She tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot: 135 "That's your light way; but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us." Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she: 140 They boated and they cricketed; they talked 145 At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics; They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans; And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 150 "True," she said, "We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." She held it out; and as a parrot turns 155 Up through gilt wires a crafty loving eye, And bites it for true heart, and not for harm, So he with Lilia's. And wrung it. Daintily she shrieked "Doubt my word again!" he said. "Come, listen! here is proof that you were missed: We seven stayed at Christmas up to read; 160 And there we took one tutor as to read: The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square 165 So mouldered in a sinecure as he : For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet, And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 170 Sick for the hollies and the yews of home- Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, And what's my thought and when and where and how, 175 And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas." She remembered that: A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these 180 what kind of tales did men tell men, She wondered, by themselves? 4 A half-disdain Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips: 185 The rest would follow, each in turn; and so 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; And something it should be to suit the place, Grave, solemn!" Walter warped his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt 795 200 Or be yourself your hero if you will." (A little sense of wrong had touched her face With color) turned to me with "As you will Heroic if you will, or what you will, 205 "Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamored he, "And make her some great Princess, six feet high Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you The Prince to win her!" 210 "Then follow me, the Prince," I answered; "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, A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house, A talk of college and of ladies' rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 215 And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments, 2.20 For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them ail,— This were a medley! we should have him back Who told the 'Winter's tale,' to do it for us. So I began, And the rest followed; and the women sang 1. A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, There lived an ancient legend in our house. And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what 10 が |