingly we spake." "No, not to her," 
 185 I answer 'd, "but to one of whom we spake 
 
 Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you 
 
 say." 
 "Again?" she cried, "are you ambassadresses 
 Prom him to me? we give you, being strange, 
 A license: speak, and let the topic die." 
 
 190 I stammer' d that I knew him — could have 
 wish'd — 
 "Our king expects — was there no precontract? 
 There is no truer -hear ted — ah, you seem 
 All he prefigured, and he could not see 
 The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
 
 195 To follow: surely, if your Highness keep 
 
 Your purport, you will shock him e'en to death, 
 Or baser courses, children of despair." 
 
 "Poor boy," she said, "can he not read — no 
 books? 
 Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? nor deals in that 
 200 Which men delight in, martial exercise? 
 
76 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
 
 Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; 
 
 As girls were once, as we ourself have been : 
 
 We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them : 
 
 We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 205 
 
 Being other — since we learnt our meaning here, 
 
 To lift the woman's fallen divinity 
 
 Upon an even pedestal with man." 
 
 She paused, and added with a haughtier smile 
 "And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 
 
 At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 
 
 Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon 'd out 
 She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
 To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 
 
 "Alas your Highness breathes full East," I 215 
 said, 
 "On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 
 
 1 prize his truth ; and then how vast a work 
 To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 
 You grant me license; might I use it? think; 
 
 Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 220 
 
 Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
 
 And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
 
 May only make that footprint upon sand 
 
 Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
 
 Eesmooth to nothing; might I dread that you, 225 
 
 With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds 
 
 For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
 
PART III 77 
 
 Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
 Love, children, happiness?" 
 
 And she exclaim' d, 
 
 230 ''Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild! 
 What! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
 Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 
 You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus : 
 Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
 
 235 Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well : 
 But children die; and let me tell you, girl, 
 Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die; 
 They with the sun and moon renew their light 
 For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
 
 240 Children — that men may pluck them from our 
 hearts, 
 Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 
 — children — there is nothing upon earth 
 More miserable that she that has a son 
 And sees him err : nor would we work for fame ; 
 
 245 Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of 
 Great, 
 Who learns the one pou sto whence afterhands 
 May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
 But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
 For fear our solid aim be dissipated 
 
 250 By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 
 In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 
 Of giants living, each, a thousand years, 
 That we might see our own work out, and watch 
 The sandy footprint harden into stone. " 
 
78 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 255 
 
 If that strange Poet-princess with her grand 
 Imaginations might at all be won. 
 And she broke out interprets g my thoughts : 
 
 "No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; 
 "We are used to that : for women, up till this 260 
 
 Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, 
 Dwarfs of the gynaeceum, fail so far 
 In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
 How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
 If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 265 
 
 Oh if our end were less achievable 
 By slow approaches, than by single act 
 Of immolation, any phase of death, 
 We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 
 Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it, 270 
 
 To compass our dear sisters' liberties." 
 
 She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear; 
 And up we came to where the river sloped 
 To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
 A breath of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 275 
 And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out 
 The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
 Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
 4 'As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
 That will be." "Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 280 
 "Which wrought us, as the workman and his 
 work, 
 
PART III 79 
 
 That practice betters?" "How," she cried, "you 
 
 love 
 The metaphysics ! read and earn our prize, 
 A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
 
 285 Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
 
 Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life ; 
 She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
 For there are schools for all." "And yet," I said, 
 "Methinks I have not found among them all 
 
 290 One anatomic." "Nay, we thought of that," 
 She answer'd, "but it pleased us not: in truth 
 We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
 Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
 And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 
 
 295 Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 
 And holy secrets of this microcosm. 
 Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 
 Encarnalise their spirits : yet we know 
 Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : 
 
 300 Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 
 
 Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, 
 For many weary moons before we came, 
 This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
 Would tend upon you. To your question now, 
 
 305 Which touches on the workman and his work. 
 Let there be light and there was light : 'tis so : 
 For was, and is, and will be, are but is; 
 And all creation is one act at once, 
 The birth of light : but we that are not all, 
 
 3io As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 
 
80 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and 
 
 make 
 One act a phantom of succession : thus 
 Oar weakness somehow shapes the shadow, 
 
 Time; 
 But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
 The woman to the fuller day." 315 
 
 She spake 
 With kindled eyes : we rode a league beyond, 
 And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
 On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
 Full of all beauty. "0 how sweet," I said 
 (For I was half -oblivious of my mask) 320 
 
 "To linger here with one that loved us." "Yea," 
 She answer 'd, "or with fair philosophies 
 That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
 Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, 
 Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 325 
 
 The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers 
 Built to the Sun:" then, turning to her maids, 
 "Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward; 
 Lay out the viands." At the word, they raised 
 A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 
 
 With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood, 
 Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, 
 The woman-conqueror; woman-conquer'd there 
 The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns, 
 And all the men mourn'd at his side: but we 335 
 
 Set forth to climb; then, climbing, Cyril kept 
 With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
 
PART III 81 
 
 With mine affianced. Many a little hand 
 Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 
 
 340 Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 
 
 In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we wound 
 About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 
 Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
 Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
 
 345 Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
 
 Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all 
 The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 
 
PART IV 
 
 The splendour falls on castle walls 
 And snowy summits old in story : 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going 1 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 "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 thro' 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, 
 82 
 
PART IV 83 
 
 10 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 enter 'd in, 
 There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
 is Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
 A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
 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, 
 so 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, 
 25 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 ; 
 30 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 The earliest pipe of half- awaken 'd birds 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
 35 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
 "Dear as remember' d kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
 
84 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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." 40 
 
 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 
 Answer 'd the Princess, "If indeed there haunt 
 About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 45 
 
 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 hatch'd 
 In silken-f olcled idleness ; nor is it 
 Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, so 
 
 But trim our sails, and let old by-gones 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 55 
 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 cancell'd Babels: tho' the rough kex break 
 The starr'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 60 
 
 Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig-tree 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; 65 
 
 "Know you no song of your own land," she said, 
 "Not such as moans about the retrospect, 
 
PART IV 85 
 
 But deals with the other distance and the hues 
 Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine." 
 
 70 Then I remember' d 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. 
 
 75 "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, 
 80 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, 
 85 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? 
 
 90 "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. 
 
86 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 "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. 95 
 
 "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, 100 
 
 Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien 
 
 lips, 
 And knew not what they meant; for still my 
 
 voice 
 Eang false; but smiling "Not for thee," she 
 
 said, 
 "0 Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
 Shall burst her veil; marsh-divers, rather, maid, 105 
 Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
 Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this 
 A mere love-poem! for such, my friend, 
 We hold them slight : they mind us of the time 
 When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are no 
 
 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 ; ns 
 
 She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
 
PART IV 87 
 
 A rogue of cansonets and serenades. 
 
 I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 
 
 So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 
 
 120 Used to great ends : our self have often tried 
 Valkyr ian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 
 The passion of the prophetess ; for song 
 Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 
 Of spirit than to junketing and love. 
 
 125 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 
 
 130 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 countrywomen?" 
 
 She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with 
 eyes 
 135 Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
 
 Then while I dragged my brains for such a song, 
 Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had 
 
 wrought, 
 Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 
 To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
 140 Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
 Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
 I frowning; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and 
 shook; 
 
88 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows; 
 
 "Forbear," the Princess cried; "Forbear, Sir," I; 
 
 And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 145 
 
 I smote him on the breast; he started up; 
 
 There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd; 
 
 Melissa clamour 'd, "Flee the death;" "To horse," 
 
 Said Ida; "home! to horse!" and fled, as flies 
 
 A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 150 
 
 When some one batters at the dovecot-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, 155 
 
 And every hoof a knell to my desires, 
 
 Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek, 
 
 "The Head, the Head, the Princess, the Head!" 
 
 For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and 
 
 roll'd 
 In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom: 160 
 There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd 
 
 branch 
 Kapt 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 165 
 
 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 stoop'd 
 To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 
 
PART IV 89 
 
 170 Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 
 And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 
 
 There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
 In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
 My burthen from mine arms; they cried "she 
 lives : ' ' 
 
 its 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, 
 Not found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
 (For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
 
 180 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 
 
 185 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, 
 190 Thro' which I clamber 'd 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 glow-worm, now the star, 
 I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 
 195 Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 
 
 A step 
 
90 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
 
 Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
 
 Disturb'd me with the doubt "if this were she," 
 
 But it was Florian. "Hist, hist," he said, 
 
 "They seek us : out so late is out of rules. 200 
 
 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, return'd. 
 
 Arriving all confused among the rest 205 
 
 With hooded brows I crept into the hall, 
 
 And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 
 
 The head of Holof ernes, peep'd and saw. 
 
 Girl after girl was call'd to trial: each 
 
 Disclaim'd all knowledge of us : last of all, 210 
 
 Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
 
 She, question'd if she knew us men, at first 
 
 Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : 
 
 And then, demanded if her mother knew, 
 
 Or Psyche, she afhrm'd not, or denied : 215 
 
 From whence the Eoyal mind, familiar with her, 
 
 Easily gather 'd either guilt. She sent 
 
 For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
 
 For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; 
 
 She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220 
 
 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." 225 
 
PART IV 91 
 
 "And yet," I said, "you wrong him more than I 
 That struck him : this is proper to the clown, 
 Tho' smock 'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, 
 To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 
 
 230 That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er 
 He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
 Might have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lips 
 Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
 These flashes on the surface are not he. 
 
 235 He has a solid base of temperament : 
 But as the wateriily starts and slides 
 Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
 Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he." 
 
 Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
 240 Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, "Names": 
 He, standing still, was clutch'd; 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 : 
 245 Before me shower 'd the rose in flakes; behind 
 I heard the puiTd pursuer; at mine ear 
 Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
 And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
 At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 
 250 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 her hall: above her droop'd a lamp, 
 
92 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And made the single jewel on her brow 
 Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head. 255 
 
 Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
 Bow'd 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 260 
 
 rain, 
 And labour. Each was like a Druid rock ; 
 Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
 Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews. 
 
 Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
 An advent to the throne : and there beside, 265 
 
 Half naked as if caught at once from bed 
 And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
 The lily -shining child; and on the left, 
 Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
 Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 270 
 Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
 Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 
 
 "It was not thus, Princess, in old days: 
 You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : 
 I led you then to all the Castalies ; 275 
 
 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 — 
 
PART IV 93 
 
 280 I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 
 Till taken with her seeming openness 
 You turn'd 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, 
 
 285 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, 
 
 290 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 
 
 295 You stood in your own light and darken 'd 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? 
 
 300 But still her lists were swelPd 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 : 
 
 305 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 fear'd 
 
94 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 To meet a cold 'We thank yon, we shall hear of it 
 From Lady Psyche:' yon had gone to her, 310 
 
 She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 
 No doubt, for slight delay, remain 'd among us 
 In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
 Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 
 Were all miscounted as malignant haste 315 
 
 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 watch' d them well, 320 
 Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
 And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 
 I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 
 Eidd'n to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought, 
 That surely she will speak ; if not, then 1 : 325 
 
 Did she? These monsters blazon'd 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 ; 330 
 
 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, 335 
 
 Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
 For every gust of chance, and men will say 
 
PART IV 95 
 
 We did not know the real light, but chased 
 The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." 
 
 340 She ceased: the Princess answer 'd 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 stretch 'd a vulture throat, 
 
 345 And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
 
 "The plan was mine. I built the nest," she said, 
 "To hatch the cuckoo. Eise!" and stoop 'd to 
 
 updrag 
 Melissa: she, half on her mother propt, 
 Half-drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
 
 350 A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 
 
 Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
 A Mobean daughter, one arm out, 
 Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
 We gazed upon her came a little stir 
 
 355 About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
 Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
 A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
 Stared in her eyes, and chalk' d her face, and 
 
 wing'd 
 Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
 
 360 Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head 
 Took half -amazed, and in her lion's mood 
 Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 
 
96 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Eegarding, while she read, till over brow 
 
 And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 
 
 As of some fire against a stormy cloud, 365 
 
 When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 
 
 Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens; 
 
 For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, 
 
 Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 
 
 Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 
 
 In the dead hush the papers that she held 
 
 Bustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 
 
 Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam; 
 
 The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire; she crush'd 
 
 The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 375 
 
 As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 
 
 She whirl 'd them on to me, as who should say 
 
 "Bead," 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, 380 
 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, 385 
 
 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: 
 
 Bender him up unscathed : give him your hand : 
 
PART IV 97 
 
 390 Cleave to your contract: tho' 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 
 Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
 
 395 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. 
 
 "0 not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
 
 400 But led by golden wishes and a hope 
 The child of regal compact, did I break 
 Your precinct ; not a s corner of your sex 
 But venerator, zealous it should be 
 All that it might be: hear me, for I bear, 
 
 405 Tho' man, yet human, whatso'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 stoop'd to me 
 
 410 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 wilds wan in among the stars 
 
 415 Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm 
 light 
 
98 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The mellow breaker mnrmur'd Ida. Now, 
 
 Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 
 
 Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 
 
 Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
 
 Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 420 
 
 A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 
 
 Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 
 
 noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
 On you, their centre: let me say but this, 
 
 That many a famous man and woman, town 425 
 
 And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 
 
 The dwarfs of presage: tho' 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 430 
 
 And master' d, 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, 
 
 1 cannot cease to follow you, as they say 435 
 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 ; more than poor men wealth, 
 Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — 440 
 
 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 
 
PART IV 99 
 
 That it becomes no man to nnrse despair, 
 
 445 But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
 To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
 Yet that I came not all unauthorised 
 Behold your father's letter." 
 
 On one knee 
 Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
 
 450 Unopen'd at her feet : a tide of fierce 
 Invective seem'd 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 
 
 455 A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
 Gather 'd 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, 
 
 460 And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 
 
 Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some 
 
 pale, 
 All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, 
 Some crying there was an army in the land, 
 And some that men were in the very walls, 
 
 465 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 look'd, the Head: but rising up 
 470 Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
 
100 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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 stretch 'd her arms 475 
 
 and call'd 
 Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 
 
 "What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head? 
 On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : / dare 
 All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye fear? 
 Peace ! there are those to avenge us and they come : 480 
 If not, — myself were like enough, girls, 
 To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
 And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 
 Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, 
 Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 485 
 
 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 — to-morrow morn 
 We hold a great convention : then shall they 490 
 
 That love their voices more than duty, learn 
 With whom they deal, dismiss 'd 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, 495 
 
 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, 
 
PART IV 101 
 
 To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 
 500 For ever slaves at home and fools abroad." 
 
 She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the 
 crowd 
 Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that 
 
 look'd 
 A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 
 When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
 505 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. 
 
 5io You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 
 Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
 Than 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, 
 
 515 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 
 
 gull'd 
 Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 
 
 520 / wed with thee ! i" bound by precontract 
 
 Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
 That veins the world were pack'd to make your 
 crown, 
 
102 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
 
 Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 
 
 I trample on your offers and on you : 525 
 
 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 address'd 
 Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 
 But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, 
 The weight of destiny : so from her face 
 They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the 
 
 court, 
 And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 
 
 We cross 'd the street and gain'd a petty mound 535 
 Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
 The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
 On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt : 
 I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts; 
 The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 
 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. 545 
 
 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 
 
INTERLUDE 103 
 
 And sudden ghostly shadowing I was one 
 550 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. 
 
 INTERLUDE 
 
 Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 
 That beat to battle where he stands ; 
 
 Thy face across his fancy comes, 
 And gives the battle to his hands : 
 
 5 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 -possess 'd, 
 io She struck such warbling fury thro' the word; 
 And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 
 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, 
 15 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 Ealph has got your colours: if I prove 
 Your knight, and fight your battle, what for 
 me?" 
 20 It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 
 Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
 
104 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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 borrow'd from the hall, 
 Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince. 
 
PART 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; 
 5 His Highness wakes:" and one, that clash 'd 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 blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
 10 Whispers of war. 
 
 Entering, the sudden light 
 Dazed me half -blind: I stood and seem'd 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 
 15 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 flash'd their glittering 
 teeth, 
 20 The huge bush -bearded Barons heaved and blew, 
 And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire. 
 105 
 
106 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 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 draggled mawkin, thou, 25 
 
 That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge:" 
 For I was drench 'd 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 30 
 
 A whisper 'd jest to some one near him, "Look, 
 He has been among his shadows." "Satan take 
 The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
 Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
 Go: Cyril told us all." 35 
 
 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 40 
 
 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 ask'd and given 
 For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 45 
 
 Follow 'd his tale. Amazed he fled away 
 Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
 Had come on Psyche weeping: "then we fell 
 
PART V 107 
 
 Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 
 
 50 But will not speak, nor stir." 
 
 He show'd a tent 
 A stone-shot off: we enter'd in, and there 
 Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
 Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak, 
 Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
 
 55 And push'd 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 charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
 Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 
 
 60 Then Florian knelt, and "Come," he whisper 'd 
 
 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, 
 65 When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I: 
 "Be comforted: have I not lost her too, 
 In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
 That none have else for me?" She heard, she 
 
 moved, 
 She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat, 
 70 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 — 
 
108 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Parted from her — betray 'd her cause and mine — 
 Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith? 
 base and bad! what comfort? none for me!" 75 
 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 ! 80 
 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 85 
 
 Eemembering her mother : 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, 90 
 
 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 95 
 
 Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 
 And lay my little blossom at my feet, 
 My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
 And I will take her up and go my way, 
 And satisfy my soul with kissing her : 100 
 
PART V 109 
 
 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 veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so 
 
 105 Like tender things that being caught feign death, 
 Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 
 
 By this a murmur ran 
 Thro' all the camp and inward raced the scouts 
 With rumour of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
 We left her by the woman, and without 
 
 no Found the gray kings at parle: and "Look you," 
 cried 
 My father, "that our compact be fulnU'd: 
 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 ; 
 
 us She yields, or war." 
 
 Then Gama turn'd 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, 
 
 120 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 thro' which I loom to her 
 
110 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 125 
 
 At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
 
 (And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 
 
 And every face she look'd on justify it) 
 
 The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
 
 By gentleness than war. I want her love. 130 
 
 What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 
 
 Your cities into shards with catapults, 
 
 She would not love; — or brought her chain'd, a 
 
 slave, 
 The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 
 Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 135 
 
 The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 
 Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 
 And crush 'd to death : and rather, Sire, than this 
 I would the old God of war himself were dead, 
 Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 140 
 
 Eotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 
 Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice, 
 Not to be molten out. " 
 
 And roughly spake 
 My father, 4 'Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
 Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 145 
 
 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. 150 
 
 Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for 
 
 shame ! 
 
PART V 111 
 
 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 
 
 155 With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps 
 in 
 Among the women, snares them by the score 
 Flatter 'd and fluster 'd, wins, tho' dash'd with 
 
 death 
 He reddens what he kisses : thus I won 
 Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 
 
 160 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, 
 
 165 "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 
 
 170 Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, 
 No, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king, 
 True woman : but you clash them all in one, 
 That have as many differences as we. 
 The violet varies from the lily as far 
 
 175 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, 
 
112 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Glorifying clown and satyr ; whence they need 
 
 More breadth of culture : is not Ida right? iso 
 
 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 185 
 
 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, 190 
 
 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 195 
 
 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. 200 
 
 Yon 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, 205 
 
 Our own detention, why, the causes weigh 'd, 
 Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
 
PART V 113 
 
 We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
 We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
 
 210 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 buss'd the milking- 
 
 maid, 
 Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream: 
 
 215 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. 
 
 220 You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will 
 
 Follow us : who knows? we four may build some 
 
 plan 
 Foursquare to opposition." 
 
 Here he reach 'd 
 White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl'd 
 An answer which, half- muffled in his beard, 
 
 225 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 
 2so Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 
 
 In the old king's ears, who promised help, and 
 
 oozed 
 All o'er with honey 'd answer as we rode 
 
114 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
 
 Gather 'd by night and peace with each light air 
 
 On our mail'd heads: but other thoughts than 235 
 
 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 yelPd; they clash'd their arms; the 240 
 
 drum 
 Beat; merrily-blowing shrill'd 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 245 
 
 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 play'd upon them, made them 
 
 glance 
 Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 250 
 That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark; 
 And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, 
 And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
 Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 
 
 And I that prated peace, when first I heard 255 
 
 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 
 
PART V 115 
 
 His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
 260 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 labour 'd down within his ample lungs, 
 The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
 265 Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 
 
 4 '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 : 
 
 2ro And there's a downright honest meaning in her; 
 She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
 She ask'd 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! 
 
 275 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, 
 
 280 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 talk'd down the fifty wisest men; 
 
 285 She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 
 
 Come, this is all ; she will not : waive your claim : 
 
11C- THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
 Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will." 
 
 I lagg'd in answer, loth to render up 
 My precontract, and loth by brainless war 290 
 
 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." 295 
 A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow! 
 For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 
 And sharp I answer 'd, touch'd upon the point 
 Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 
 "Decide it here: why not? we are three to three." 300 
 
 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 305 
 
 May breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow 
 Of these or those, the question settled die." 
 "Yea," answer'd I, "for this wild wreath of air, 
 This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
 Foam of men's deeds — this honour, if ye will. 310 
 
 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 
 
PART V 117 
 
 Her compact." "'Sdeath! but we will send to 
 her," 
 315 Said Arac, "worthy reasons why she should 
 Bide by this issue: let our missive thro' 
 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 
 
 320 Eegarded; neither seem'd 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 
 
 325 With her own people's life: three times he went: 
 The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd: 
 He batter'd at the doors; none came: the next, 
 An awful voice within had warn'd him thence: 
 The third, and those eight daughters of the plough 
 
 330 Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 
 And so belabor 'd him on rib and cheek 
 They made him wild: not less one glance he 
 
 caught 
 Thro' open doors of Ida station 'd there 
 Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
 
 335 Tho' compass'd 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 
 Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills roll 
 
118 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The torrents, dash'd to the vale: and yet her will 340 
 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 clash'd 
 His iron palms together with a cry ; 
 Himself would tilt it out among the lads : 345 
 
 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. 350 
 
 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 column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
 And great bronze valves, emboss 'd with Tomyris 355 
 And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
 But now fast barr'd: so here upon the flat 
 All that long morn the lists were hammer 'd up, 
 And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
 With message and defiance, went and came ; 360 
 
 Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 
 But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
 Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 
 
 "0 brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
 What heats of indignation when we heard 365 
 
 Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet; 
 
PART V 119 
 
 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 
 
 370 Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of 
 those, — 
 Mothers, — that, 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 
 
 375 That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
 
 With smoother men : the old leaven leaven 'd 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. 
 
 380 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 prosper 'd; till a rout of saucy boys 
 
 385 Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 
 Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 
 Of insolence and love, some pretext held 
 Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 
 Seal'd not the bond — the striplings! — for their 
 sport ! — 
 
 390 I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these? 
 Or you? or I? for since you think me touch 'd 
 In honour — what, I would not aught of false — 
 Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know 
 
120 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 
 
 You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 395 
 
 What end soever : fail you will not. Still 
 
 Take not his life: he risk'd it for my own; 
 
 His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do, 
 
 Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. 
 
 dear 
 Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 400 
 
 The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 
 The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime, 
 Your very armour hallow 'd, and your statues 
 Eear'd, sung to, when, this gad-fly brush 'd aside, 
 We plant a solid foot into the Time, 405 
 
 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 her- 
 self; 
 And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 
 And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 
 
 Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 
 Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
 Between the Northern and the Southern morn. " 
 
 Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. 
 "See that there be no traitors in your camp: 415 
 
 We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
 Since our arms fail'd — 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 420 
 
PART V 121 
 
 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 
 425 This morning : there the tender orphan hands 
 Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
 The wrath I nurs'd against the world: farewell." 
 
 I ceased; he said, "Stubborn, but she may sit 
 Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 
 
 430 And breed up warriors ! See now, tho' yourself 
 Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
 That swallow common sense, the spindling king, 
 This Gama swamp 'd in lazy tolerance. 
 When the man wants weight, the woman takes it 
 up, 
 
 435 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 : 
 
 440 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 armchair while the fires of Hell 
 
 445 Mix with his hearth: but you — she's yet a colt — 
 Take, break her: strongly groom'd and straitly 
 
 curb'd 
 She might not rank with those detestable 
 
122 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 
 
 Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 
 
 They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance: 450 
 
 / like her none the less for rating at her ! 
 
 Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 
 
 But surfers change of frame. A lusty brace 
 
 Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 
 
 The bearing and the training of a child 455 
 
 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, 460 
 
 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 remember 'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 
 That one should fight with shadows and should 465 
 
 fall; 
 And like a flash the weird affection came : 
 King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows; 
 I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 
 And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 
 To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 470 
 
 And ere I woke it was the point of noon, 
 The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 
 We enter 'd in, and waited, fifty there 
 Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
 At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 475 
 
PART V 123 
 
 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 
 
 480 In conflict with the crash of shivering points, 
 And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I dream'd 
 Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
 And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 
 And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
 
 485 Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept their 
 seats : 
 Part roll'd 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, 
 
 490 The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 
 He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 
 And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and 
 
 shield, — 
 Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 
 With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 
 
 495 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, statue-like, 
 
 500 Between a cymbal' d Miriam and a Jael, 
 With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
 A single band of gold about her hair, 
 
124 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she 
 
 No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
 
 Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 505 
 
 Yea, let her see me fall ! 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, 510 
 
 Made at me thro' 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 515 
 
 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, 520 
 
 Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down : 
 And Cyril seeing it, push'd 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 525 
 
 And threw him: last I spurr'd; 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 sheer a feather, and dream and truth 530 
 Plow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell. 
 
PART VI 
 
 Home they brought her warrior dead : 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry : 
 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 "She must weep or she will die." 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 
 Call'd 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. 
 
 Eose a nurse of ninety years, 
 
 Set his child upon her knee — 
 Like summer tempest came her tears — 
 
 "Sweet, my child, I live for thee." 
 
 My dream had never died or lived again. 
 As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
 Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard: 
 Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
 s So often that I speak as having seen. 
 
 For so it seem'd, or so they said to me, 
 That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; 
 That when our side was vanquish 'd and my cause 
 Forever lost, there went up a great cry, 
 10 The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran 
 In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
 125 
 
126 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
 Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 
 
 But high upon the palace Ida stood 
 With Psy cue's babe in arm: there on the roofs is 
 Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 
 
 "Our enemies have faH'n, have fall'n: the seed, 
 The little seed they laughed at in the dark, 
 Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
 Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 20 
 
 A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 
 
 "Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, 
 The leaves were wet with women's tears : they heard 
 The noise of songs they would not understand : 
 They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 25 
 
 And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 
 
 "Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, 
 The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
 But we will make it faggots for the hearth, 
 And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 30 
 
 And boats and bridges for the use of men. 
 
 "Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n; they struck; 
 With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
 There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
 The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 35 
 
 Their arms were shatter 'd to the shoulder blade. 
 
 "Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
 A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
 Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: and roll'd 
 With music in the growing breeze of Time, 40 
 
 The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
 Shall move the stony bases of the world. 
 
PART VI 127 
 
 "And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
 Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
 
 45 To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 
 Champion'd our cause and won it with a day 
 Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
 When dames and heroines of the golden year 
 Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
 
 so To rain an April of ovation round 
 
 Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
 We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
 Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
 111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
 
 55 The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
 Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
 Of female hands and hospitality. ' ' 
 
 She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
 Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
 
 eo A hundred maids in train across the Park. 
 
 Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came, 
 Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went 
 The enamour'd air sighing, and on their curls 
 From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 
 
 65 And over them the tremulous isles of light 
 Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
 At distance follow'd: so they came: anon 
 Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
 Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
 
 "o That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, 
 And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 
 
128 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 
 
 That lovely, lordly creature floated on 
 
 To where her wounded brethren lay; there stay'd; 
 
 Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 75 
 
 Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers, 
 
 And happy warriors, and immortal names, 
 
 And said: "You shall not lie in the tents but here, 
 
 And nursed by those for whom you fought, and 
 
 served 
 With female hands and hospitality." so 
 
 Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance, 
 She past my way. Up started from my side 
 The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, 
 Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
 Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale, ss 
 
 Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd; and when she saw 
 The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
 Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
 Of his own son, shudder 'd, a twitch of pain 
 Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 90 
 A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 
 "He saved my life: my brother slew him for it." 
 No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 
 Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, 
 And held them up : she saw them, and a day 95 
 
 Eose from the distance on her memory, 
 When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 
 With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 
 And then once more she looked at my pale face : 
 
PART VI 129 
 
 100 Till understanding all the foolish work 
 Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 
 Her iron will was broken in her mind; 
 Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 
 She bow'd, she set the child on the earth; she laid 
 
 105 A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 
 "0 Sire," she said, "he lives: he is not dead: 
 let me have him with my brethren here 
 In our own pal ace : we will tend on him 
 Like one of these ; if so, by any means, 
 
 no To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make 
 Our progress falter to the woman's goal," 
 
 She said: but at the happy word "he lives," 
 My father stoop 'd, refather'd o'er my wounds. 
 So those two foes above my fallen life, 
 
 us With brow to brow like night and evening mixt 
 Their dark and gray, while Psyche ever stole 
 A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
 Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede, 
 Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass, 
 
 120 Uncar'd for, spied its mother and began 
 A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
 Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
 And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
 Brook 'd not, but clamouring out, "Mine — mine — 
 not yours, 
 
 125 It is not yours, but mine: give me the child," 
 Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
 So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth 'd, 
 
130 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 
 
 With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
 
 Eed grief and mother's hunger in her eye, iso 
 
 And down dead-heavy sank her cmis, and half 
 
 The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
 
 The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 
 
 Nor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida heard, 
 
 Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 135 
 
 Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
 
 The mother, me, the child; but he that lay 
 
 Beside us, Cyril, batter 'd as he was, 
 
 Trail'd himself up on one knee: then he drew 
 
 Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd 140 
 
 At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it seem'd 
 
 Or self -involved ; but when she learnt his face, 
 
 Eemembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 
 
 Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 
 
 Tall as a figure lengthen 'd on the sand 145 
 
 When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said : 
 
 ' ' fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 
 That with your long locks play the Lion's mane! 
 But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
 And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, iso 
 We vanquished, you the Victor of your will. 
 What would you more? give her the child ! remain 
 Orb'd in your isolation: he is dead, 
 Or all as dead: henceforth we let you be: 
 Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 155 
 
 Lest, where you seek the common love of these, 
 
PART VI 131 
 
 The common hate with the revolving wheel 
 Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
 Break from a darken'cl future, crown'd with fire, 
 
 160 And tread you out forever: but howsoe'er 
 Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
 To hold your own, deny not hers to her, 
 Give her the child ! if , I say, you keep 
 One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 
 
 165 The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, 
 Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer, 
 Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it, 
 Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 
 Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 
 
 170 The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, 
 Give me it: / will give it her." 
 
 He said : 
 At first her eye with slow dilation rolPd 
 Dry flame, she listening ; after sank and sank 
 And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
 
 175 Full on the child; she took it: "Pretty bud! 
 Lily of the vale! half open'd bell of the woods! 
 Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
 Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
 No purple in the distance, mystery, 
 
 180 Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; 
 These men are hard upon us as of old, 
 We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
 To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
 I might be something to thee, when I felt 
 
 185 Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
 
132 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
 As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
 And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
 Gentle as freedom" — here she kiss'd it: then — 
 "All good go with thee! take it, Sir," and so 190 
 
 Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 
 Who turn'd half-round to Psyche as she sprang 
 To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 
 Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 
 And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough, 195 
 
 And in her hunger mouth' d and mumbled it, 
 And hid her bosom with it ; after that 
 Put on more c#lm and added suppliantly : 
 
 "We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
 Forever : find some other : as for me 200 
 
 I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet speak to 
 
 me, 
 Say one soft word and let me part forgiven." 
 
 But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
 Then Arac. "Ida — 'sdeath! you blame the man; 
 You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 205 
 
 Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
 I am your warrior : I and mine have fought 
 Your battle: kiss her; take her hand, she weeps: 
 'Sdeath! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than 
 
 see it." 
 
 But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 210 
 
 And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
 
PART VI 133 
 
 And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 
 
 "I've heard that there is iron in the blood, 
 And I believe it. Not one word? not one? 
 
 215 Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, 
 Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
 She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
 'Our Ida has a heart' — just ere she died — 
 'But see that some one with authority 
 
 220 Be near her still' and I — I sought for one — 
 All people said she had authority — 
 The Lady Blanche: much profit ! Not one word ; 
 No! tho' your father sues: see how you stand 
 Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights 
 maim'd, 
 
 225 I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 
 For your wild whim: and was it then for this, 
 Was it for this we gave our palace up, 
 Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 
 And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 
 
 230 And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 
 Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind? 
 Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom, 
 When first she came, all flush 'd you said to me 
 Now had you got a friend of your own age, 
 
 235 Now could you share your thought; now should 
 men see 
 Two women faster welded in one love 
 Than pairs of wedlock; she you walk'd with, she 
 You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the 
 tower, 
 
134 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 
 
 And right ascension, Heaven knows what; and 240 
 
 now 
 A word, but one, one little kindly word, 
 Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint ! 
 You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, 
 You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 
 You will not? well — no heart have you, or such 245 
 As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
 Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." 
 So said the small king moved beyond his wont. 
 
 But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
 By many a varying influence and so long. 250 
 
 Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept: 
 Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
 A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
 In a still water: then brare out my sire, 
 Lifting his grim head from my wounds. "0 you, 255 
 Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
 And were half fool'd to let you tend our son, 
 Because he might have wish'd it — but we see 
 The accomj)lice of your madness unforgiven, 
 And think that you might mix his draught with 260 
 
 death, 
 When your skies change again : the rougher hand 
 Is safer : on to the tents : take up the Prince. " 
 
 He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
 A tempest, thro' the cloud that climm'd her broke 
 
PART VI 135 
 
 265 A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
 Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 
 
 "Come hither, 
 
 Psyche," she cried out, "embrace me, come, 
 Quick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
 With one that cannot keep her mind an hour : 
 
 270 Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
 Kiss and be friends, like children being chid! 
 / seem no more : / want forgiveness too : 
 
 1 should have had to do with none but maids, 
 That have no links with men. Ah false but 
 
 dear, 
 275 Dear traitor, too much lov'd, why? — why? — Yet 
 see, 
 Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 
 With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 
 And trust, not love, you less. 
 
 And now, Sire, 
 Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
 280 Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 
 This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
 Taunt me no more : yourself and yours shall have 
 Free adit : we will scatter all our maids 
 Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
 285 What use to keep them here — now? grant my 
 prayer. 
 Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 
 Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
 Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 
 From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
 
136 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 
 
 Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 
 
 Passionate tears 
 Follow'd: the king replied not: Cyril said: 
 "Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
 Of your great Head — for he is wounded too — 
 That you may tend upon him with the prince." 295 
 "Ay so, " said Ida with a bitter smile, 
 "Our laws are broken: let him enter too." 
 Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
 And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
 Petition'cl too for him. "Ay so," she said, 300 
 
 "I stagger in the stream: I cannot keep 
 My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 
 We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 
 "Ay so?" said Blanche: "Amazed am I to hear 
 Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with 305 
 
 ease 
 The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I. 
 I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
 And block'd them out ; but these men came to woo 
 Your Highness — verily I think to win." 
 So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye: 310 
 
 But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
 TolPd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
 Eang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn. 
 
 "Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all, 
 Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 315 
 
 Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
 
PART VI 137 
 
 Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, 
 Till the storm die! but had you stood by us, 
 The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
 320 Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 
 But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
 We brook no further insult but are gone." 
 
 She turn'd; the very nape of her white neck 
 Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
 325 Her brother came; the king her father charm'd 
 Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine own 
 Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 
 
 Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
 Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave way 
 
 330 Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 
 The virgin marble under iron heels : 
 And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
 Eested: but great the crush was, and each base, 
 To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 
 
 335 In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
 
 Of female whisperers : at the further end 
 Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
 Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
 Bow-back'd with fear : but in the centre stood 
 
 340 The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 
 They glared upon the women, and aghast 
 The women stared at these, all silent, save 
 When armour clash 'd or jingled, while the day, 
 Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
 
138 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 A flying splendour out of brass and steel, 345 
 
 That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
 
 Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
 
 Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
 
 And now and then an echo started up, 
 
 And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 
 
 Of fright in far apartments. 
 
 Then the voice 
 Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
 And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
 The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 
 To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 355 
 To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 
 And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 
 That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
 And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
 Till happier times; but some were left of those 360 
 Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 
 From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 
 Walk'd at their will, and everything was changed. 
 
PART VII 
 
 Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 
 
 But O too fond, when have I answer' d thee? 
 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more : what answer should I give? 
 I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
 Yet, my friend, I will not have thee die ! 
 
 Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; 
 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: 
 I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
 Let the great river take me to the main : 
 
 No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 So was their sanctuary violated, 
 So their fair college turn'd to hospital ; 
 At first with all confusion : by and by- 
 Sweet order lived again with other laws : 
 A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere 
 Low voices with the ministering hand 
 Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they 
 
 talk'd, 
 They sang, they read : till she not fair began 
 To gather light, and she that was, became 
 Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 
 With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, 
 139 
 
140 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Like creatures native unto gracious act, 
 And in their own clear element, they moved. 
 
 But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
 And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. is 
 Old studies fail'd; seldom she spoke: but oft 
 Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
 On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
 Darkening her female field : void was her use, 
 And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 
 
 O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
 Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
 Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, 
 And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, 
 And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 25 
 
 Expunge the world : so fared she gazing there ; 
 So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank 
 And waste it seem'd and vain; till down she came, 
 And found fair peace once more among the sick. 
 
 And twilight dawn'd; and morn by morn the 30 
 
 lark 
 Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I 
 Lay silent in the muffled cage of life : 
 And twilight gloom'd; and broader-grown the 
 
 bowers 
 Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
 Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 35 
 
 Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, 
 
PART VII 141 
 
 Quite sunder 'd from the moving Universe, 
 Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
 That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 
 
 40 But Psyche tended Floyirn : with her oft, 
 Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
 Her child among us, willing she should keep 
 Court-favour: here and there the small bright 
 
 head, 
 A light of healing, glanced about the couch, 
 
 45 Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
 Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
 With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
 To wile the length from languorous hours, and 
 
 draw 
 The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange that 
 soon 
 
 50 He rose up whole, and those fair charities 
 
 Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
 So gentle, so employ 'd, should close in love, 
 Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
 To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
 
 55 And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 
 
 Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
 At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
 That after that dark night among the fields 
 She needs must wed him for her own good name; 
 60 Not tho' he built upon the babe restored; 
 Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
 
142 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
 
 When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
 
 Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
 
 A moment, and she heard, at which her face 65 
 
 A little flushed, and she past on ; but each 
 
 Assumed from thence a half -consent involved 
 
 In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 
 
 Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
 Held carnival at will, and flying struck 70 
 
 With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
 Nor did her father cease to press my claim, 
 Nor did mine own, now reconciled ; nor yet 
 Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole; 
 Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 75 
 
 But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : 
 Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
 Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 
 And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 
 "You are not Ida;" clasp it once again, so 
 
 And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 
 And call her sweet, as if in irony, 
 And call her hard and cold which seem'd a truth: 
 And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 
 And often she believed that I should die : 85 
 
 Till out of long frustration of her care, 
 And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, 
 And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
 
PART VII 143 
 
 Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 
 
 On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 
 
 And out of memories of her kindlier days, 
 
 And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 
 
 And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
 
 And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 
 
 And lonely listenings to my mutter 'd dream, 
 
 And often feeling of the helpless hands, 
 
 And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek — 
 
 From all a closer interest flourish 'd up, 
 
 Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, 
 
 Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 
 
 By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 
 
 And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
 
 But such as gather 'd colour day by day. 
 
 Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
 For weakness : it was evening : silent light 
 Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
 Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
 The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
 At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
 The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest 
 A dwarf -like Cato cower 'd. On the other side 
 Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
 A train of dames : by axe and eagle sat, 
 With all then 1 foreheads drawn in Eoman scowls, 
 And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, 
 The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused 
 Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 
 
144 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 I saw the forms : I knew not where I was : 
 They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
 Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 120 
 
 Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
 And rounder seem'd: I moved: Isigh'd: a toucn 
 Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
 Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
 Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 125 
 
 And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
 So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, 
 Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
 Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 
 
 "If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 130 
 I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 
 But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
 I ask you nothing : only, if a dream, 
 Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
 Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." 135 
 
 I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
 That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
 And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, 
 But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she 
 
 paused ; 
 She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; 140 
 
 Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death ; 
 And I believed that in the living world 
 My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
 Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
 
PART VII 145 
 
 145 Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
 Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, 
 And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
 Than in her mould that other, when she came 
 From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
 
 150 And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 
 Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
 Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
 To meet her Graces, where they deck'cl her out 
 For worship without end ; nor end of mine, 
 
 155 Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, 
 Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
 Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. 
 
 Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 
 A volume of the Poets of her land : 
 160 There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 
 
 "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; 
 Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
 Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
 The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. 
 
 165 Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, 
 And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 
 
 Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
 And all thy heart lies open unto me. 
 
 Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
 170 A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 
 
 Now folds the lily all her sweetness up 
 And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
 
146 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
 Into my bosom and be lost in me." 
 
 I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 175 
 Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read: 
 
 "Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
 What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) 
 In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? 
 But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 180 
 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
 To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
 And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
 For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 185 
 
 Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
 Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
 Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
 With Death and Morning on the silver horns, 
 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 190 
 
 Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
 That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
 To roll the torrent out of dusky doors ■ 
 But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
 To find him in the valley ; let the wild 195 
 
 Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
 The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
 Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
 That like a broken purpose waste in air 
 So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 200 
 
 Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
 Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
 Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
 Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 305 
 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 And murmuring of innumerable bees. ' ' 
 
PART VII 147 
 
 So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes I lay 
 Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect 
 face; 
 
 210 The bosom with long sighs labour 'd; and meek 
 Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
 And the voice trembled and the hand. She said 
 Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
 In sweet humility; had fail'd in all; 
 
 2ib That all her labour was but as a block 
 Left in the quarry; but she still were loth, 
 She still were loth to yield herself to one 
 That wholly scorn 'd to help their equal rights 
 Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
 
 220 She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 
 That wrong 'd it, sought far less for truth than 
 
 power 
 In knowledge : something wild within her breast, 
 A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
 And she had nursed me there from week to week : 
 
 225 Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
 It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
 To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl — 
 "Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! 
 When comes another such? never, I think, 
 
 230 Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs." 
 
 Her voice 
 Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 
 And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past 
 Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
 Till notice of a change in the dark world 
 
148 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 235 
 
 That early woke to feed her little ones, 
 Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
 She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 
 
 " Blame not thyself too much," I said, "nor 
 blame 
 Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 240 
 These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
 Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
 The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free: 
 For she that out of Lethe scales with man 245 
 
 The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
 His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
 Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
 If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
 How shall men grow? but work no more alone! 250 
 Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
 We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
 Will clear away the parasitic forms 
 That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
 Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 255 
 
 Within her — let her make herself her own 
 To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
 For woman is not undevelopt man, 
 But diverse : could we make her as the man, 260 
 
 Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this, 
 Not like to like, but like in difference. 
 
PART VII 149 
 
 Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 
 The man be more of woman, she of man, 
 
 265 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the 
 
 world ; 
 She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 
 2to Like perfect music unto noble words ; 
 
 And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
 Self -reverent each and reverencing each, 
 
 275 Distinct in individualities, 
 
 But like each other ev'n as those who love. 
 Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 
 Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and 
 
 calm: 
 Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
 
 280 May these things be!" 
 
 Sighing she spoke "I fear 
 They will not." 
 
 "Dear, but let us type them now 
 In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
 Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
 Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
 
 285 Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils 
 
 Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
 Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
 The single pure and perfect animal, 
 
150 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, 
 Life." 290 
 
 And again sighing she spoke: "A dream 
 That once was mine! what woman taught you 
 this?" 
 
 "Alone," I said, "from earlier than I know, 
 Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
 I loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives 
 A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, 295 
 
 Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 
 Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime: 
 Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
 Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 300 
 
 No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
 Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 305 
 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
 And girdled her with music. Happy he 
 With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
 Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 310 
 Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
 He shall not blind his soul with clay." 
 
 "But I," 
 Said Ida, tremulously, "so all unlike — 
 It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
 
PART VII 151 
 
 315 This mother is your model. I have heard 
 
 Of your strange doubts: they well might be: I 
 
 seem 
 A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
 You cannot love me." 
 
 "Nay but thee," I said, 
 "From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, 
 
 320 Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 
 Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
 That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and 
 
 forced 
 Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now, 
 Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 
 
 325 Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light 
 Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
 Lived over : lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead, 
 My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change, 
 This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
 
 330 Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 
 Like yonder morning on the blind half -world ; 
 Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 
 In that fine ah* I tremble, all the past 
 Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 
 
 335 Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 
 Eeels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
 Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive 
 
 me, 
 I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
 My wife, my life. we will walk this world, 
 
 340 Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
 
152 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
 That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come, 
 Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
 Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
 Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me. " 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
 The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 
 The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 
 There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
 
 5 "I wish she had not yielded!" then to me, 
 "What, if you dressed it up poetically!" 
 So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent: 
 Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven 
 Together in one sheaf? What style could suit? 
 
 10 The men required that I should give throughout 
 The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 
 With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 
 The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 
 For something in the ballads which they sang, 
 
 15 Or in their silent influence as they sat, 
 Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 
 And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
 They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 
 A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 
 
 20 Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 
 Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 
 Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 
 Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 
 Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 
 153 
 
154 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 25 
 
 And yet to give the story as it rose, 
 
 I moved as in a strange diagonal, 
 
 And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 
 
 But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
 In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 30 
 
 Had touch 'd her; and she sat, she pluck 'd the 
 
 grass, 
 She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt 
 A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
 "You — tell us what we are, "who might have told, 
 For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, 35 
 But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
 At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
 To take their leave, about the garden rails. 
 
 So I and some went out to these : we climb'd 
 The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 40 
 
 The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
 Far -shadowing from the west, a land of peace; 
 Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 
 Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
 Half -lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 45 
 The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
 A red sail, or a white; and far beyond, 
 Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 
 
 "Look there, a garden!" said my college friend, 
 The Tory member's elder son, "and there! so 
 
CONCLUSION 155 
 
 God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
 And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
 A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
 Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
 
 55 Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made 
 Some patient force to change them when we will, 
 Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
 But yonder, whiff ! there comes a sudden heat, 
 The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 
 
 60 The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, 
 The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
 A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
 Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
 In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
 
 65 Eevolts, republics, revolutions, most 
 No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; 
 Too comic for the solemn things they are, 
 Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 
 Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
 
 to As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas ! 
 I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." 
 
 "Have patience," I replied, "ourselves are full 
 Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
 Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
 75 For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
 The sport half -science, fill me with a faith. 
 This fine old world of ours is but a child 
 Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time 
 To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides." 
 
156 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, i 
 
 And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
 Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
 Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 
 No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
 A great broad-shoulder 'd genial Englishman, 85 
 
 A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
 A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
 A patron of some thirty charities, 
 A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
 A quarter -sessions chairman, abler none; 90 
 
 Fair-hair 'd and redder than a windy morn; 
 Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
 That stood the nearest — now address 'd to speech — 
 Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
 Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 95 
 
 To follow: a shout rose again, and made 
 The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
 From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
 From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 
 Beyond the bourn of sunset; 0, a shout 100 
 
 More joyful than the city -roar that hails 
 Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
 Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
 To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, 
 I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 105 
 
 But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
 So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat 
 But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
 
CONCLUSION 157 
 
 Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
 no Blacken' d about us, bats wheel' d, and owls 
 whoop'd, 
 And gradually the powers of the night, 
 That range above the region of the wind, 
 Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
 Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
 lis Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 
 
 Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 
 Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph 
 From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we 
 went. 
 
LIFE OF TENNYSON 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 1809. Born, August 6, at Somersby in Lincolnshire. 
 
 1811. Arthur Hallam born. 
 
 1816-20. Tennyson at Louth Grammar School. 
 
 1827. Published, with his brother Charles, Poems by Two 
 
 Brothers. 
 
 1828. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 Met Arthur Hallam. 
 
 1829. Won the Chancellor's Prize in poetry. 
 
 1830. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. 
 
 Journey to the Pyrenees, with Arthur Hallam. 
 
 1831. Left Cambridge. Tennyson's father died. 
 
 1832. Poems. 
 
 1833. Death of Arthur Hallam, September 13. 
 1842. Poems. 
 
 1845. Received a pension, £200, from the Crown. 
 
 1847. The Princess. 
 
 1850. Made Poet Laureate. InMemoriam. 
 
 Married Emily Sellwood. Went to live at Twick- 
 enham. 
 
 1852. Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 
 Hallam Tennyson born. 
 
 1853. Settled at Farringford, Isle of Wight. 
 
 1854. Charge of the Light Brigade. 
 Lionel Tennyson born. 
 
 1855. Maud, and other Poems. 
 D.C.L., Oxford. 
 
 1859. [Four J Idylls of the King. 
 
 Journey to Portugal. 
 1861. Second journey to the Pyrenees. 
 
 1864. Enoch Arden. 
 
 1865. Refused a baronetcy. 
 
 158 
 
VERSIFICATION 159 
 
 1865. Death of Tennyson's mother. 
 
 1867. Bought estate at Aldworth, Sussex. 
 
 1869. The Holy Grail, and other Poems. 
 
 1872. Gareth and Lynette. The Last Tournament. 
 
 1875. Queen Mary. 
 
 1877. Harold. 
 
 1879. The Lover's Tale. 
 
 The Falcon, at St. James's Theatre. 
 
 1880. Ballads and other Poems. 
 
 1881. The Cup' at the Lyceum Theatre. 
 
 1882. The Promise of May, at the Globe Theatre. 
 
 1884. Made a Peer as Baron of Aldworth and Farring- 
 
 ford. 
 Becket. 
 
 1885. Tiresias, and other Poems. 
 
 1886. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. 
 Death of Lionel Tennyson. 
 
 1889. Demeter, and other Poems. 
 
 1892. . The Foresters, at Daly's Theatre, New York. 
 
 Death of Tennyson, October 6, at Aldworth. 
 
 Burial in Westminster Abbey, October 12. 
 
 The Death of CEnone, Akhar's Dream, and other 
 Poems, published October 28. 
 
 VERSIFICATION 
 
 To obtain the present richness and variety of verse in The 
 Princess, Tennyson took great pains in the construction. Of 
 the many rhythmical and metrical expedients he adopted, 
 the following examples (based upon Professor James Had- 
 ley's study of the poem, in his Essays, Philological and Crit- 
 ical) are among the most characteristic. We find : 
 
 I. " The so-called elision— more truly, the blending of a 
 final vowel with the vowel initial of a following word into 
 a single syllable, or at least what passes for such in the 
 rhythm." 
 
 " I would the old God of war himself were dead." 
 
 " A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past." 
 
160 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 " O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow and light 
 Upon her lattice." 
 
 II. The same blending often occurs where the second word 
 begins with a weak consonant. 
 
 "Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine." 
 
 " Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
 Will topple to the trumpet down." 
 
 III. So, too, in a single word, two syllables often count as 
 one in the rhythm. 
 
 " Some crying there was an army in the land." 
 
 "And highest among the statues, statue-like." 
 
 IV. In the, of the, etc., are often treated as filling only one 
 rhythmical place. 
 
 "Better have died, and spilt our bones in the flood." 
 
 "With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in." 
 
 V. Often a short syllable (especially if, as in the second 
 example below, it be final, and followed by an initial vowel) 
 is not given a place by itself in the metre. The following 
 italicized words are treated as dissyllables : 
 
 "The general foe. More soluhle is this knot." 
 
 "Some palace in our own land, where you shall reign." 
 
 VI. There are many passages of irregular rhythm, in 
 which the sound is admirably suited to the sense. 
 
 "And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
 And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
 The banner." 
 
 "Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 
 In the dead hush the papers that she held 
 Rustle." 
 
NOTES 
 
 In these notes many of the more obvious allusions to historical, clas- 
 sical, and Biblical persons, events, or places, are not explained. 
 
 ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 Boynton, Henry W. Boynton's edition of The Princess (New York, 
 Boston and Chicago, 1896). 
 
 Dawson, Mr. S. E. Dawson's Study of The Princess (second edition, 
 Montreal,1884). 
 
 Rolfe, Dr. William J. Rolf e's edition of The Princess (third edition, 
 Boston, New York and Chicago, 1890). 
 
 Cf., compare. Ed., edition. Pp., pages. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 2. Lawns. Open, grassy fields. Cf. Milton (On the 
 Morning of ChrisVs Nativity, lines 85 and 87) : 
 
 " The shepherds on the lawn . . . 
 Sat simply chatting- in a rustic row." 
 5. Institute. The People's Institute for the education of 
 the laboring- classes. 
 
 12. Their names. Botanical. 
 
 lp. Ammonites. The larg-e fossil shells of a kind of 
 
 cuttle-fish. First bones of Time. Fossils of various sorts. 
 
 17. Celts. Primitive implements of stone or bronze. 
 
 Calumets. A kind of tobacco-pipe used by the American 
 
 Indians. 
 
 20. Laborious orient ivory. Chinese balls, carved, one 
 inside another, out of the solid block. The line is famous 
 for the art with which the sound is adapted to the sense. 
 
 21. Crease, or kris. A heavy dagger with a wavy blade. 
 90. Satiated. "We need to remember, in reading British 
 
 verse, that the secondary accent which we give to so many 
 words of four or five syllables is almost unknown in Eng- 
 land." (Boynton.) 
 
 113. The Proctor's dogs. The Proctors are subordinate 
 161 
 
162 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 officers of discipline. They are attended by servants, a 
 kind of University police, called "bull-dogs " by the stu- 
 dents. 
 
 161. Lost their weeks. Because of absence from the col- 
 lege, they were unable to count the term as one of the nine 
 terms of actual residence which candidates for the bache- 
 lor's degree at Cambridge must pass. 
 
 199. Solecisms. Here the word means "things out of 
 the ordinary; extravagances." 
 
 I. 
 
 5-21. These lines, like all the others dealing with the 
 "weird seizures," were added in the fourth edition. 
 
 19. Court-Galen. Galen, a famous physician, lived in 
 the second century, A. D. 
 
 27. Pedant's. Pedagogue's. 
 
 33. Proxy-wedded, etc. In some cases of marriage by 
 proxy, the representative of the bridegroom stripped his 
 leg to the knee, as part of the ceremony. In the present 
 instance, as the Princess points out (V. 3S8-390), the par- 
 ties to the contract were too young to g'ive consent, and the 
 marriage was therefore invalid. "At eight years old," she 
 could have gone through a ceremony only of very formal 
 betrothal. 
 
 65. Coolc'd his spleen. Smothered his anger. Cf. the 
 figui'ative use of coquere in Plautus, Livy, Cicero, and other 
 Latin writers. 
 
 109. Tilth and grange. Tilled ground and farm-build- 
 ings. 
 
 110. Blowing bosks of wilderness. Thickets that have run 
 wild, and are blossoming with flowers. 
 
 111. Mother-city. Metropolis. 
 
 116. Without a star. King Gama does not wear the dec- 
 orations of any order. 
 
 170. The liberties. The outlying grounds of the Prin- 
 cess's University. 
 
 239. Uranian Venus. The "heavenly" or spiritual 
 Aphrodite of Plato's Symposium* 
 
 244. On this line the poet, in a letter to Mr. S. E. Daw- 
 son, has made an interesting comment : 
 
NOTES 163 
 
 "There was a period in my life when, as an artist, Turner 
 for instance, takes rough sketches of landskip, etc., in 
 order to work them eventually into some great picture, so 
 I was in the habit of chronicling", in four or five words or 
 more, whatever might strike me as picturesque in nature. 
 I never put these down, and many and many a line has gone 
 away on the north wind, but some remain, e.g. : 
 
 " A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight. Suggestion: 
 The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most 
 lovely sea-village in England, tho' now a smoky town. The 
 sky was covered with thin vapor, and the moon was behind 
 it." (Dawson, pp. ix. and x.) 
 
 SONG. 
 
 " I may tell you, r ' said Tennj-son, in the letter quoted 
 just above, "that the songs were not an after-thoug'ht„ 
 Before the first edition came out I deliberated with myself 
 whether I should put songs in between the separate divis- 
 ions of the poem : Again, I thought, the poem will explain 
 itself; but the public did not see that [Psyche's] child, as 
 you say, was the heroine of the piece, and at last I con- 
 quered my laziness, and inserted them." 
 
 The songs first appeared in the third edition, 1850. 
 
 II. 
 
 8, 9. That sang all round with laurel. Rolf e explains this 
 as meaning '' haunted by birds and bees." To Boynton the 
 suggestion of Hallam Tennyson seems more reasonable, 
 "that the poet had in mind simply the rustling of the 
 laurel-leaves in the wind." 
 
 60. The boards. The register of undergraduates. 
 
 64, 65. She that taught the Sabine. The nymph Egeria, 
 who by her counsels helped Numa Pompilius (Sabine by 
 birth, and second king of Rome) to give wise laws. 
 
 66. The foundress of the Babylonian wall. Semiramis. 
 
 67. The Carian Artemisia. The Carian queen who fought 
 on the side of Xerxes at Salamis,— not she who built the 
 Mausoleum. 
 
 69. The Palmyrene. Zenobia. 
 
164 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 87. Forms. The English name for long- benches such 
 as are used in schools. 
 
 97. The dame. The wife of Midas. According- to some 
 poets, it was she who could not keep the secret. 
 
 112. Appraised. " Praised, approved; a rare use of the 
 word" (Rolfe). The Lycian custom. By the account of 
 Herodotus, the Lycians took their family names from their 
 mothers, and traced their descent through the maternal 
 ancestry. 
 
 113. That lay, etc. The Etruscan women, who were ad- 
 mitted to banquets. 
 
 117. Laws Salique. The Salic law in France excluded 
 women from the throne. See Shakspere, Henry V., I. ii. 
 35-51 (Temple ed.). 
 
 144. Verulam. Lord Bacon. 
 
 151. Lapt. Enfolded. Cf. Milton (D Allegro) : 
 
 " Lap me in soft Lydian airs." 
 
 See also R. Barnefield, The Nightingale. (Golden Treasury, 
 ed. 1894, p- 28) : 
 
 " King- Pandion, he is dead. 
 All thy friends are lapped in lead." 
 
 166. Parted. Departed. In this sense Mistress Quickly 
 uses the word, when she tells of Falstaff's death: 
 
 U A' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the 
 turning o' the tide." 
 Cf. also Gray's Elegy, I- : " the knell of parting day." 
 
 As often happens in proverbs, the older meaning is pre- 
 served in the maxim: "Welcome the coming, speed the 
 parting guest." 
 
 188. Grange. Here used for "granary." 
 
 209. Garth. Garden. 
 
 319. Danaid. Danaiis, a mythical king, commanded 
 his fifty daughters (the Dana'ides) to kill their husbands. 
 All but one daughter, Hypermnestra, obeyed. The forty- 
 nine guilty Dana'ids were punished in the lower world by 
 being condemned forever to draw water in leaky vessels. 
 
NOTES 165 
 
 420. Astrcean age. After the Iron Age was come, the 
 gods lived no more among- men. Astrsea, Goddess of 
 Justice, was the last of the deities to depart ; and it was 
 said that whenever the Golden Age should return, she 
 would be the first to appear again on earth. 
 
 III. 
 
 34. In rubric. In red, like rubrics in a prayer-book. 
 90. Sphere. The upper air. 
 
 99. Samian Here. The island of Samos was a favorite 
 seat of Hera (Juno). 
 
 100. Memnon. The Egyptian statue which gave forth 
 musical sounds at sunrise. 
 
 111. Prime. Primeval. 
 
 120. Fabled nothing fair. Invented no plausible story. 
 
 153, 154. Take the dip of certain strata. Measure their 
 inclination to the horizon. 
 
 159. Platans. Plane-trees (platanus). 
 
 179. Retinue. The word is here accented on the second 
 syllable. 
 
 212. Vashti. See the book of Esther, i. 12. 
 
 246. The one Pou Sto. From the famous saying of 
 Archimedes, 86s not nov a™, /cal Kii/d> ty)v yrjw. — (Pappus Alex- 
 andrinus, Collectio, VIII., 11, 10.) "Give me a place to 
 stand on, and I will move the world." 
 
 280-282. Dare we dream, etc. Dare we dream that the 
 Creator is a mere workman who gains in skill by practice? 
 
 285. Diotima. A wise woman of Mantinea, who is said 
 to have instructed Socrates. 
 
 331. Fair Corinna's triumph. This was over Pindar, 
 "the bearded Victor of ten thousand hymns." Pausanias, 
 who saw her portrait, says (IX. 22.3) that her beauty, and 
 the more familiar dialect in which she sang, had something 
 to do with the decision of the judges. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 This song, it is said, was suggested by the bugle-music 
 of the boatmen on Lake Killarney. 
 
166 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 IV. 
 
 2. That hypothesis. The nebular hypothesis of Laplace. 
 
 21-40. "One of my family," is the comment of Mrs. 
 Anne Thackeray Bitchie, " remembers hearing- Tennyson 
 say that ' Tears, idle tears ' was suggested by Tintern 
 Abbey." 
 
 59. Kez. Dry stalks of hemlock; here used for any 
 wild growth. 
 
 60, ©1. The beard-blown goat hang on the shaft. That is, 
 " though the goat, his beard blowing in the wind, stand 
 precariously on the ruined pillar." 
 
 100, lOl. Like the Ithacensian suitors, etc. The suitors 
 of Penelope failed to recognize Ulysses in his disguise ; and 
 they laughed strangely, without knowing why. With alien 
 lips is a translation of the Greek, "with other men's jaws." 
 See the Odyssey, XX. 347. 
 
 104. Bulbul. "The Persian name of the nightingale, 
 whose love for the rose is a favorite theme with Saadi and 
 his brother poets. Gulistan is Persian for rose-garden, 
 and Saadi takes it as the title of his book of poems." 
 (Kolfe.) 
 
 185. The hunter. Actason, who came upon Diana and 
 her nymphs bathing, was turned into a stag. 
 
 194. The Bear. The constellation Ursa Major, with its 
 seven slow suns, the seven stars of the "Dipper." 
 
 Cf. Milton {11 Penseroso, lines 85-87) : 
 
 " Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower, 
 Where I may oft outwatch the Bear." 
 
 The constellations and their movements seem to have 
 attracted Tennyson greatly. 
 
 207. Judith. See the book of Judith in the Apocrypha. 
 
 236. But as the waterlily, etc. Tennyson, in his letter 
 to Dawson, said that the figure was suggested by — "Water- 
 lilies in my own pond, seen on a gusty day with my own 
 eyes. They did slide and start in the sudden puffs of wind, 
 till caught and stayed by the tether of their own stalks." 
 
 255. The mystic fire. The electrical phenomenon, St. 
 Elmo's fire, or corposant. 
 
NOTES 167 
 
 260. Blowzed. Coarsely ruddy from wind and weather. 
 
 275. Castalies. Fountain-heads of poetry. Castalia, 
 or Castaly, the fountain on Parnassus, was sacred to the 
 Muses. 
 
 292. Jonah" 1 s gourd. See the book of Jonah, iv. 6. 
 
 366. When the wild peasant, etc. The poet had in mind 
 the "rick-fire days," some years before this poem was 
 written, when the working- people made so much trouble 
 among* English homesteads. 
 
 418. Cassiopeia. The Ethiopian queen, who became a 
 constellation. 
 
 419. Persephone. Proserpina, whom Pluto carried down 
 to Hades and made his queen. 
 
 422. Frequence. Throng. 
 
 426. Landskip, the earlier form of landscape, is always 
 used by Tennyson, in both poetry and prose. 
 
 427. Dwarfs of presage. The Prince means that the 
 famous people and places, when once seen, fell far below 
 what he had been led to expect ; that they were belittled 
 by the greatness of their reputation. 
 
 436. The sealdoes music. "A flute will sometimes attract 
 [seals] to a boat ; and the ringing of the church bell at 
 Hoy, in Orkney, has often caused the appearance of numer- 
 ous seal9 in the little bay." (Eolfe.) 
 
 V. 
 
 2. A stationary voice. The voice of a sentinel. Dawson 
 cites the (post-classical) Latin, stationarii milites, and the 
 French soldats stationnaires. 
 
 13. Innumerous. Innumerable. 
 
 25. Mawkin (also spelled malkin). A kitchen-wench. 
 
 37. Transient. Passing. Cf. the Latin transiens. 
 
 250. The airy Giant. Orion. 
 
 284. Her that talked down the fifty ivisest men. St. Catherine 
 of Alexandria, the daughter of King Costis and Sabinella, 
 queen of Egypt, converted to Christianity the fifty wise men 
 whom the Emperor Maxentius sent to dispute with her. 
 
 319. False daughters. Ducklings. 
 
 355. Tomyris. Queen of the Massagetae, defeated 
 Cyrus the Great, 529 B.C. Having found the king's body 
 
168 THE PRINCESS; A MEDLEY 
 
 among- the slain, she took the head, dipped it in a skin of 
 blood, and bade him drink his fill. Herodotus I. 214. 
 
 367. Lands. Russia in the seventeenth century. 
 
 372. Flood. The Ganges. 
 
 488. Two bulks. His two brothers. 
 
 491. Mellay. Confused fig-ht. (French melee.) 
 
 500. Miriam. See Exodus xv. 20, 21. Jael. See Judges 
 iv. 17-22. 
 
 VI. 
 
 16. That great dame of Lapidoth. Deborah. See Judges 
 iv. and v. 
 
 47. Blanched. Propitious. Cf. the use of the Latin 
 albus in this sense. 
 
 48. The golden year. The coming golden age. 
 
 118. Brede. Embroidery. Cf. Keats, Ode on a Grecian 
 Urn. 
 
 " O Attic shape ! Fair attitude, with brede 
 Of marble men and maidens overwrought." 
 
 126. On tremble. This is, as has been noted, an early 
 English form. On and a- were used interchangeably. See 
 Acts xiii. 36. " For David, after he had served his own 
 generation by the will of God, fell on sleep." Even now 
 we say sometimes on board, sometimes aboard. 
 
 166. Port. Portal. 
 
 186. Prime here means the dead hours before dawn. 
 
 283. Adit. Access, or entrance. 
 
 319. The Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the world, 
 was a lighthouse at the entrance to the harbor of Alex- 
 andria. 
 
 338. Supporters. In heraldry, they are the figures 
 standing at either side of a coat of arms. 
 
 355. Due. Devoted. 
 
 VII. 
 
 19. Void was her use. Her life was empty of its usual 
 occupations. 
 
 109. The Oppian law, enacted at Rome (215 B.C.) when 
 Hannibal was approaching the city, forbade any woman to 
 wear gay-colored robes, to be adorned with more than half 
 
NOTES 169 
 
 an ounce of gold, or to drive in a chariot. After the war 
 (in Cato's consulate, 195 B.C.), the women rose, crowded 
 the forum, and had the law repealed. 
 
 112. Hortensia, a Roman matron, daughter of the 
 orator Hortensius, spoke successfully against a tax im- 
 posed on women during the second triumvirate, 44 B.C. 
 
 148. That other. Aphrodite rising from the sea. Far- 
 fleeted — three lines below — is possibly a reminiscence of 
 Chaucer's Venus "fleting" (i.e., floating) "in the large 
 sea." (Knightes Tale, line 1098.) 
 
 189. "With Death and Morning on the silver horns." Morn- 
 ing walks on the mountain peaks, and Death is her com- 
 panion, because Life has no home on those summits, or 
 must face Death in attempting to scale them. This is 
 Rolfe's explanation, approved by the poet himself. 
 
 230. From the signs of the Zodiac. 
 
 245. Out of Lethe. Out of the oblivion before birth. 
 
 255. Burgeon. Bud. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 58. Yonder. In France. 
 
 70. The narrow seas. The Straits of Dover. 
 
 87. Pine. Pineapple. 
 
 94. Closed. Included. 
 
SO I 
 
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