(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 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
But chafing me on fire to find my bride)
Went forth again with both my friends. We

rode

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;
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
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

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: 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, And all the dogs"—

But while he jested thus,

A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act,
Remembering how we three presented Maid

Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast,
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
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
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,
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
Of fountains spouted up and showering down
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:
And all about us peal'd the nightingale,
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.

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 Came running at the call, and help'd us down. Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 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 said,

she

"And Lady Psyche." "Which was prettiest, Best-natured?" "Lady Psyche." "Hers are

we,"

One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote,

In such a hand as when a field of corn

Bows all its ears before the roaring East;

"Three ladies of the Northern empire pray Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils."

This I seal'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:

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.