Communing with his captains of the war.
At last I spoke. "My father, let me go.
It cannot be but some gross error lies
In this report, this answer of a king,
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable :
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen,
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame,
May rue the bargain made." And Florian said:
"I have a sister at the foreign court,
Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence:
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,
The lady of three castles in that land:
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean."
And Cyril whisper'd: "Take me with you too."
Then laughing "what, if these weird seizures come
Upon you in those lands, and no one near
To point you out the shadow from the truth!
Take me I'll serve you better in a strait;
I grate on rusty hinges here :" but "No!"
Roar'd the rough king, "you shall not; we ourself
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead
In iron gauntlets: break the council up."
But when the council broke, I rose and past Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out;
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees :
What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth? Proud look'd the lips but while I meditated
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South,
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks
Of the wild woods together; and a Voice
Went with it, " Follow, follow, thou shalt win."
Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread To hear my father's clamour at our backs With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; But all was quiet: from the bastion'd walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange, And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, And in the imperial palace found the king.
His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice, But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines;
A little dry old man, without a star,
Not like a king: three days he feasted us,
And on the fourth I spake of why we came,
And my betroth'd. "You do us, Prince," he said,
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,
"All honour. We remember love ourselves
In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony-
I think the year in which our olives fail'd.
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart,
With my full heart but there were widows here,
Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;
They fed her theories, in and out of place
Maintaining that with equal husbandry
The woman were an equal to the man.
They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang;
Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk;
Nothing but this; my very ears were hot
To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held,
Was all in all they had but been, she thought,
As children; they must lose the child, assume
The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,
Too awful, sure, for what they treated of,
But all she is and does is awful; odes
About this losing of the child; and rhymes
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change
Beyond all reason: these the women sang;
And they that know such things—I sought but peace;
No critic I would call them masterpieces :
They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon
A certain summer-palace which I have
Hard by your father's frontier: I said no,
Yet being an easy man, gave it and there,
All wild to found an University
For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more
We know not,-only this: they see no men,
Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins
Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her
As on a kind of paragon; and I
(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed
Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but since
(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."
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.
Many a long league back to the North.
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 ;
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