For azure views; and there a group of girls In circle waited, whom the electric shock A dozen angry models jetted steam : Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house; but all within The sward was trim as any garden lawn : And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends From neighbour seats and there was Ralph himself, A broken statue propt against the wall, As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, Half child half woman as she was, had wound A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt And all things great; but we, unworthier, told But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her Beside him) "lives there such a woman now?" Quick answer'd Lilia "There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down : It is but bringing up; no more than that : You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children! O I wish That I were some great princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man's, And I would teach them all that men are taught ; We are twice as quick!" And here she shook aside The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. And one said smiling "Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear, If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it." At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : "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 laugh'd; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she : They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans; "True," she said, "We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." She held it out; and as a parrot turns Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, "Doubt my word again!" he said. "Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd : We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read; And there we took one tutor as to read: The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, And what's my thought and when and where and how, And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas." She remember'd that: A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more But these-what kind of tales did men tell men, |