Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the

world."

She ended here, and beckon'd 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
Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried
"My brother!" "Well, my sister." "O" 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!
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 The softer Adams of your Academe,

O 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 O that iron will,

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;
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; Receive 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."
"O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none;
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 Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls."

"Yet pause," I said: "for that inscription there,

I think no more of deadly lurks therein,

Than in a clapper clapping in a garth,

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
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,
"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,
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,
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
My sickness down to happy dreams? are you
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one?

You were that Psyche, but what are you now?" "You are that Psyche," Cyril said, "for whom

I would be that for ever which I seem,

Woman, if I might sit beside your feet,

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 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,

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.

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you

wept.

O 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,

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,

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

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save