Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world."

She ended here, and beckoned 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 slackened 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 answered.

"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 answered, "who could think
The softer Adams of your Academe,

O, sister, Sirens though they be, were such

As chanted on the blanching bones of men?"

66

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 axe-like 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 masked, 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, oh Prince, I have no country; none;
Whate'er I was

If

any, this; but none.

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 marred; 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 rejoined, "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 smooth 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?"

66

You are that Psyche," Cyril said, "for whom

I would be that forever which I seem,

A woman, if I might sit beside your feet,

And glean your scattered sapience."

Then once more,

"Are you that Lady Psyche," I began,

66

That on her bridal morn before she past

From all her old companions, when the king Kissed 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 asked, “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 sobbed, and you sobbed 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 crowed for kisses."

She answered, "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
A prince, a brother? a little will I yield.
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.

O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear
My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet -
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."