She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; He always made a point to post with mares; His daughter and his housemaid were the boys : Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows, But while he jested thus, A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, We follow'd up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley: then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; And some inscription ran along the front, A little street half garden and half house; Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth With constellation and with continent, Above an entry: riding in, we call'd; A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench In laurel her we ask'd of that and this, One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, In such a hand as when a field of corn Bows all its ears before the roaring East; 'Three ladies of the Northern empire pray Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils.' This I seal'd: The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes : I gave the letter to be sent with dawn; And then to bed, where half in doze I 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. As thro' the land at eve we went, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss'd 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, |