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site Jtudeitts' Mtxizs 0f gngtisTt missies, 
 
 THE PRINCESS 
 
 A MEDLEY 
 
 BY L^ 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HENRY W. BOYNTON, M.A. 
 
 Instructor in English in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 
 
 ^■-^^AiH.nil^^P^^/ 
 
 LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, 
 
 BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 
 
 k . 
 
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 Copyright, 1896, 
 By Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 
 
 C. J. Peters & Son, Ttpographebs. 
 Berwick & Smith, Pbintebs. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 No poem of Tennyson's has provoked siicli extremes 
 of opinion as The Princess. The present editor, after 
 a somewhat prolonged study of the work, finds himself, 
 as in the beginning, at neither of these extremes. It is 
 his desire, therefore, that this book may afford encour- 
 agement to the discriminating student, rather than to 
 the zealously admiring or disparaging critic. 
 
 The notes aim to supply only such information as 
 may not be found • readily in the ordinary school ref- 
 erence library. The critical comments do not profess 
 to be dicta; the student .should take them simply for 
 what they are — personal opinions. The starred notes, 
 it is thought, may be used profitably in connection with 
 a preliminary reading of the poein. As there is at this 
 time no compact and easily accessible biography of Ten- 
 nyson, the main facts of his life and work have been in- 
 cluded in the Introduction to this volume. For further 
 information, the student should be referred, if possible, 
 to Arthur Waugh's Alfred, Lord Tennyson : A Study of 
 His Life and Works. Valuable criticism upon Tennyson 
 and The Princess may be found in Stedman's Victorian 
 Poets, Van Dyke's Poetry of Tennyson, Bagehot's essay 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 on Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning (Literary Stud- 
 ies, vol. ii.), Bayne's Essays in C7'iticisni ; and in numer- 
 ous magazine articles. An exhaustive chronological 
 table, which contains much bibliographical matter, is a 
 feature of Dr. Van Dyke's volume of criticism. 
 
 The editor has to acknowledge indebtedness to the 
 editions of Messrs. W. J. Rolfe and P. M. Wallace ; and 
 to express his thanks to Mr. S. E. Dawson for aid re- 
 ceived from his interesting Study of the Princess, and 
 for permission to reprint Lord Tennyson's letter (Ap- 
 pendix I). 
 
 H. TV. B. 
 
 Andover, April, 1896; 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction : ^^<^e 
 
 The Poet 1 
 
 The Poem 11 
 
 The Princess 27 
 
 Notes 157 
 
 Appendix I ; . . . . 185 
 
 Appendix II 190 
 
 V 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 Alfred Tenxyson was born on August 6th, 1809, in the 
 rectory of the little Lincolnshire hamlet of Somersby. His 
 father, who held this living in connection with two crther 
 small parishes, was notable for his union of scholarly and 
 artistic tast&s ; his mother, for her sweetness of character. 
 Alfred was one of the older children in a family of twelve, 
 seven of whom were boys. The three whom we associate 
 most closely with him were his two elder brothers, Frederick 
 and Charles, and the sister Emily who was to share his 
 mourning for Hallam. Of these three it was Charles, next in 
 seniority and in sympathy, who meant most to the boy in his 
 early years ; it was Charles with whom he studied, and talked, 
 and wrote, and rambled about the lovely Lincolnshire lanes ; 
 and it was Charles who halved with him the pains and the 
 profits of his first literary venture. 
 
 The two boys began to write verse almost as soon as they 
 could write anything. In his twelfth year Alfred produced 
 an epic of five thousand lines or so, in imitation of Scott, who 
 was then in the height of his vogue ; and at fourteen he pro- 
 duced his first drama. Of infinitely more importance than his 
 writing at this period, however, was his eager and intelligent 
 reading. The two local schools, the village school at Holywell 
 Glen and the grammar school at the neighboring town of 
 
 1 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Louth, seem to have left little impress on the brothers; in- 
 deed, before Alfred was twelve years old his schoolboy days 
 were over. It was under their own father's tuition that the 
 boys got their unusually thorough grounding in the classics, 
 and it was with his encouragement, undoubtedly, that they 
 became familiar with so much that was good in the literature 
 of their own tongue. 
 
 In later life Tennyson had few distinct memories to record 
 of these uneventful years. A vivid impression of the festivities 
 which attended the coronation of George IV., a reminiscence 
 of the boy Alfred's overwhelming personal grief at the news of 
 Byron's death, — these are all. But we are able to picture not 
 a little of the e very-day life of the brothers during this quiet 
 period : how Alfred's reticence and love of solitude contrasted 
 with his companion's easy cordiality and high spirits ; yet how 
 much and how fondly they read and wrote together, criticising 
 each other's work with friendly eagerness ; and how at last (in 
 1826) their need of pocket-money was met by an obliging 
 bookseller of Louth, and the Poems hy Two Brothers was timo- 
 rously launched upon the world. The world paid little atten- 
 tion to the slender volume, which, in fact, had little more 
 merit than the average collection of boyish verse. Frederick, 
 the oldest brother, in this year went up to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, and in 1828 the young poets followed him. Here 
 their lack of public-school training showed itself at first in 
 painful shyness ; but before the year was gone they had found 
 congenial friends, and felt very much at home in Cambridge. 
 Alfred, indeed, never ceased to prefer solitude to the society 
 of strangers. All through life his manner was marked by a 
 certain brusqueness, which seemed affectation to those who 
 did not know him ; but in the eyes of his friends he was 
 not less charming as a companion than as a poet. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 The most important of Tennyson's intimates at the univer- 
 sity "VNere Richard Monckton Mihies (afterward Lord Hough- 
 ton), and Arthur Henry Hallam, who was to become the poet's 
 closest friend. Both of these companions w^ere defeated, in a 
 public competition, by Tennyson, who gained his first recog- 
 nition by 'a superior sort of prize poem called Timbuctoo ; in 
 w^hich, for the first time, he made successful use of the pentam- 
 eter measure that later was to become his favorite vehicle of 
 expression. From this time on his university life was a con- 
 tinuous strain of poetic effort, whose results came before the 
 public in 1830 in a little volume called Poems, .Cliiefiy Lijrical. 
 Timbuctoo had been much praised in academic circles ; the 
 Poems, full of a strange new glamour of music that was 
 all their owai, gave him at once a national standing, and, 
 with some adverse notes, won much praise, even from critics 
 like Coleridge. In the same year a volume of sonnets from 
 Charles Tennyson was w^ell received; Wordsworth, among 
 others, even held him to be the better poet of the tW'O. In 
 1831 Tennyson's father died, and the poet left Cambridge 
 without taking his degree. Later in the year an engage- 
 ment was made public between Arthur Hallam and Emily 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The year 1832 was marked by the publication of a second 
 volume of verse, entitled simply Poems, hy Alfred Tennyson. 
 ' The tendency of his genius was revealed in this volume. 
 The author plainly was a college man, a student of many liter- 
 atures, and, though an Englishman to the core, alive to sug- 
 gestions from Italian and Grecian sources. His Gothic feeling 
 was manifest in the Lady of Shalott, and The Sisters ; his 
 classicism in (Enone ; his idyllic method, especially, now de- 
 fined itself, making the scenery of a poem enhance the central 
 idea, — thought and landscape being so blended that it w^as 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 difficult to determine which suggested the other. . . . The 
 Greek influence is visible in many portions 'of the volume 
 of 1832, sometimes through almost literal translations of 
 classical passages. (Enone, modelled upon the New-Doric 
 verse [the verse of Theocritus], ranks with Lycidas as an 
 Hellenic study. While this chaste and beautiful poem fasci- 
 nated every reader, the wisest criticism found more of genuine 
 worth in the purely English quality of those limpid pieces 
 in which the melody of the lyric is wedded to the sentiment 
 and picture of the idyl, — The Miller's Daughter, The May 
 Queen, and Lady Clara Vere de Vere. More dewy, fresh, 
 pathetic native verse has not been written since the era 
 ot As You Like It, and A Winter's Tale' (Stedman). The 
 advance over the former volume was unmistakable. AVhile 
 the poems as a whole showed no less fire and melody, they 
 showed also far more thought, a deeper insight, and more 
 than a hint, here and there, of genuine dramatic power. 
 This volume, however, was met by an epidemic of adverse 
 criticism, not entirely unwarranted, but surely inexpedient. 
 Not many years had passed since the embitterm&nt of the last 
 days of Keats by like treatment at the hands of the critics. 
 In Tennyson the shaft did not strike so deep, yet it had its 
 inevitable effect. For ten years he kept an almost unbroken 
 silence. But it was not time wasted. While the poet, at 
 this time and always, shrank from unsympathetic criticism 
 with a greater than any physical pain, he never failed to get 
 profit from his torments. He now resolved not again to 
 expose himself lightly to the harshness of his critics; but 
 whatever was fair in their strictures he unhesitatingly took 
 to himself. Making a companion of the disagreeable, for ten 
 years he subjected himself to the most rigorous effort, the 
 most searching self-criticism ; and when, at the age of thirty- 
 
INTRODUCTION, 5 
 
 three, he came once more before the public eye, it was with 
 the confidence of matured power. 
 
 The following year (1833) brought into Tennyson's life 
 its deepest trouble, in the shock of Arthur Hallam's early 
 death ; and in the spiritual battle with grief and doubt, 
 which for nearly twenty years struggled toward its fit expres- 
 sion in the noble In Memoriam. It is more than possible that 
 this deep experience did much to mature and dignify the 
 young poet's nature. The first youthful burst of lyrical power 
 was past; something different, perhaps, something greater, was 
 to come : but for this Tennyson was content to wait. In 1837 
 the family home at Somersby was broken up, and thereafter, 
 while he was still to be found from time to time with his 
 mother, or at the country-house of some friend, he lived for 
 the most part, hard at work, in solitary London lodgings. 
 Yet these years were not all labor, and sadness, and solitude. 
 In London he had the companionship, not only of his old 
 Cambridge friends, but of some of the strongest men of the 
 time — such men as John Stuart ]\Iill, Landor, Thackeray, and 
 Carlyle. To them he read his poems, and with them he 
 passed many a comfortable evening of the bachelor sort. 
 We have no picture so vivid of the poet in middle life as 
 Carlyle's characteristic thumb-nail sketch : ' A great shock 
 of rough, dusty-dark hair ; bright, laughing, hazel eyes ; mas- 
 sive, aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate ; of sallow 
 brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes, cynically 
 loose, free and easy ; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is 
 musically metallic — fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, 
 and all that may lie between ; speech and speculation free and 
 plenteous. I do not meet, in these late decades, such company 
 over a pipe.' 
 
 At last, in 1842, came the issue of the Poems by Alfred 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Tennyson, in two volumes ; the first being mainly a reprint of 
 previously published verse; the second almost entirely new. 
 This time there was to be no lack of appreciation. The very 
 reviews which ten years before had found little virtue in him, 
 now awarded to the yet young poet a high place in English 
 letters. Words of approbation came also from America; Poe 
 wrote repeatedly in terms of unmeasured eulogy, Emerson in 
 a more temperate strain, but still with praise. 
 
 There were several reasons for this change of the public 
 front. The 1832 poems had suffered not more from their 
 faults than from their unconventionality. It was in a certain 
 sense the immaturity of the critic, rather than that of the poet, 
 which stood in the way of critical appreciation. But during 
 the following decade, although there was no fresh publication, 
 the poet was not really silent. The poems continued to be 
 read. Insensibly, but steadily, they made their way against 
 precedent, forming by degrees a precedent of their own. In 
 1842 the volume of reprinted verse obtained almost as much 
 favorable notice as the volume of later work. It is curious to 
 note how closely, at this and later periods, Tennyson repre- 
 sented the dominant English mood. Ilis earliest work had 
 come too soon ; it was, both in matter and in form, alien from 
 the taste of the hour. Henceforth he was to be widely popu- 
 lar, because broadly representative. ' At the present day, were 
 this volume to be lost,' says Mr. Stedman, of the 1842 issue, 
 'we possibly should be deprived of a larger specific variety 
 of Tennyson's most admired poems than is contained in any 
 other of his successive ventures. It is an assortment of repre- 
 sentative poems. To an art more restrained and natural we 
 here find wedded a living soul. The poet has convictions : he 
 is not a pupil, but a master, and reaches intellectual greatness. 
 His verses still bewitch youths and artists by their sentiments 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 and beauty, but their thought takes hold of thinkers and men 
 of the world. He has learned not only that art, when followed 
 for its own sake, is alluring, but that, when used as a means 
 for expressing what cannot otherwise be revealed, it becomes 
 seraphic' 
 
 Nothing of note is to be recorded of the next few years, 
 except the publication of several new editions of the Poems in 
 Two Volumes ; and the grant, in 1845, from Sir Robert Peel, 
 then premier, of a royal pension of two hundred pounds a year. 
 
 In 1847 appeared The Princess, the first of a series of exper- 
 iments in more sustained modes of composition. ' There 
 comes a time in the life of every aspiring artist, when, if he 
 be a painter, he tires of painting cabinet pictures, — however 
 much they satisfy his admirers ; if a j>oet, he says to himself : 
 " Enough of lyrics and idyls ; let me essay a masterpiece, a sus- 
 tained production, that shall bear to my former work the rela- 
 tion which an opera or an oratorio bears to a composer's sonatas 
 and canzonets." It may be that some feeling of this kind im- 
 pelled Tennyson to wi'ite The Princess, the theme and story 
 of which are both of his own invention' (Stedman). There 
 is no doubt that, at the time of the publication of the poem, 
 the public was well disposed toward its author. Indeed, the 
 general opinion of the poet was so good that on this occasion 
 too much was expected of him; the event was, of course, dis- 
 appointment. Except from a few friends who were content 
 to admire it as a gracefully fantastic Jeu d' esprit with a saving 
 leaven of sober meaning, the poem won little commendation. 
 That it found j)lenty of readers, however, is plain enough from 
 the fact that in the course of the six succeeding years it ran 
 through five editions. 
 
 The year 18.50 was made remarkable by three important 
 events in Tennyson's history : his appointment as poet laure- 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ate, the publication of In Memoriam, and the beginning of 
 his exceptionally happy married life. 
 
 In Memoriam, the serious work from which The Princess 
 seems to have been in some degree a relaxation, w^as another 
 innovation in poetic form : an elegy in mosaic ; a psycho- 
 logical study of grief in lyrical episodes. Unprecedented in 
 method as the poem is, it has placed the name of Arthur 
 Hallam fairly beside that of the more conventionally cele- 
 brated Edward King of Milton's Lijcidas. The five following 
 years brought forth numerous editions of the Poems, as well 
 as of The Princess and In Memoriam. The most noteworthy 
 product of the period, however, was Maud: A Monodrama. 
 This poem was a legitimate development of the earlier lyrical 
 monologues, but most of its critics failed to grasp its dramatic 
 character. The oddity of its metrical forms was also an ob- 
 stacle to general appreciation. With the poet it was always a 
 favorite, the poem which he liked best to read to his friends ; 
 and none of those who heard it so rendered failed to find it 
 full of fresh beauty and power. 
 
 With all his energy in new fields, however, Tennyson had 
 lost nothing of his interest in idyllic narrative. The treatment 
 in this form of the Arthurian legends seems to have retained 
 its charm for him during more than half a century. The issue, 
 in 1859, of the first four Idyls of the King was only the fulfil- 
 ment of the early promise of The Lady of Shalott (1832), and 
 Morted' Arthur (1842) ; and the series was completed only with 
 the production of Balin and Balan, in 1885. 
 
 The Arthurian idyl had seemed a distinct advance upon the 
 earlier domestic idyl, — e.g., Dora, and Audley Court. Yet at 
 this point we find Tennyson with an oddly characteristic versa- 
 tility turning back to the older form, in Sea Dreams, Enoch 
 Arden, etc. It is probable that he felt the airy unreality which 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 must belong- to pictures of bygone chivalry, and that he there- 
 fore reverted, not without effort, to the delineation of nine- 
 teenth century scenes and characters. ' These poems argue a 
 curious restlessness in the taste of the writer,' says Mr. Waugh : 
 ' he seems uncertain still of the subjects most congenial to him, 
 and the change is not an improvement. . . . Tennyson has 
 lacked the delicate art of M. Francois Coppee, whenever he 
 has approached subjects which lack beauty in themselves. In 
 trying to adorn the scene he has obliterated its characteristic 
 features. He has had no keen dramatic insight into a sordid 
 situation : his art is thrown away on such coarse canvases. 
 He felt this himself after a few attempts, and returned to his 
 chivalry again. But for fully five years from the appearance 
 of the first four IlnlSy Tennyson passed through an interest- 
 ing period of unsettlement.' It was in 1861: that a volume 
 came out w^hich consisted largely of poems of this domestic 
 type. In 1869, however, three more of the Idyls of the King 
 marked the return of the poet to his congenial sphere. 
 
 There was to be still another attempt, however, in the 
 search for a perfect medium of expression ; an attempt which 
 should end only with the poet's life. Much of the work of his 
 prime had been of dramatic value, but the stej) from dramatic 
 monologue to dramatic dialogue must necessarily be abruj^t 
 and perilous. Between 1875 and 1892 appeared Queen Ufary, 
 Harold, The Cup, Becket, The Foresters, and three other dramas, 
 shorter and less worthy. Harold, which, is perhaps the most 
 original of the plays, has never been put to the test of stage 
 production. Queen Mary was presented in 1876 by Henry 
 Irving, but technical perfection of rendering could not con- 
 ceal the evident faults of construction and lack of vitality in 
 the play itself. The Cup and Becket, in the same hands, have 
 been somewhat more successful : but the conclusion to which 
 
10 ■ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 most critics are irresistibly led is that Tennyson was not by 
 nature a playwright. All the dramas show evidences- of the 
 sheerest effort; they are excursions in an uncongenial field. 
 Never, to the very end, on the other hand, did the old poet 
 lose the lyrical power which was properly his own. 
 
 Although in middle life 'Tennyson had refused a baronetcy, 
 in 1881 he yielded to the general desire, and was created a 
 peer, with the title, ' Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Far- 
 ringford.' The closing years of his life were breathed out in 
 the serene quiet of Aldworth, in Surrey, and there, on October 
 6th, 1892, shortly before the date set for the publication of 
 his last volume, he died, as calmly as he had lived. 
 
 ' As a final word about Lord Tennyson, a laureate of thirty- 
 seven years' service, it may be said that no predecessor has 
 filled his office with fewer lapses from the quality of a poet. 
 Southey's patriotic rubbish was no better, and not mUch worse, 
 than his verse at large. AVordsworth, diiring the few years of 
 his incumbency, wrote little official verse. Tennyson has 
 freshened the greenness of the laurel; a vivid series of na- 
 tional odes and ballads is the result of his journey as its 
 wearer. That some of his perfunctory salutations and paeans 
 have been failures, notably the Jubilee ode, is evidence that 
 genius does not always obey orders.' ... < Reviewing our 
 analysis of his genius and works, w^e find in Alfred Tennyson 
 the true poetic irritability, a sensitiveness increased by his 
 secluded life, and displayed from time to time in "the least 
 little touch of the spleen ; " we perceive him to be the most 
 faultless of modern poets in technical execution, but one whose 
 verse is more remarkable for artistic perfection than for dra- 
 matic action and inspired fervor. His adroitness surpasses 
 his invention. Give him a theme, and no poet can handle it 
 
INTR OB UCTION. 11 
 
 so exquisitely, — yet we feel that, with the Malory legends to 
 draw upon, he could go on writing Idjjls of the King forever. 
 We find him objective in the spirit of his verse, but subjec- 
 tive in the decided manner of his style ; possessing a sense 
 of proportion, based upon the highest analytic and synthetic 
 powers, — a faculty that can harmonize the incongruous 
 thoughts, scenes, and general details of a composite period ; 
 in thought resembling Wordsworth, in art instructed by 
 Keats, but rejecting the passion of Byron, or having nothing 
 in his nature that aspires to it ; finally, an artist so perfect in 
 a widely extended range, that nothing of his work can be 
 spared, and in this respect approaching Horace and outvying 
 Pope ; not one of the great wits nearly allied to madness, yet 
 possibly to be accepted as a wiser poet, serene above the frenzy 
 of the storm ; certainly to be regarded, in time to come, as, 
 all in all, the fullest representative of the refined, speculative, 
 complex Victorian age ' (Stedman). 
 
 THP] POEM. 
 
 The English-reading public received the first edition of 
 The Princess with not a little surprise and chagrin. Since 
 the publication of the collected poems in 1842, the circle of 
 Tennyson's admirers had been growing rapidly and steadily. 
 It was now seventeen years since his first appearance as a 
 notable writer of lyrics. He had already, previous to the 
 appointment of Wordsworth, been talked of for the laureate- 
 ship. Meanwhile, more than one of his critics had hinted 
 that the time was come for some more sustained flight, for 
 the display of something more than the merely lyrical knack 
 upon w^hich his reputation thus far hung. Whether Tennyson 
 made the attempt in direct response to pressure of this sort 
 
1 2 IN TR OD UCTION. 
 
 we do not know. Certain it is that when it transpired that 
 he was at work upon a poem of greater scoj^e, — an epic, it 
 was whispered, — expectation ran high. Most people seem to 
 have looked for the treatment in the grand style of some high 
 and serious theme ; something which should approach in kind, 
 if not in degree, the work of Homer and Dante and Milton. 
 Xo wonder that when The Princess came, the public felt 
 its seriousness to be called in question, its dignity plainly 
 challenged. Here was a long poem, to be sure, but a poem 
 of inconsequential subject and uneven treatment. It could 
 hardly be classified as epic, or even as legitimate metrical 
 romance, yet what else did it pretend to be ? What label 
 was to be affixed to this hybrid product ? The narrative 
 lacked reality, the characters lacked consistency ; one could 
 not trace the serious path of true love without bringing up in 
 a farcical situation ; and the laughter in turn faded into dis- 
 quisition upon the vulgar topic of ' woman's rights.' 
 
 It must be remembered that The Princess made its d&)ut 
 under conditions which no longer obtain, in England or else- 
 where ; conditions which tended to make the element of bur- 
 lesque in the poem more prominent to the reader of that day 
 than it is now. The question of the higher education of 
 women was then regarded as little more than a corollary 
 to the vexed problem of woman's political sphere. The 
 'woman's rights' agitation was then undergoing in England 
 the undignified apprenticeship of a new and doubtful cause. 
 Both from the ill-considered, sometimes grotesque, methods 
 of its advocates, and from the hardly less extravagant cen- 
 sures of its opponents, the result was that the question could 
 not lie in the public mind as a topic for impartial and serious 
 treatment of any sort — how much less for poetic treatment. 
 If it were possible for us at this day to find among our 
 
INTB OB UCTION. 13 
 
 young poets one who could claim half as much seriously- 
 beautiful work as Tennyson had to his credit in 1847 ; and 
 if we were to receive as an innovation from his pen a long 
 poem, which defied categories, and which was apparently 
 founded upon the opera-bouffe problem of the ' new woman ' : 
 we should then have a fairly accurate experience of the aus- 
 pices under which The Princess first appealed to its readers. 
 The first two editions, moreover, were but crude and meagre 
 in comparison with the present version of the poem. Not 
 until the third edition (1850) were the five great songs in- 
 serted ; the fourth edition (1851) saw the introduction of the 
 business of the ' weird seizures,' which, however questionable 
 in its actual effect, doubtless represents an effort toward giv- 
 ing greater spiritual dignity to the characters and events. 
 For six years after its first publication, the poet seems to have 
 been restlessly striving by numerous minor changes to lessen 
 the extravagance of the burlesque, and to make the vein of se- 
 rious feeling more significant to the ordinary reader. Not till 
 the fifth edition (1853) was the poem given its present form. 
 
 And yet the fact that The Princess is to the modern reader 
 a source of greater satisfaction than it can have been to 
 its earliest critics, is due not entirely to later improvements 
 in detail, or to the softening and subordinating by time of 
 that risky topic of sex. The modern reader attacks the poem 
 from a different point of view, or at least in a different mood. 
 He can no longer, by any possibility, receive it as an ill omen. 
 Tennyson's great energies are stilled, but only after abundant 
 achievement. To a few modern admirers, it is true, this work 
 appeals as the poet's most satisfying product ; but most of 
 us are content to see in it what Dr. Van Dyke has seen, <■ one 
 of the minor poems of a major poet.' It pleases us better 
 than it pleased its early audience, not because we find in it 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 so much more, but because we expect so much less, of the 
 highest poetic value. If, as those first critics did, we attempt 
 to square the poem with classic standards of narrative and 
 dramatic excellence, or if, like certain later enthusiasts, we 
 claim a place for it as a didactic masterpiece, we must find 
 ourselves committed to the consideration of some difficult 
 problems. 
 
 First, is it a great narrative poem? In conceding that a 
 poetic medley is a possible, even a legitimate, exercise of the 
 poet's creative power, we do not surrender the right to demand 
 some degree of unity. It has been commonly claimed that 
 the Prologue and the Epilogue disarm criticism by their frank 
 statement of the incongruous elements which make up the 
 body of the poem. But the poet, it is evident, does not mean 
 to be taken too literally. No one would admit for a moment 
 the claim of a mere versified jumble of incoherences upon the 
 honest criticism which is due to honest literature. What de- 
 gree of success was possible to such an attempt as Tennyson 
 here made, whether so close an intimacy of romance and bur- 
 lesque fantasy is potentially consistent with the highest art, we 
 need not discuss. In any event of such a discussion we should 
 be justified in stipulating that the incongruities of the subject 
 should not infect the method and manner of its treatment. 
 
 In the first place it should be noted that while in theme and 
 scope the poem was different from anything which Tennyson 
 had previously done, it was in treatment what might have 
 been expected, predominantly idyllic. Previous to this time 
 he had produced two varieties of the idyl ; the modern domes- 
 tic idyl, such as Dora, Walking to the Mail, Audley Court, etc. ; 
 and the mediaeval romantic or epic product to which he gave 
 the same name in the Idyls of the King. In The Princess 
 we are suddenly faced with a composite of the two types. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 Yet the structure of tlie poem was not without precedent 
 ill the poet's earlier work. The Epic — Morte d 'Arthur (1842) 
 had presented the same surface in miniature, — a nineteenth 
 century introduction and conclusion imbedding an epic frag- 
 ment upon a mediaeval theme. But there is an essential 
 difference. In The Epic — Morte d 'Arthur, the story itself 
 is so sharply distinct in spirit and coloring from its modern 
 setting that one feels no clash in the contrast. In The 
 Princess, on the contrary, the light ephemeral tone of the 
 Epilogue carries over, and forms one of the elements in 
 the included poem itself. This is perhaps inevitable from 
 the nature of the subject, but it is certainly one of the 
 reasons why the pleasure in a first reading of the poem is 
 to most of us touched with a vague feeling of discomfort. 
 If it were profitable to imagine the poem other than it is, we 
 might, not too fancifully, suppose that a certain gain in effec- 
 tiveness might have accrued to Prologue and Epilogue from 
 the use of such idyllic prose as Landor's, or better, of such 
 daintily embellished rhyme as Tennyson himself had so per- 
 fectly at his command. It is true that Tennyson's idyllic 
 method was closely modeled upon that of Theocritus, who 
 boldly chose as his medium the Homeric hexameter, and 
 adapted it with marvelous skill to the treatment of his deli- 
 cate themes. So the great English idyllist has employed 
 the English heroic measure, the metre of Hamlet and Para- 
 dise Lost. He too has attained success ; in the Arthurian 
 group, which possess the advantage of being heroic in subject 
 also, an eminent success. In the modern idyls, however, we 
 are struck more with the technical perfection of the verse 
 than with its fitness for the use to which it has been put. 
 To say that the poet has succeeded in some degree is only 
 to say that he has triumphed over difficulties; and in many 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cases the marks of the struggle are still upon the finished 
 product. A common feeling in his readers is still that the 
 English pentameter, flexible as it has been proved to be, lends 
 itself most readily to the treatment of forms more intense 
 than that of the idyl, at least the domestic idyl. In the Pro- 
 logue, Interlude, and Epilogue of The Princess, beyond a few 
 descriptive touches, there is little v^'hich seems to be in the 
 enjoyment of its natural medium. Possibly it is not too much 
 to say that a greater variety of metrical form (and in Maud 
 the jDoet shortly escaped from the pentameter into an unex- 
 ampled variety of metre and rhyme) might have given the 
 poem greater unity of impression. 
 
 But v^^aiving the question of its setting, is the main body of 
 the poem possessed of unity and power? We are not assent- 
 ing to Poe's < flash of lightning ' theory of poetry, when we 
 say that a very small portion of The Princess is highly poetic ; 
 certainly the lyrical burst of inspired energy does not pre- 
 sent the only type of poetic (creative) excellence. We do 
 mean to say, however, that in this poem Tennyson fails to 
 show, unless in a single passage, the description of the tour- 
 nament, other excellences than those lyric and idyllic excel- 
 lences which had been in evidence in his poetry from the first. 
 The real merit of the poem is not in its narrative or dra- 
 matic or didactic beauty, but in the beauty of its songs and 
 its descriptions. ' The songs,' says Mr. Stedman, ' reach the 
 high-water mark of lyrical composition. Few will deny that, 
 taken together, the five melodies, " As through the land," 
 " Sweet and low," " The splendor falls on castle walls," 
 " Home they brought her warrior dead," and " Ask me no 
 more ! " — that these constitute the finest group of songs pro- 
 duced in our century; and the third, known as the Bugle 
 Song, seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 17 
 
 time of Shakespeare. In The Princess we also find Tenny- 
 son's most successful studies upon the model of the Theocri- 
 tan isometric verse. He was the first to enrich our poetry 
 with this class of melodies, for the burlesque pastorals of the 
 eighteenth century need not be considered. Xot one of the 
 blank verse songs in the Arthurian epic equals in structure 
 or feeling the " Tears, idle tears," and " O swallow, swallow, 
 flying, flying south ! " ' There are many descriptive passages 
 of perfect beauty, and others which are marred only by that 
 over-elaboration and unbalancing attention to detail which 
 were prominent traits of his earliest work, and of which 
 he was accused to the very end. — The poem, in short, is full 
 of minor beauties ; we have still to look upon it as a whole. 
 We find two kinds of narrative to consider here, the serious 
 and the burlesque. The serious portions of the narrative are 
 of uneven merit. The escape of the Prince and his compan- 
 ions, the rescue of the Princess, and especially the account of 
 the tournament, are bits of story-telling complete and admira- 
 ble in themselves, but separated by lengths of variegated com- 
 monplace. Moreover, we are not always certain whether to 
 take a scene seriously or not. When the poet admits that he 
 has ' moved as in a strange diagonal,' he admits that he has 
 found difliculty, not in reconciling the serious and the bur- 
 lesque elements in the poem, but in fusing them ; in making 
 them the parts of a poetic whole. The difficulty lay for Ten- 
 nyson in the fact that neither from temperament nor from 
 training was the production of burlesque natural to him. That 
 form of work, not valueless in itself, w^as unprofitable for him. 
 Mr. Traill, in praising the poem for its humor, fails to remark 
 upon the distinction between humor and burlesque. At the 
 same time he criticises Fitzgerald for saying, ' Alfred, what- 
 ever he may think, cannot trifle. His smile is rather a grim 
 
18 INTRO D UCTION. 
 
 one.' Undoubtedly there is plenty of humor in the poem, 
 but it exists independently of the burlesque. It is, indeed, 
 the broadly humorous spirit of the poem, apparent as much 
 as anywhere in what we call for convenience the ' serious ' pas- 
 sages, which makes us willing to forgive the burlesque element 
 — if we do forgive it. It would be absurd to expect a poet 
 without a grand subject to attain the ' grand style ' ; but we 
 are justified in expecting, in any work of art, a consistent style 
 of some sort. Tennyson's attempt in The Princess to unite 
 the incompatible has given us in many passages as a resultant 
 a style which at times fairly approaches the grotesque. In 
 either connection, professedly serious or burlesque as it may 
 be, we find too often a jostle of modern colloquialism and 
 Elizabethan idiom, of JMiltonic massiveness and nineteenth 
 century frivolity. 
 
 A similar confusion, arising from the same difliculty, is 
 evident in the persons. It is impossible to look upon them 
 as characters of dramatic distinctness. The poet himself was 
 obviously dissatisfied with his work in this respect, as in 
 others. The critics had from the first laid particular stress 
 upon the weakness of the Prince's character. Tennyson 
 seems to have felt in this connection the value of a suggestion 
 which came from a reviewer of the first edition, that some ele- 
 ment of mystery was due to the nature of the poem. Possi- 
 bly he thought by the introduction of such a strain to induce 
 a current of more genuine feeling in the first portion of the 
 narrative, and to endow the hero of the romance with a more 
 decided personality. At all events, in the fourth edition were 
 inserted all the passages which have to do with the 'weird 
 seizures.' The result was not happy. Mystery is hardly to 
 be superimposed as an afterthought; the attempt is likely to 
 end in nothing better than mystification. The vague unim- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 pressiveness of the Prince's character is in no degree modi- 
 fied by the suggestion of intermittent epilepsy or kmacy. His 
 visions have unfortunately no bearing on the progress of 
 events ; he is a prophet with nothing to prophesy about. In 
 such a character we should hardly expect to find dramatic 
 consistency. The Princess makes a not much greater claim 
 upon our interest in her as a character study. During the 
 greater part of the poem, although it is her lover who de- 
 scribes her to us, we meet with little that attracts us. AVhen 
 at the close she melts at last, she becomes charming ; but it 
 is another Princess : her conversion is as abrupt as Oliver's or 
 Duke Frederick's, in that earlier fairy tale. As You Like It. 
 She is no better qualified than the Prince, by virtue of that 
 moral dignity which can belong only to a strong personality, 
 to serve as the central figure of a serious romantic narrative. 
 Neither can one comfortably laugh at her. As for Psyche, 
 there are two facts which prevent our perfect sympathy with 
 her : first, the inexcusable weakness and heedlessness with 
 which she abandons her child; and second (the suggestion 
 of an early critic), the bad form, from a romantic point of view, 
 of her second marriage. The love affairs of young widows 
 are better suited to low comedy than to ideal romance. She 
 has, nevertheless, rather more claim upon our interest, as a 
 genuine personality, than either the Prince or the Princess. 
 Florian is a mere echo of the Prince ; Melissa has no pre- 
 tensions to reality; Lady Blanche plays well her somewhat 
 conventional part, and is noted as being the only thoroughly 
 unpleasant woman in Tennyson. The two kings and Arac are 
 such characters as we meet later in the Idyls of the King : 
 these three and Cyril, an admirable character of almost 
 Shakespearean consistency, constitute, to the present writer, 
 the main dramatic interest of the poem. 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But is it fair to criticise the poem from this point of view V 
 Mr. Stedman says of Tennyson, in a general connection : ' A 
 great master of contemplative, descriptive, or lyrical verse, he 
 falls short in that combination of action and passion which w^e 
 call dramatic, and often gives us a series of marvelous tableaux 
 in lieu of exalted speech and deeds. . . . With few excep- 
 tions, his most poetical types of men and women are not sub- 
 stantial beings, but beautiful shadows, which, like the phantoms 
 of a stereopticon, dissolve if you examine them too long and 
 closely.' 
 
 The Princess has often been compared to Midsummer Night's 
 Dream, As You Like It, and the Winter s Tale. So far as the 
 improbability of the events and the elusiveness of the char- 
 acters are concerned, the comparison is a fair one. There 
 is one difficulty, however, which exists only in the later ex- 
 travaganza. The exigencies of the medley demand extraor- 
 dinary service of the ijcrsonce. The same persons must do 
 duty as romantic, as comic, and as farcical characters ; and if 
 they are not suborned to the uses of tragedy, the escape is a 
 narrow one. In the Shakespeare comedies, on the other 
 hand, the line is pretty clearly drawn between the romantic 
 and the humorous type. Suppose, instead of Oliver and Fred- 
 erick, it had been Rosalind who needed conversion, and that 
 not from romantic villany, but from pedantic masculinity; 
 what should we be able to make of her character ? No, Rosa- 
 lind in gown or doublet is always sweet Rosalind, and if 
 Touchstone laughs at her, it is loving laughter. In Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream, dainty Titania is compromised by being 
 made absurd ; but we know it is not she, after all. It is the 
 solitary misfortune of Tennyson's Princess to be at once butt 
 and heroine, sweetheart and pedant, masculinely tyrannical 
 and femininely submissive. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 Neither for its narrative strength nor for its dramatic 
 merit, then, can we consider The Princess a nobly poetic work. 
 And now — for the intellectual significance of a poem must 
 always be a secondary matter in literary study — let us look 
 at the theme. Does the poem represent a serious attempt 
 to solve specific problems? Or is it a love story? Perhaps it 
 is sufficient to answer that every genuine love story solves 
 a great many problems, specific and general. All pure love- 
 making is largely didactic ; and there is some extremely good 
 love-making at the close of this poem. The Prince says wise 
 things about the sphere of woman, and her relationship to 
 man, because he is very much in love ; it is given him to see 
 deeply because he feels deeply. Indeed, the conception of the 
 Prince owes most of its attractiveness to this sudden glibness 
 of love-inspired insight. It is surely unnecessary to contend 
 that he expresses exactly the opinion of Tennyson, and that 
 Tennyson wrote the poem with the expression of just those 
 truths in mind, as its main purpose. A recent editor says, 
 < The Princess is a romance designed to indicate the poet's 
 conception of the true sphere of woman and her function 
 in society. The purport of the poem is didactic' This 
 seems to the present writer extremely doubtful. As no pure 
 utterance of the lover, so no sincere utterance of the poet, 
 can be without its ethical values. But such values are quite 
 as likely to be inherent, incidental, as to be premeditated. It 
 is worth while for us to note, let us say, not what lessons 
 Tennyson ' intended to teach,' but what lessons are inhe- 
 rent in the poem, as the work of a genuine poet. 
 
 There are a number of minor ' morals * which have been 
 nmch enlarged upon by critics ; for example, that knowledge 
 is not 'all in all'; that < woman is not undevelopt man, but 
 diverse ' ; that only in the perfect union of woman and man 
 
22 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 lies the possibility of the highest usefulness of each ; and 
 so forth. These truths are plainly a part of the poem ; they 
 would even possess a certain independent interest if they were 
 to be supposed to stand alone. They do not stand alone, how- 
 ever, but are subordinate to the thought which is clearly dom- 
 inant in this poem, as in all Tennyson's poetry; the familiar 
 thought that all progress must be a matter of slow evolution 
 from lower to higher, from higher to highest. In accordance 
 with this underlying conception, then, the story demonstrates, 
 or rather illustrates anew, the fact that no sudden revolt can 
 bring about perfection of any kind, although it may consti- 
 tute a necessary step in the advance toward perfection ; that 
 all good things are to come to humanity, but that they must 
 come slowly; and that, in the face of human doubt, and of 
 disappointment to individual human methods, the law of 
 gradual development is the law of love, and leads us, slowly 
 but irresistibly, toward that 
 
 ' One far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves.' 
 
 So much intellectual virtue is to be recognized in the poem. 
 As has been said, it breathes from the work as a whole ; 
 that is, it does not depend for its enforcement uj^on the 
 utterance at the conclusion of the hero's love-wisdom, or 
 upon the poet's own words in the Epilogue. 
 
 But there is still another force in the poem besides that 
 which lies in the formulation or embodiment of any intellect- 
 ual abstraction. AVe have hitherto found no striking dignity 
 in the narrative or in the characters. "Where then shall we 
 look for the source of that inner energy with which, even 
 in its early half-farcical episodes, the poem is indubitably 
 furnished? Spiritually, the poem presents to us a single 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 figure of commanding interest. Among all the persons who 
 appear in the course of the story there is just one of per- 
 fect dignity, eloquent throughout, the centre and author of 
 the action itself, Psyche's little daughter, the baby Aglaia. 
 The discovery, or the first explicit statement of this fact, is due 
 to Mr. Dawson : ' The babe, in the poem as in the songs,' he 
 says, ' is made the central point upon which the plot turns ; 
 for the unconscious child is the concrete embodiment of 
 Nature herself, clearing away all merely intellectual theories 
 by her silent influence. Ida feels the power of the child. 
 Whenever the plot thickens, the babe appears. It is with 
 Ida upon her judgment seat. In the topmost height of the 
 storm the wail of the "lost lamb at her feet" reduces her 
 eloquent anger into incoherence. She carries it when she 
 sings her song of triumph. When she goes to tend her 
 wounded brothers on the battle-field she carries it. Through 
 it and for it Cyril pleads his successful suit, and wins it for 
 the mother. For its sake the mother is pardoned.' In the 
 child, and the insistence upon the power of the child and of 
 the home ideals of which the child is the symbol, lies the 
 unity of the poem. Unity of action, unity of character, unity 
 of thought, even, it hardly claims to have : spiritual unity it 
 claims and has. 
 
 In conclusion, the present editor would suggest that the 
 student be encouraged to approach The Princess not as a 
 poetic masterpiece, but as a delightful bit of fiction in verse. 
 There is no greater danger to the novice in the study of lit- 
 erature than the worshipful method of attack. Every book 
 which is worth studying is not a masterpiece. The process 
 of study ought to make the limitations as well as the points 
 of excellence more noticeable ; for it is quite as important 
 that the student should learn from the start what to deprecate 
 
24 INTRO D UCTION. 
 
 as what to admire.* Admitting that The Princess is not to 
 be ranked with the noblest works of our literature, or even 
 with the highest work of Tennyson, we must none the less 
 admit that it is a story which it would be difficult to read 
 without pleasure, or to study without interest. It has always 
 been popular with its readers, and even with its wariest 
 critics. ' For my own part,' says Mr. Traill, ' I confess to 
 finding it, if not one of the poetically greatest, yet the most 
 humanly complete, of all the poet's w^orks.' 'Other works 
 of our poet are greater,' says Mr. Stedman, in the same vein, 
 ' but none is so fascinating as this romantic tale : English 
 throughout, yet combining the England of Coeur de Leon 
 with that of Victoria in one bewitching picture.' The char- 
 acters on the whole are as consistent, and the narrative is as 
 connected, as the needs of the average fairy-tale demand ; the 
 moral is excellent ; and the larger spiritual significance of the 
 poem is more than could be expected from such a setting. 
 The present writer desires to conclude by quoting from Mr. 
 Waugh, one of Tennyson's latest and ablest critics, the com- 
 ment which most compactly and fairly represents his own 
 judgment : 
 
 'In the new setting the old note is the key-note the old 
 note of gradual development, of steady progress, "conserving 
 the hopes of man." No social revolution, no impetuous cru- 
 sade for woman's rights, can effect the good that must come 
 
 * • Myrtis and Corinna have no need of me. To read and recommend 
 their works, to point out their beauties and defects, is praise enough. 
 
 " How ! " methinks you exclaim, " to point out defects ! is that prais- 
 ing?" 
 
 Yes, Cleone ; if with equal good faith and accuracy you point out their 
 beauties too. It is only thus a fair estimate can be made ; and it is only by 
 such fair estimate that a writer can be exalted to his proper station.' — 
 Landor, Pericles and Aspasia, xxxvii. 
 
INT ROB UCTION. 25 
 
 by degrees. The emancipated woman is no heroine to the 
 poet; he knows a better: 
 
 " Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants. 
 No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the gods and men." 
 
 It is through the love of such a woman that a man accom- 
 plishes his manhood. The affections cannot be repressed : 
 without love life is unfinished. 
 
 Apart from this underlying motive, which rises to the 
 surface only with the end of the poem, The Princess is 
 little but a dreamy story to read in a garden on a summer 
 afternoon, full of music, and fuller still of rich and sugges- 
 tive imagery. The insertion of the songs, delicate and beau- 
 tiful in themselves, serves only to accentuate the artificiality 
 of the whole work. Tennyson's detractors are ready to accuse 
 him of over-refinement, of an eye too prone to color, and an 
 ear too sensitive to melody, losing in their rapture the sights 
 and sounds of the real, eternal truth. If such an accusation 
 were to be urged, it could, perhaps, be best urged from an 
 analysis of The Princess. For here Tennyson is in his dream- 
 iest and his least virile mood ; here he indulges his senses 
 to the waste of his thought. There is a time for every- 
 thing ; and The Princess is not without its special charm. 
 It is not Tennyson's highest work, neither is it his lowest ; it 
 merely requires a sympathetic temperament in the reader to 
 appear satisfying. It needs a temperament of momentary 
 laziness, apt to languor, and inclined to a light satire, which 
 shall not busy itself to wound too deeply. With this mind 
 we shall find The Princess a storehouse of good things, a 
 midsummer day's dream with a spell and fantasy that hold us 
 to the end.' 
 
THE PKINCESS: 
 
 A MEDLEY. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
 Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
 Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
 His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
 The neighboring borough, with their Institute 
 Of which he was the patron. I was there 
 From college, visiting the son, — the son 
 A AValter too, — with others of our set ; 
 Five others : we were seven at Yivian-place. 
 
 And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 
 Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
 Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names. 
 Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
 Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, 
 Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time ; 
 And on the tables every clime and age 
 Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, 
 
28 THE PBINCE88: [prologue. 
 
 Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 
 
 Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries. 
 
 Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 26 
 
 The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 
 
 From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls. 
 
 Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
 
 His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 
 
 And ' This,' he said, ' was Hugh's at Agincourt ; 
 And that was old Sir Kalph's at Ascalon : 
 A good knight he ! We keep a chronicle 
 With all about him ' — which he brought, and I 
 Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 
 Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 30 
 
 Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
 And mixt with these a lady, one that arm'd 
 Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate. 
 Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 
 
 ^ miracle of women,' said the book, 
 ' noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
 By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
 Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death. 
 But now when all was lost, or seem'd as lost ■ — 
 Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 
 
 Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
 Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate. 
 And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 
 She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, 
 
PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 29 
 
 And some were whelm'd with, missiles of the wall, 
 And some were push'd with lances from the rock, 
 And part were drown'd within the whirling brook : 
 miracle of noble womanhood ! ' 
 
 So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
 And, I all rapt in this, ^ Come out,' he said, 50 
 
 ' To the Abbey : there is Aunt Elizabeth, 
 And sister Lilia, with the rest.' We went 
 (I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
 Down thro' the park : strange was the sight to me ; 
 For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown 
 With happy faces and with holiday. 
 There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : 
 The patient leaders of their Institute 
 Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone 
 And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 
 
 The fountain of the moment, playing now 
 A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
 Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
 Danced like a wisp : and somewhat lower down 
 A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
 A cannon ; Echo answer 'd in her sleep 
 Erom hollow fields : and here were telescopes 
 Eor azure views ; and there a group of girls 
 In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
 Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter : round the lake 70 
 A little clock-Avork steamer paddling plied, 
 And shook the lilies : perch'd about the knolls 
 
30 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 
 
 A dozen angry models jetted steam : 
 
 A petty railway ran : a fire-balloon 
 
 E-ose gem-like up before the dusky groves 
 
 And dropt a fairy parachute, and past : 
 
 And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
 
 They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 
 
 Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 
 
 Went hand in hand with Science ; otherwhere so 
 
 Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd 
 
 And stump'd the wicket ; babies roll'd about 
 
 Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 
 
 Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 
 
 And shadow, while the twangling violin 
 
 Struck up with ^ Soldier-laddie,' and overhead 
 
 The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
 
 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 oo 
 
 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 here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth 
 And Lilia, with the rest, and lady friends 
 From neighbor seats : and there was Ealph himself 
 A broken statue propt against the wall. 
 As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, loo 
 
PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 31 
 
 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 
 
 Glow like a sunbeam : near his tomb a feast 
 
 Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests. 
 
 And there we join'd them : then the maiden Aunt 
 
 Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
 
 An universal culture for the crowd. 
 
 And all things great ; but we, unworthier, told no 
 
 Of college : he had climb'd across the spikes. 
 
 And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars. 
 
 And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs ; and one 
 
 Discuss'd his Tutor, rough to common men. 
 
 But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
 
 And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
 
 Yeneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 
 
 But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
 The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 
 My book to mind : and opening this I read 120 
 
 Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
 With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
 That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
 And much I praised her nobleness, and ^ AYhere,' 
 Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
 Beside him), ^ lives there such a woman now ? ' 
 
 Quick answer'd Lilia, ' There are thousands now 
 
32 THE PBINCESS: [prologue. 
 
 Such women, but convention beats them down : 
 
 It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 
 
 You men have clone it : how I hate you all ! iso 
 
 Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
 
 Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then 
 
 That love to keep us children ! 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 i4o 
 With prudes for Proctors, dowagers for Deans, 
 And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
 I think they should not Avear our rusty gowns, 
 But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ealph 
 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 iso 
 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. 
 
PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 33 
 
 And sweet as English air could make lier, she : ' 
 
 But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 
 
 And ' petty Ogress/ and ' ungrateful Puss/ 
 
 And swore he long'd at college, — only long'd, 
 
 All else was well, — for she-society. 
 
 They boated and they cricketed ; they talk'd 
 
 At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; ico 
 
 They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of Deans ; 
 
 They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends. 
 
 And caught the blossom of the flying Terms : 
 
 But miss'd the mignonette of Yivian-place, 
 
 The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke. 
 
 Part banter, part affection. 
 
 ' True,' she said, 
 ' We doubt not that. 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, 170 
 
 And takes a lady's finger with all care. 
 And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
 So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
 And wrung it. '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 
 Were out of season : never man, I think. 
 So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : iso 
 
34 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 
 
 For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet 
 
 And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 
 
 We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
 
 In wassail ; often, like as many girls. 
 
 Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 
 
 As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
 
 Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
 
 And Whafs my thought ? and When and ivhere and how ? 
 
 And often told a tale from mouth to mouth. 
 
 As here at Christmas.' 
 
 She remember'd that : loo 
 
 A pleasant game she thought : she liked it more 
 Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
 But these — What kind of tales did men tell men, 
 She wonder'd, by themselves ? 
 
 A half-disdain 
 Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips ; 
 And Walter nodded at me : ^He began. 
 The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 
 We forged a sevenfold story. Kind ? what kind ? 
 Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms. 
 Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 
 
 Time by the fire in winter.' 
 
 ' Kill him now. 
 The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too,' 
 Said Lilia ; ' Why not now ? ' the maiden Aunt. 
 ^ Why not a summer's as a winter's tale ? 
 A tale for summer as befits the time. 
 And something it should be to suit the place, 
 
PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 35 
 
 Heroic, — for a hero lies beneath, — 
 Grave, solemn ! ' 
 
 Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
 To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd. 
 And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 210 
 
 An echo like a ghostly woodpecker 
 Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
 (A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 
 With color) turn'd to me with 'As you will 5 
 Heroic if you will^, or what you will^ 
 Or be yourself your hero if you will.' 
 
 ' Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' clamor'd he, 
 ^ And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
 Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
 The Prince to win her ! ' 
 
 ' Then follow me, the Prince,' 
 I answerd ; ' each be hero in his turn ! 221 
 
 Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
 Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
 Lut Something made to suit with time and place, 
 A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
 A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
 A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
 And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
 Por which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all — 
 This were a medley ! we should have him back 230 
 
 "Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us. 
 Ko matter : we will say whatever comes. 
 
36 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 
 
 And let the ladies sing us, if they will, 
 From time to time, some ballad or a song 
 To give us breathing-space.' 
 
 So I began. 
 And the rest follow'd : and the women sang 
 Between the rougher voices of the men, 
 Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
 And here I give the story and the songs. 
 
PART I.] A MEDLEY. 37 
 
 I. 
 
 A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
 Of temper amorous as the first of May, 
 With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
 For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 
 
 There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
 Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
 Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
 Dying, that none of all our blood should know 
 The shadow from the substance, and that one 
 Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. lo 
 
 For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
 And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 
 An old and strange affection of the house. 
 Myself too had weird seizures. Heaven knows what : 
 On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 
 And while I walk'd and talked as heretofore, 
 I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
 And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
 Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane. 
 And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd 'catalepsy.' 20 
 
 My mother, pitying, made a thousand prayers ; 
 My mother was as mild as any saint, 
 Half-canonized by all that look'd on her. 
 
38 THE PBINCESS: [pakt 
 
 So gracious was lier tact and tenderness : 
 
 But my good father thought a king a king ; 
 
 He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
 
 He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 
 
 To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 
 
 Eeach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 
 
 For judgment. 
 
 Now it chanced that I had been, so 
 While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
 To one, a neighboring Princess : she to me 
 Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
 At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
 Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
 And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
 And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
 And one dark tress ; and all around them both 
 Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their 
 queen. ' 
 
 But when the days drew nigh that I should w^ed, 40 
 My father sent ambassadors with furs 
 And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back 
 A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
 And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
 Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
 He said there was a compact ; that was true : 
 But then she had a will ; was he to blame ? 
 And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
 Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 
 
I.] A MEDLEY. 39 
 
 That morning m the presence room I stood 50 
 
 With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 
 The first, a gentleman of broken means 
 (His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 
 Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
 And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
 Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 
 
 Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
 Grow long and troubled, like a rising moon. 
 Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet. 
 Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent eo 
 
 The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
 From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware 
 That he would send a hundred thousand men. 
 And bring her in a whirlwind : then he chew'd 
 The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen. 
 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 : 70 
 
 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 : 
 
40 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 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.' so 
 
 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 ; 90 
 
 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 100 
 
 Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
 With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. 
 Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 
 
I.] A MEDLEY. 41 
 
 To hear my father's clamor 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 blowijig bosks of wilderness, no 
 
 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 : 
 iSTot 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, 120 
 
 'All honor. 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. 130 
 
 They harp'd on this ; with this our banquets rang ; 
 
42 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 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 ho 
 
 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 vie. 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 wdld to found an University 
 
 For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more i50 
 
 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.' 
 
I.] A MEDLEY. 43 
 
 Thus the king ; leo 
 
 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 ; 171 
 
 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 Avith 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 — 180 
 The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
 * Xo 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 ; 
 
44 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 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, loo 
 
 And all the dogs ' — 
 
 But while he jested thus, 
 A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, 
 Eemembering 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, liolp 
 To lace us up, till each in maiden plumes 
 We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 200 
 
 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 210 
 
 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 
 
I.] A MEDLEY. 45 
 
 Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
 In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
 And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
 Eapt 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, 221 
 
 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,' she said, 
 ^ And Lady Psyche.' ^ AYhich was prettiest, 230 
 
 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 : 240 
 
46 THE PRINCESS: [part i. 
 
 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. 
 
As thro' the laud at eve we weut, 
 
 Aud pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
 AYe fell out, my wife aud I, 
 O we fell out I know not why, 
 Aud kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 
 We lost in other years, 
 There above the little grave, 
 O there above the little grave. 
 
 We kiss'd again with tears. 
 
48 THE Pn IN CESS: [part 
 
 11. 
 
 At break of day the College Portress came : 
 
 She brought us Academic silks, in hue 
 
 The lilac, with a silken hood to each. 
 
 And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 
 
 And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons. 
 
 She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 
 
 The Princess Ida waited. Out we paced, 
 
 I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 
 
 All round with laurel, issued in a court 
 
 Compact of lucid marbles boss'd with lengths lo 
 
 Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
 
 Betwixt the pillars, and Avith great urns of flowers. 
 
 The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 
 
 Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst 
 
 And here and there on lattice edges lay 
 
 Or book or lute ; but hastily we past. 
 
 And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 
 
 There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
 With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne. 
 All beauty compass'd in a female form, 20 
 
 The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
 Of some clear planet close upon the sun. 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 49 
 
 Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, 
 And so much grace and power, breathing down 
 From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
 Lived tliro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
 And to her feet. She rose her height, and said : 
 
 ' We give you welcome : riot without redound 
 Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
 The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 30 
 
 And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
 Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
 What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ? ' 
 'We of the court,' said Cyril. 'From the court,' 
 She answer'd ; ' then ye know the Prince ? ' and he : 
 ' The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 
 One rose in all the world, your highness that, 
 He worships your ideaL' She replied : 
 ' We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
 This barren verbiage current among men, 4o 
 
 Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
 Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
 As arguing love of knowledge and of power ; 
 Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
 We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
 To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
 Never to wed. You likewise will do well. 
 Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
 The tricks which make us toys of men, that so. 
 Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 
 
50 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 
 
 You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
 Your fortunes justlier balanced, scale with scale.' 
 
 At those high words, we conscious of ourselves 
 Perused the matting ; then an officer 
 Eose up, and read the statutes, such as these : 
 Kot for three years to correspond with home ; 
 Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
 Not for three years to speak with any men ; 
 And many more, which hastily subscribed. 
 We enter' d on the boards : and ' Now,' she cried, eo 
 ' Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! 
 Our statues ! — not of those that men desire. 
 Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode. 
 Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 
 That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
 The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
 The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 
 The Ehodope that built the pyramid, 
 Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
 That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 70 
 
 Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
 Convention, since to look on noble forms 
 Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
 That which is higher. lift your natures up : 
 Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 
 Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 
 Drink deep, until the habits of the slave. 
 The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 51 
 
 And slander, die. Better not be at all 
 
 Than not "be noble. Leave us ; you may go : so 
 
 To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
 
 The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 
 
 For they press in from all the provinces, 
 
 And fill the hive.' 
 
 She spoke, and bowing waved 
 Dismissal : back again we crost the court 
 To Lady Psyche's. As we enter'd in. 
 There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
 That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
 A patient range of pupils : she herself 
 Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 
 
 A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
 And on the hither side, or so she look'd. 
 Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
 In shining draperies, headed like a star. 
 Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
 Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 
 Then Florian, — but no livelier than the dame 
 That whisper'd 'Asses' ears ' among the sedge, — 
 ' My sister.' ' Comely, too, by all that's fair,' 
 Said Cyril. ^ hush, hush ! ' and she began. 100 
 
 ' This world was once a fluid haze of light. 
 Till toward the centre set the starry tides, 
 And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
 The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
 Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins. 
 
52 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 E-aw from the prime, and crushing clown his mate ; 
 As yet we find in barbarous isles, — and here 
 Among the lowest.' 
 
 Thereupon she took 
 A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; 
 Glanced at the legendary Amazon no 
 
 As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
 Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
 That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
 Ean down the Persian, Grecian, Koman lines 
 Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
 How far from just : till, warming with her theme. 
 She fulmined out her scorn of laws Sulique, 
 And little-footed China ; touch'd on Mahomet 
 With much contempt, and came to chivalry, 
 When some respect, however slight, was paid 120 
 
 To woman, — superstition all awry : 
 However, then commenced the dawn : a beam 
 Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
 Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed. 
 Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 
 To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 
 Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
 None lordlier than themselves but that which made 
 Woman and man. She had founded 5 they must 
 
 build. 
 Here might they learn whatever men were taught : iso 
 Let them not fear. Some said their heads were less : 
 Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 
 
n.] A MEDLEY. 53 
 
 For often fineness compensated size : 
 
 Besides, the brain was like tlie hand, and grew 
 
 With using ; thence the man's, if more, was more. 
 
 He took advantage of his strength to be 
 
 First in the fiekl : some ages had been lost ; 
 
 But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 
 
 Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 
 
 Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth i40 
 
 The liighest is the measure of the man. 
 
 And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 
 
 Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 
 
 But Homer, Plato, Yerulam ; even so 
 
 W^ith woman. And in arts of government 
 
 Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 
 
 The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 
 
 Sappho and others, vied with any man : 
 
 And, last not least, she who had left her place, 
 
 And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 150 
 
 To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 
 
 In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 
 
 Of ancient influence and scorn. 
 
 At last 
 She rose upon a wind of prophecy, 
 Dilating on the future : ' Everywhere 
 Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
 Two in the tangled business of the world. 
 Two in the liberal offices of life. 
 Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
 Of science, and the secrets of the mind ; leo 
 
54 THE PRINCESS 
 
 [part 
 
 Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more : 
 And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
 Should bear a double growth of those rare souls. 
 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, no 
 
 ^ My brother ! ' ^ Well, my sister.' ' 0,' 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, i80 
 
 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 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 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 55 
 
 For warning : bury me beside the gate, 
 
 And cut this epitaph above my bones ; loo 
 
 Ilei'e lies a brother bij 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 VI, ]VIadam, I love the truth ; 
 Ileceive 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.' 
 '■ Sir, Prince, I have no country, none ; 200 
 
 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, 210 
 
 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 
 
56 THE PRINCESS: [pajit 
 
 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, 220 
 
 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, 230 
 
 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, ■ 240 
 
 And glean your scatter'd sapience.' 
 
 Then once more, 
 ^Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, 
 ^ That on her bridal morn, before she past 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 57 
 
 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, 250 
 
 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. 
 
 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 260 
 
 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 3' ou call great : he for the common weal. 
 The fading politics of mortal Eome, 
 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 270 
 A prince, a brother ? A little will I yield : 
 
58 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
 
 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.' 
 
 What could we else ? we promised each ; and she, 280 
 Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced 
 A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
 By Florian ; holding out her lily arms 
 Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 
 < T knew you at the first : tho' 3'ou have grown 
 You scarce have alter' d : I am sad and glad 
 To see you, Florian. / give thee to death. 
 My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
 My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
 Our mother, is she well ? ' 
 
 With that she kiss'd 290 
 
 His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
 About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
 From out a common vein of memory 
 Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth. 
 And far allusion, till the gracious dews 
 Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
 They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice : 
 * I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.' 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 59 
 
 Back started she, and turning round we saw 
 
 The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 
 
 Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
 
 A rosy blonde, and in a college gown 
 
 That clad her like an April daffodilly 
 
 (Her mother's color), with her lips apart. 
 
 And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes 
 
 As bottom agates, seen to wave and float 
 
 In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 
 
 So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
 Then Lady Psyche, ^ Ah — Melissa — you ! 
 You heard us ? ' and Melissa, ' pardon me, 310 
 
 I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
 But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
 ISTor think I bear that heart within my breast. 
 To give three gallant gentlemen to death. 
 ' I trust you,' said the other, ' for we two 
 Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine : 
 But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 
 Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
 The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
 This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 
 
 My honor, these their lives.' ' Ah, fear me not,' 
 Replied Melissa ; ^ no — I would not tell, 
 No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness. 
 No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard things 
 That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 
 ' Be it so,' the other, ' that we still may lead 
 
60 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 The new light up, and culminate in peace ; 
 
 For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.' 
 
 Said Cyril, ' Madam, he the wisest man 
 
 Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 
 
 Of Lebanonian cedar : nor should you 
 
 (Tho'j Madam, you should answer, tve would ask) 
 
 Less welcome find among us, if you came 
 
 Among us, debtors for our lives to you, — 
 
 Myself for something more.' He said not what ; 
 
 But ' Thanks,' she answer'd ; ' go : we have been too long 
 
 Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 
 
 They do so that affect abstraction here. 
 
 Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
 
 Your promise : all, I trust, may yet be well.' 340 
 
 We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
 And held her round the knees against his waist, 
 And blew the swoln cheek of a trumpeter. 
 While Psyche Avatch'd them, smiling, and the child 
 Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 
 And thus our conference closed. 
 
 And then we stroll' d 
 For half the day thro' stately theatres 
 Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 
 The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
 The circle rounded under female hands 350 
 
 With flawless demonstration : follow'd then 
 A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
 With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 
 
"•] A MEDLEY. 61 
 
 By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
 
 And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 
 
 That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
 
 Sparkle for ever : then we dipt in all 
 
 That treats of whatsoever is ; the state. 
 
 The total chronicles of man, the mind. 
 
 The morals, something of the frame ; the rock, seo 
 
 The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower ; 
 
 Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest : 
 
 And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
 
 Till, like three horses that have broken fence 
 
 And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 
 
 We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke 
 
 'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.' 
 
 ' They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, ' very well ; 
 
 But when did woman ever yet invent ? ' 
 
 ' Ungracious ! ' answer'd Florian ; ' have you learnt 370 
 
 No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 
 
 The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ? ' 
 
 ' trash,' he said, ' but with a kernel in it. 
 
 Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ? 
 
 And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash, 
 
 Than if my brainpan were an empty hull. 
 
 And every Muse tumbled a science in. 
 
 A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
 
 And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
 
 Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, sso 
 
 Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but O 
 
 With me. Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy. 
 
62 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 
 
 The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too ; 
 
 He cleft me thro' the stomacher. And now 
 
 What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 
 
 The substance or the shadow ? will it hold ? 
 
 I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 
 
 No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 
 
 Flatter myself that always everywhere 390 
 
 I know the substance when I see it. Well, 
 
 Are castles shadows ? Three of them ? Is she 
 
 The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not, 
 
 Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat ? 
 
 For dear are those three castles to my wants, 
 
 And dear is sister Psych'e to my heart. 
 
 And two dear things are one of double worth ; 
 
 And much I might have said, but that my zone 
 
 Unmann'd me : then the Doctors ! to hear 
 
 The Doctors ! to watch the thirsty plants 400 
 
 Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar. 
 
 To break my chain, to shake my mane : but thou 
 
 Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry ! 
 
 Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat 
 
 Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
 
 Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 
 
 Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 
 
 A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek. 
 
 Where they like swallows coming out of time 
 
 Will wonder why they came : but hark the bell 410 
 
 For dinner, let us go ! ' 
 
II.] A MEDLEY. 63 
 
 And in we streamed 
 Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
 By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
 With beauties every shade of brown and fair. 
 In colors gayer than the morning mist, 
 The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers. 
 How might a man not wander from his wits 
 Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
 Intent on her who, rapt in glorious dreams, 
 The second-sight of some Astrsean age, 420 
 
 Sat compass'd with Professors : they, the while, 
 Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro : 
 A clamor thicken'd, mixed with inmost terms 
 Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone. 
 Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments. 
 With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
 Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
 In act to spring. 
 
 At last a solemn grace 
 Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 
 One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 430 
 
 In this hand held a volume as to read. 
 And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 
 Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by. 
 Or under arches of the marble bridge 
 Hung, shadow'd from the heat : some hid and sought 
 In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 
 Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
 With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 
 
64 THE PRINCESS: [part it. 
 
 Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May 
 
 Was passing : what was learning unto them ? 44o 
 
 They wish'd to marry ; they could rule a house ; 
 
 Men hated learned women : but we three 
 
 Sat muffled like the Fates ; and often came 
 
 Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts 
 
 Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
 
 That harm'd not : then day droopt ; the chapel bells 
 
 Call'd us : we left the walks ; we mixt with those 
 
 Six hundred maidens clad in purest white. 
 
 Before two streams of light from wall to wall. 
 
 While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 
 
 Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
 
 A long melodious thunder to the sound 
 
 Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies : 
 
 The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
 
 A blessing on her labors for the world. 
 
Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
 
 Wind of the western sea-, 
 Low, low, breathe and blow. 
 
 Wind of the western sea ! 
 Over the rolling waters go. 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow. 
 
 Blow him again to me ; 
 AYhile my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 
 
 Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
 Silver sails all out of the west 
 
 Under the silver moon : 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 
 
QQ THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 III. 
 
 Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
 Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
 We rose, and each by other drest with care 
 Descended to the court, that lay three parts 
 In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd 
 Above the darkness, from their native East. 
 
 There, while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 
 Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
 Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep. 
 Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes lo 
 
 The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
 And ' Fly,' she cried, ' fly, while yet you may ! 
 My mother knows : ' and when I ask'd her ' How ? ' 
 ^ My fault,' she wept, ' my fault ! and yet not mine ; 
 Yet mine in part. hear me, pardon me. 
 My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 
 To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
 She says the Princess should have been the Head, 
 Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 
 And so it was agreed when first they came ; 20 
 
 But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 
 And she the left, or not or seldom used ; 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 67 
 
 Hers more than half the students, all the love. 
 
 And so last night she fell to canvass you : 
 
 Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 
 
 " Who ever saw such wild barbarians ? 
 
 Girls ? — more like men ! '*' and at these words the snake, 
 
 My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast ; 
 
 And oh, Sirs, could I help it ? but my cheek 
 
 Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 
 
 To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 
 
 " marvelously modest maiden, you ! 
 
 Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been men 
 
 You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 
 
 For wholesale corument.'' Pardon, I am shamed 
 
 That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
 
 What looks so little graceful : " Men '' (for still 
 
 My mother went revolving on the word), 
 
 " And so they are, — very like men indeed, — 
 
 And with that woman closeted for hours ! " 40 
 
 Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 
 
 " Whi/ — these — (X?'e — me7i .' " — I shudder'd : — " and 
 
 you knoiv it.^' 
 " ask me nothing," I said : — "A7id she kriows too, 
 And she conceals it."' So my mother clutch'd 
 The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 
 And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
 The Princess : Lady Psyche will be crush'd ; 
 But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly : 
 But heal me with your pardon ere you go.' 
 
68 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 ' What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush. ? ' 50 
 
 Said Cyril : ' Pale one, blush again : than wear 
 Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
 Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven,' 
 He added, ' lest some classic angel speak 
 In scorn of us, " They mounted, Ganymedes, 
 To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn." 
 But I will melt this marble into wax 
 To yield us farther furlough : ' and he went. 
 
 Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
 He scarce would prosper. ' Tell us,' Plorian ask'd, go 
 ' How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.' 
 ' long ago,' she said, ' betwixt these two 
 Division smoulders hidden ; 'tis my mother 
 Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
 Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 
 I never knew my father, but she says 
 (God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
 And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
 She had the care of Lady Ida's youth. 
 And from the Queen's decease she brought her uj). 70 
 But when your sister came she won the heart 
 Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
 (For so they said themselves) inosculated , 
 Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
 One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
 Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories. 
 And angled with them for her pupil's love : 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 69 
 
 She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
 But I must go ; I dare not tarry/ and light 
 As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 8o 
 
 Then murmur'd Florian, gazing after her, 
 ' An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
 If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 
 Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again, 
 As if to close w^ith Cyril's random wish : 
 Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
 Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' 
 
 ' The crane,' I said, ^ may chatter of the crane, 
 The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, 
 An eagle, clang an eagle to the sphere. 90 
 
 My princess, my princess ! — True, she errs, 
 But in her own grand way : being herself 
 Three times more noble than threescore of men, 
 She sees herself in every Avoman else; 
 And so she wears her error like a crown 
 To blind the truth and me : for her, and her, 
 Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
 The nectar ; but — ah, she ! — whene'er she moves 
 The Samiau Here rises, and she speaks 
 A Memnon smitten with the morning sun.' loo 
 
 So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
 The terrace ranged along the Northern front. 
 And leaning there on those balusters, high 
 
70 THE PBINCESS: [part 
 
 Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
 
 That, blown about the foliage underneath, 
 
 And sated with the innumerable rose. 
 
 Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
 
 Cyril, and yawning, ' hard task,' he cried, 
 
 ' No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
 
 Thro' solid opposition, crabb'd and gnarl'd. no 
 
 Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
 
 A league of street in summer solstice down, 
 
 Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
 
 I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd ; found her there 
 
 At point to move, and settled in her eyes 
 
 The green malignant light of coming storm. 
 
 Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd 
 
 As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
 
 Concealment : she demanded who we were. 
 
 And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair, 120 
 
 But, your example pilot, told her all. 
 
 Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
 
 But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 
 
 She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 
 
 I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 
 
 And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves 
 
 With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
 
 But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 
 
 The woman's cause. " Not more than now," she said, 
 
 " So puddled as it is with favoritism." 130 
 
 I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 
 
 Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 71 
 
 Her answer was " Leave me to deal with that." 
 
 I spoke of war to come, and many deaths, 
 
 And she replied, her duty was to speak. 
 
 And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
 
 I grew discouraged, Sir ; but since I knew 
 
 No rock so hard but that a little wave 
 
 May beat admission in a thousand years, 
 
 I recommenced : " Decide not ere you pause. 140 
 
 I find you here but in the second place, 
 
 Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 
 
 I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 
 
 Wink at our advent : help my prince to gain 
 
 His rightful bride, and here I promise you 
 
 Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 
 
 The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 
 
 And your great name flow on with broadening time 
 
 YoT ever." Well, she balanced this a little. 
 
 And told me she would answer us to-day, 150 
 
 Meantime be mute : thus much, nor more I gain'd.' 
 
 He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
 < That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
 The dip of certain strata to the North. 
 Would we go with her ? we should find the land 
 Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
 Out yonder : ' then she pointed on to where 
 A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
 Beyond the thick-leaved platan's of the vale. 
 
72 THE PBTNCESS: [part 
 
 Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all leo 
 
 Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
 Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
 Among hes maidens, higher by the head, 
 Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
 Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he rolPd 
 And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
 I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
 Upon me, the Aveird vision of our house : 
 The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
 Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, 170 
 
 Her college and her maidens, empty masks, 
 And I myself the shadow of a dream ; 
 Por all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
 My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 
 Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
 Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
 That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
 My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
 Went forth in long retinue, following up 
 The river as it narrow'd to the hills. I80 
 
 I rode beside her, and to me she said : 
 ' friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
 Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
 Unwillingly we spake.' ' No — not to her,' 
 I answer' d, ' but to one of whom we spake 
 Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say.' 
 ^ Again ? ' she cried, ' are you ambassadresses 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 73 
 
 From him to me ? We give you, being strange, 
 A license : speak, and let the topic die.' 
 
 I stammer' d that I knew him — could have wish'd — 
 ' Our king expects — was there no precontract ? 191 
 
 There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
 All he prefigured, and he could not see 
 The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
 To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
 Your purport, you will shock him even to death. 
 Or baser courses, children of despair.' 
 
 ' Poor boy,' she said, ' can he not read — no books ? 
 Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
 Which men delight in, martial exercise ? 200 
 
 To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
 Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; — 
 As girls were once, — as we ourself have been : 
 We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them : 
 We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it. 
 Being other — since we learnt our meaning here. 
 To lift the woman's fallen divinity 
 Upon an even pedestal with man.' 
 
 She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, 
 < And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 
 
 At no man's beck, but know ourself — and thee, 
 Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summon'd out 
 She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
 To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.' 
 
74 ' THE PRINCESS: [pakt 
 
 ^ Alas, your Highness breathes full East/ I said, 
 ^ On that Avhich leans to you. I know the Prince, 
 I prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
 To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 
 You grant me license ; might I use it ? Think ; 
 Ere half be done perchance your life may fail; 220 
 
 Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
 And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
 May only make that footprint upon sand 
 Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
 Eesmooth to nothing : might I dread that you, 
 With only Eame for spouse and your great deeds 
 For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
 INIeanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
 Love, children, happiness ? ' 
 
 And she exclaim'd, 
 ^ Peace, you young savage of the ISTorthern wild ! 230 
 
 What ! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
 Have we not made ourself the sacrifice ? 
 You are bold indeed :' we are not talk'd to thus : 
 Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
 Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well : 
 But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 
 Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
 They with the sun and moon renew their light 
 For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
 Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts. 
 Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 24i 
 
 — children — there is nothing upon earth 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 75 
 
 More miserable than she that has a son 
 
 And sees him err ! Nor would we work for fame ; 
 
 Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 
 
 Who learns the one pou sto whence afterhands 
 
 May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
 
 But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
 
 For fear our solid aim be dissipated 
 
 By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 
 
 In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 
 
 Of giants living each a thousand years, 
 
 That we might see our own work out, and watch 
 
 The sandy footprint harden into stone.' 
 
 I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
 If that strange Poet-princess, with her grand 
 Imaginations, might at all be won. 
 And she broke out, interpreting my thoughts : 
 
 ^ No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
 We are used to that : for women, up till this 260 
 
 Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo. 
 Dwarfs of the gynseceum, fail so far 
 In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
 How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
 If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
 if our end were less achievable 
 By slow approaches, than by single act 
 Of immolation, any phase of death. 
 We were as prompt to spring against the pikes. 
 
76 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 270 
 
 To compass our dear sisters' liberties/ 
 
 She bow'd, as if to veil a noble tear ; 
 And up we came to where the river sloped 
 To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
 A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 
 And danced the color, and, below, stuck out 
 The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
 Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
 ' As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
 That will be.' ' Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd, 280 
 
 ^ Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
 That practice betters ? ' ' How,' she cried, ' you love 
 The metaphysics ! Read and earn our prize, 
 A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
 Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
 Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life ; 
 She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
 For there are schools for all.' ^And yet,' I said, 
 ^ Methinks I have not found among them all 
 One anatomic' ' Nay, we thought of that,' 290 
 
 She answer'd, ' but it pleased us not : in truth 
 We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
 Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
 And cram him with the fragments of the grave. 
 Or in the dark dissolving human heart. 
 And holy secrets of this microcosm. 
 Dabbling a shameless hand Avith shameful jest, 
 
III.] A MEDLEY. 77 
 
 Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know- 
 Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : 
 Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 300 
 
 Nor willing men should come among us, learnt. 
 For many weary moons before we came, 
 This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
 Would tend upon you. To your question now. 
 Which touches on the workman and his work. 
 Let there be light and there was light : 'tis so : 
 For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
 And all creation is one act at once. 
 The birth of light : but we that are not all, 
 As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 
 
 And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 
 One act a phantom of succession : thus 
 Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow Time ; 
 But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
 The woman to the fuller day.' 
 
 She spake 
 With kindled eyes : we rode a league beyond. 
 And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
 On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
 Full of all beauty. ' how sweet,' I said 
 (For I was half-oblivious of my mask), 320 
 
 ' To linger here with one that loved us.' ' Yea,' 
 She answer'd, ' or with fair philosophies 
 That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
 Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns. 
 Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 
 
78 THE PBINCESS: [part hi. 
 
 The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 
 
 Built to the sun : ' then, turning to her maids, 
 
 * Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 
 
 Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised 
 
 A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 
 
 With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood. 
 
 Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek. 
 
 The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer'd there 
 
 The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns. 
 
 And all the men mourn' d at his side : but we 
 
 Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 
 
 With Psyche, with Melissa Plorian, I 
 
 With mine affianced. Many a little hand 
 
 Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. 
 
 Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 
 
 In the dark crag : and then we turn'd, we wound 
 
 About the cliffs, the copses, out and in. 
 
 Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
 
 Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 
 
 Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 
 
 Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all 
 
 The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 
 
The splendor falls on castle walls 
 
 And snowy summits old in story: 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky. 
 
 They faint on hill or .field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
80 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' There sinks tlie nebulous star we call the sun, 
 
 If that hypothesis of theirs be sound/ 
 
 Said Ida ; ' let us down and rest ; ' and we 
 
 Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 
 
 By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
 
 Bropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below 
 
 Ko bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent, 
 
 Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me. 
 
 Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand. 
 
 And blissful palpitations in the blood, lo 
 
 Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. 
 
 But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
 Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in, 
 There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
 Our elbows : on a tiipod in the midst 
 A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
 Fruit, blossom, viand, amber Avine, and gold. 
 
 Then she, ' Let some one sing to us ; lightlier move 
 The minutes fledged with music : ' and a maid, 
 Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 20 
 
 ' Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
 Rise in tlie heart, and gatlier to the eyes, 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 81 
 
 In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
 And thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 ' Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
 That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 30 
 
 ' Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
 ' Dear as remember'd kisses after death. 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign' d 
 On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild wdth all regret ; 
 O Death in Life, the days that are no more.' 40 
 
 She ended with such passion that the tear 
 She sang of shook and fell, an erring pearl 
 Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain 
 Answer'd the Princess, ' If indeed there haunt 
 About the moulder'd lodges of the past 
 So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
 Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 
 And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd 
 In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 
 
 Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, so 
 
 But trim our sails, and let old bygones be. 
 While down the streams that float us each and all 
 To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 
 
82 THE PBINCESS: pakt 
 
 Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
 
 Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 
 
 Toward that great year of equal mights and rights ; 
 
 Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
 
 Eound golden : let the past be past ; let be 
 
 Their cancelPd Babels : tho' the rough kex break 
 
 The Starr 'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 6o 
 
 Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split 
 
 Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 
 
 A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
 
 Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 
 
 Above the unrisen morrow : ' then to me, 
 
 ^ Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 
 
 *Not such as moans about the retrospect. 
 
 But deals with the other distance, and the hues 
 
 Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine ? ' 
 
 Then I remember'd one myself had made, 70 
 
 What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
 From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
 Now while I sang ; and maidenlike as far 
 As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 
 
 * O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flyiug South, 
 Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
 And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 
 
 ' O tell her. Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
 That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
 And dark and true and tender is the North. 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 83 
 
 * O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
 Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
 
 And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 
 
 ' O were I thou that she might take me in, 
 And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
 "Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 
 
 * Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
 Delaying as the tender ash delays 
 
 To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 
 
 ' O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : 90 
 
 Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
 But in the North long since my nest is made. 
 
 * O tell her, brief is life but love is long. 
 And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
 And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 
 
 * O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
 
 Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
 And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' 
 
 I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
 Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, loo 
 
 Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, 
 And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice 
 Eang false : but smiling, ' Not for thee,' she said, 
 ' Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
 Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid. 
 Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
 Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this 
 A mere love-poem ! for such, my friend. 
 We hold them slight : they mind us of the time 
 
84 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 
 
 When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, no 
 
 That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 
 
 And dress the victim to the offering up. 
 
 And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
 
 And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
 
 Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 
 
 She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
 
 A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 
 
 I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 
 
 So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 
 
 Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 120 
 
 Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 
 
 The passion of the prophetess ; for song 
 
 Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 
 
 Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 
 
 Love is it ? Would this same mock-love, and this 
 
 Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, 
 
 Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 
 
 Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 
 
 To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 
 
 Whole in ourselves, and owed to none. Enough ! 130 
 
 But now, to leaven play with profit, you. 
 
 Know you no song, the true growth of your soil. 
 
 That gives the manners of your countrywomen ? ' 
 
 She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head, with eyes 
 Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
 Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
 Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had wrought, 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY, 85 
 
 Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 
 
 To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
 
 Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences i4o 
 
 Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
 
 I frowning ; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook ; 
 
 The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows ; 
 
 ^Forbear,' the Princess cried; ^Forbear, Sir,^ I; 
 
 And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 
 
 I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 
 
 There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 
 
 Melissa clamor'd, ' Flee the death ; ' ^ To horse,' 
 
 Said Ida ; ' home ! to horse ! ' and fled, as flies 
 
 A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk 150 
 
 When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. 
 
 Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 
 
 With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart. 
 
 In the pavilion : there like parting hopes 
 
 I heard them passing from me : hoof by hoof. 
 
 And every hoof a knell to my desires, 
 
 Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 
 
 ^ The Head, the Head, the Princess, the Head ! ' 
 
 For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd 
 
 In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom : ico 
 
 There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch 
 
 Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, 
 
 Xo more ; but woman-vested as I was 
 
 Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then 
 
 Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 
 
 The weight of all the hopes of half the world, 
 
86 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 
 Was half-disrooted from his place, and stoop'd 
 To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave, 
 Mid-channel. Eight on this we drove and caught, no 
 And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 
 
 There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
 In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
 My burthen from mine arms ; they cried ^ She lives : ' 
 They bore her back into the tent : but I, 
 So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
 Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
 Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
 (For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
 Across the woods, and less from Indian craft i80 
 
 Than beelike instinct hive ward, found at length 
 The garden portals. Two great statues. Art 
 And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
 A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 
 Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
 His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
 Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
 Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 
 
 A little space was left between the horns. 
 Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, loo 
 
 Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks. 
 And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue. 
 Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 87 
 
 I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 
 Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 
 
 A step 
 Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
 Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
 Disturb'd me with the doubt * If this were she ; ' 
 But it was Florian. ' Hist, hist,' he said, 
 ' They seek us : out so late is out of rules. 200 
 
 Moreover, '^ Seize the strangers " is the cry. 
 How came you here ? ' I told him : ' I,' said he, 
 ' Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 
 To whom none spake, half -sick at heart, return'd. 
 Arriving all confused among the rest. 
 With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 
 And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 
 The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 
 Girl after girl was call'd to trial : each 
 Disclaim'd all knowledge of us : last of all, 210 
 
 Melissa : trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
 She, question'd if she knew us men, at first 
 Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : 
 And then, demanded if her mother knew. 
 Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied : 
 From Avhence the Royal mind, familiar with her. 
 Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 
 Eor Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
 Por Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 
 She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220 
 
 And I slipt out : but whither will you now ? 
 
88 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 And where are Psyche, Cyril ? both are fled : 
 What if together ? That were not so well. 
 Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
 His wildness, and the chances of the dark.' 
 
 ' And yet,' I said, ^ you wrong him more than I 
 That struck him : this is proper to the clown, — 
 Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, — 
 To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 
 That which he says he loves : for Cyril, howe'er 230 
 
 He deal in frolic, as to-night, — the song 
 Might have been worse, and sinn'd in grosser lips 
 Beyond all pardon, — as it is, I hold 
 These flashes on the surface are not he. 
 He has a solid base of temperament : 
 But as the water-lily starts and slides 
 Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
 Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.' 
 
 Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
 Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, ' Names : ' 240 
 
 He, standing still, was clutch'd ; but I began 
 To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
 And double in and out the boles, and race 
 By all the fountains : fleet I was of foot : 
 Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 
 I heard the puff'd pursuer ; at mine ear 
 Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not : 
 And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 89 
 
 At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine 
 
 That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 250 
 
 And falling on my face was caught and known. 
 
 They haled us to the Princess, where she sat 
 High in the hall : above her droop'd a lamp, 
 And made the single jewel on her brow 
 Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head. 
 Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
 Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
 Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
 Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men. 
 Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 
 And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ; 261 
 
 Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
 Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews. 
 
 Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
 An advent to the throne : and therebeside. 
 Half -naked as if caught at once from bed 
 And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
 The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 
 Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
 Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 270 
 
 Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
 Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 
 
 ' It was not thus, Princess, in old days : 
 You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : 
 
90 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 I led you then to all the Castalies ; 
 
 I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
 
 I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
 
 Your second mother : those were gracious times. 
 
 Then came your new friend : you began to change, — 
 
 I saw it and grieved, — to slacken and to cool ; 280 
 
 Till taken with her seeming openness 
 
 You turn'd your warmer currents all to her ; 
 
 To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 
 
 Yet I bore up, in part from ancient love, 
 
 And partly that I hoped to win you back, 
 
 And partly conscious of my own deserts, 
 
 And partly that you were my civil head. 
 
 And chiefly you were born for something great, 
 
 In which I might your fellow-worker be, 
 
 When time should serve. And thus a noble scheme 290 
 
 Grew up from seed we tAvo long since had sown ; 
 
 In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd. 
 
 Up in one night and due to sudden sun : 
 
 We took this palace ; but even from the first 
 
 You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. 
 
 What student came but that you planed her path 
 
 To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
 
 A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
 
 I your old friend and tried, she new in all ? 
 
 But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean ; 300 
 
 Yet I bore up in hope she Avould be known : 
 
 Then came these wolves : they knew her : thef/ endured. 
 
 Long-closeted Avith her the yestermorn, 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 91 
 
 To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 
 
 And me none told : not less to an eje like mine, 
 
 A lidless watcher of the pnblic weal, 
 
 Last night their mask was patent, and my foot 
 
 Was to yoLi : but I thought again : I fear'd 
 
 To meet a cold " We thank you, we shall hear of it 
 
 From Lady Psyche : '^ you had gone to her, 310 
 
 She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 
 
 No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 
 
 In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
 
 Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 
 
 Were all miscounted as malignant haste 
 
 To push my ri\^al out of place and power. 
 
 But public use required she should be known ; 
 
 And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 
 
 I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 
 
 I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well, 320 
 
 Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
 
 And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 
 
 I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 
 
 Ridden to the hills, she likewise : now, I thought. 
 
 That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 
 
 Did she ? These monsters blazon'd what they were. 
 
 According to the coarseness of their kind. 
 
 For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) 
 
 And full of cowardice and guilty shame — 
 
 I grant in her some sense of shame — she flies 330 
 
 And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 
 
 I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 
 
92 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 
 And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast : 
 Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 
 Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
 For every gust of chance, and men will say 
 We did not know the real light, but chased 
 The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread. 
 
 She ceased : the Princess answer'd coldly, ' Good : 
 Your oath is broken : we dismiss you : go. 341 
 
 For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child). 
 Our mind is changed : we take it to our self.' 
 
 Thereat the Lady stretch'd a vulture throat, 
 And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
 ' The plan was mine. I built the nest,' she said, 
 ' To hatch the cuckoo. Eise ! ' and stoop'd to updrag 
 Melissa : she, half on her mother propt, 
 Half -drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
 A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 350 
 
 Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
 A Niobean daughter, one arm out. 
 Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
 We gazed upon her came a little stir 
 About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
 Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
 A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
 Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 93 
 
 Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
 
 Delivering seal'd dispatches, which the Head seo 
 
 Took half -amazed, and in her lion's mood 
 
 Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 
 
 Regarding, while she read, till over brow 
 
 And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 
 
 As of some fire against a stormy cloud. 
 
 When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 
 
 Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 
 
 For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, 
 
 Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 
 
 Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 
 
 In the dead hush the papers that she held 
 
 Rustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 
 
 Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 
 
 The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she crush'd 
 
 The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 
 
 As if to speak, but, utterance failing her. 
 
 She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say 
 
 ' Read,' and I read — two letters — one her sire's : 
 
 ' Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
 We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, sso 
 We, conscious of what temper you are built. 
 Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
 Into his father's hands, who has this night. 
 You lying close upon his territory, 
 Slipt round and in the dark invested you ; 
 And here he keeps me hostage for his son.' 
 
94 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 The second was my father's, running thus : 
 ^ You have our son : touch not a hair of his head 
 Render him up unscathed : give him your hand : 
 Cleave to your contract : tho' indeed we hear 390 
 
 You hold the woman is the better man ; 
 A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
 Would make all women kick against their Lords 
 Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
 That Ave this night should pluck your palace down ; 
 And we will do it, unless you send us back 
 Our son, on the instant, whole.' 
 
 So far I read ; 
 And then stood up and spoke impetuously : 
 
 ' not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
 But led by golden wishes, and a hope 400 
 
 The child of regal compact, did I break 
 Your precinct ; not a- scorner of your sex 
 But venerator, zealous it should be 
 All that it might be : hear me, for I bear, 
 Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 
 From the flaxen curl to the gray lock, a life 
 Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell me of you ; 
 I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 
 Vague brightness ; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
 From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 4io 
 
 Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
 And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 
 With Ida, Ida, Ida rang the woods ; 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 95 
 
 The leader wildswan in among the stars 
 
 Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light 
 
 The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 
 
 Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 
 
 Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 
 
 Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
 
 Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 420 
 
 A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 
 
 Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 
 
 noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
 On you, their centre : let me say but this, 
 That many a famous man and woman, town 
 And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 
 
 The dwarfs of presage : tlio' when known, there grew 
 
 Another kind of beauty in detail 
 
 Made them worth knowing ; but in you I found 
 
 My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 430 
 
 And mastered, while that after-beauty makes 
 
 Such head from act to act, from hour to hour. 
 
 Within me, that except you slay me here, 
 
 According to your bitter statute-book, 
 
 1 cannot cease to follow you, as they say 
 The seal does music ; who desire you more 
 Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips. 
 With many thousand matters left to do, 
 
 The breath of life ; more than poor men wealth, 
 Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but 
 half 440 
 
 Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves 
 
96 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 
 Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
 That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
 But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
 To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
 Yet that I came not all unauthorized, 
 Behold your father's letter.' 
 
 On one knee 
 Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
 Unopen'd at her feet : a tide of fierce 450 
 
 Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, 
 As waits a river level with the dam, 
 Eeady to burst and flood the world with foam : 
 And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
 A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
 Gather'd together : from the illumined hall 
 Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
 Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes. 
 And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, 
 And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 46o 
 
 Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale. 
 All open-mouth' d, all gazing to the light. 
 Some crying there was an army in the land, 
 And some that men were in the very walls, 
 And some they cared not ; till a clamor grew 
 As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. 
 And worse-confounded : high above them stood 
 The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 97 
 
 Xot peace she look'd, the Head : but rising up 
 Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 470 
 
 To the open window moved, remaining there 
 Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
 Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 
 Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
 Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and calPd 
 Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. 
 
 ' What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head ? 
 On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : / dare 
 All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye fear ? 
 Peace ! there are those to avenge us, and they come : 480 
 If not, — myself were like enough, girls, 
 To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
 And clad in iron burst the ranks of war. 
 Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause. 
 Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 
 Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
 From which I would redeem you : but for those 
 That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 
 Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn 
 We .hold a great convention : then shall they 490 
 
 That love their voices more than duty, learn 
 With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
 iSTo wiser than their mothers, household stuff. 
 Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame. 
 Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 
 The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 
 
98 THE P BIN CESS: [paet 
 
 AVhose brains are in tlieir hands and in their heels, 
 
 But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 
 
 To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour. 
 
 For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.' 500 
 
 She, ending, waved her hands : thereat the crowd 
 Muttering, dissolved : then with a smile that look'd 
 A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff. 
 When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
 Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 
 
 ' You have done well, and like a gentleman, 
 And like a prince : you have our thanks for all : 
 And you look well too in your woman's dress : 
 Well have you done, and like a gentleman. 
 You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 510 
 
 Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
 Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
 To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — 
 Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
 You would-be quenchers of the light to be. 
 Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 
 
 would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 
 
 You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd 
 Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 
 
 1 wed with thee ! I bound by precontract 520 
 Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
 
 That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown. 
 And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
 
IV.] A MEDLEY. 99 
 
 Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 
 I trample on your offers and on you : 
 Begone : we will not look upon you more. 
 Here, push them out at gates.' 
 
 In wrath she spake. 
 Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough 
 Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd 
 Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 
 
 But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
 The weight of destiny : so from her face 
 They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
 And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 
 
 We cross'd the street, and gain'd a petty mound 
 Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
 The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
 On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt :' 
 I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts ; 
 The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 
 
 The jest and earnest Avorking side by side, 
 The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
 Were shadows ; and the long fantastic nigh 
 With all its doings had and had not been, 
 And all things were and were not. 
 
 This went by 
 As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
 Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
 Not long ; I shook it off ; for spite of doubts 
 And sudden ghostly shadow ings, I was one 
 
100 THE PRINCESS. [part iv. 
 
 To whom the touch of all mischance but came 550 
 
 As night to him that sitting on a hill 
 
 Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
 
 Set into sunrise : then we moved away. 
 
INTERLUDE.] A MEDLEY. 101 
 
 INTERLUDE. 
 
 Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 
 
 That beat to battle where he stands; 
 Thy face across his fancy comes, 
 
 And gives the battle to his hands: 
 A moment, while the trumpets blow, 
 
 He sees his brood about thy knee; 
 The next, like fire he meets the foe. 
 
 And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 
 
 So Lilia sang : we thouglit her half-possess'd, 
 
 She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; lo 
 
 And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 
 
 The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
 
 Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
 
 The music — clapt her hands and cried for war, 
 
 Or some grand fight to kill and make an end : 
 
 And he that next inherited the tale 
 
 Half turning to the broken statue, said, 
 
 ' Sir Ralph has got your colors : if I prove 
 
 Your knight, and fight your battle, Avhat for me ? ' 
 
 It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 20 
 
 Lay by her, like a model of her hand. 
 
 She took it and she flung it. ' Fight,' she said, 
 
102 THE PRINCESS [interlude. 
 
 ^ And make us all we would be, great and good/ 
 He knightlike in his- caj) instead of casque, 
 A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall, 
 Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 
 
PAKT v.] A MEDLEY. 103 
 
 V. 
 
 Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
 We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
 And ' Stand, who goes ? ' ' Two from the palace,' I. 
 ' The second two : they wait,' he said ; ' pass on ; 
 His Highness wakes : ' and one that clash'd in arms. 
 By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led. 
 Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
 The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
 From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
 Whispers of war. 
 
 Entering, the sudden light lo 
 
 Dazed me half -blind : I stood and seem'd to hear, 
 As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
 A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies. 
 Each hissing in his neighbor's ear ; and then 
 A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
 On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. 
 Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings 
 Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
 The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, 
 The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 20 
 
 And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire. 
 
 At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears. 
 
104 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Panted from weary sides, ' King, you are free ! 
 
 We did but keep you surety for our son, 
 
 If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou, 
 
 That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge : ' 
 
 For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, 
 
 More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, 
 
 And all one rag ; disprinced from head to heel. 
 
 Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 
 
 A whisper'd jest to some one near him, ' Look, 
 
 He has been among his shadows.' ' Satan take 
 
 The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
 
 Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
 
 Go : Cyril told us all.' 
 
 As boys that slink 
 From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
 Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
 From what was left of faded woman-slough 
 To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
 Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 40 
 
 Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
 And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us. 
 A little shy at first, but by and by 
 We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 
 For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
 Follow'd his tale. Amazed he fled away 
 Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
 Had come on Psyche weeping : ' Then we fell 
 Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 
 But will not speak, nor stir.' 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 105 
 
 He show'd a tent 50 
 
 A stone-shot off : we enter'd in, and there 
 Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
 Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak. 
 Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
 And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal. 
 All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
 And at her head a follower of the camp, 
 A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood. 
 Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 
 
 Then Florian knelt, and ' Come,' he whisper'd to her, 
 ' Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus. 61 
 
 What have you done but right ? you could not slay 
 Me, nor your prince : look up : be comforted : 
 Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought, 
 When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise I: 
 ' Be comforted : have I not lost her too, 
 In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
 That none has else for me ? ' She heard, she moved, 
 She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat. 
 And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 70 
 As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
 In deathless marble. ' Her,' she said, ' my friend — 
 Parted from her — betray 'd her cause and mine — 
 Where shall I breathe ? Why kept ye not your faith ? 
 base and bad ! What comfort ? none for me ! ' 
 To whom remorseful Cyril, * Yet I pray 
 
106 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child ! ' 
 At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 
 
 ^ Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
 My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! so 
 
 For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 
 And either she will die from want of care, 
 Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 
 " The child is hers " — for every little fault, 
 '^ The child is hers ; " and they will beat my girl 
 Remembering her mother : my flower ! 
 Or they will take her, they will make her hard, 
 And she will pass me by in after-life 
 With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 
 Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 90 
 
 To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 
 The horror of the shame among them all : 
 But I will go and sit beside the doors. 
 And make a wild petition night and day, 
 Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
 Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 
 And lay my little blossom at my feet. 
 My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
 And I will take her up and go my way. 
 And satisfy my soul with kissing her : 100 
 
 Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 
 Who gave me back my child ? ' ^ Be comforted,' 
 Said Cyril, ' You shall have it : ' but again 
 She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so. 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 107 
 
 Like tender things that being caught feign death, 
 Spoke not, nor stirrd. 
 
 By this a murmur ran 
 Thro' all the camp, and inward raced the scouts 
 With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
 We left her by the woman, and without 
 Found the gray kings at parle : and ' Look you,' cried 
 My father, 'that our compact be fulfill'd : in 
 
 You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at you and man : 
 She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : 
 But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; 
 She yields, or war.' 
 
 Then Gama turn'd to me : 
 ' We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
 With our strange girl : and yet they say that still 
 You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large 
 How say you, war or not ? ' 
 
 ' Not war, if possible, 
 king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war, 120 
 
 The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
 The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 
 Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 
 A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
 Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 
 At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
 (And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 
 And every face she look'd on justify it) 
 The general foe. More soluble is this knot 
 By gentleness than war. I want her love. 130 
 
108 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 
 
 Your cities into shards with catapults ? 
 
 She would not love ; — or brought her chain'd, a slave, 
 
 The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord ? 
 
 Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 
 
 The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 
 
 Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 
 
 And crushed to death : and rather. Sire, than this 
 
 I would the old God of war himself were dead, 
 
 Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 140 
 
 Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 
 
 Or like an old-world mammoth, bulk'd in ice. 
 
 Not to be molten out.' 
 
 And roughly spake 
 My father, ' Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
 Boy, when T hear you prate I almost think 
 That idiot legend credible. Look you. Sir ! 
 Man is the hunter ; woman is his game : 
 The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. 
 We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
 They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 
 
 Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame ! 
 Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
 As he that does the thing they dare not do ; 
 Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
 With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
 Among the women, snares them by the score 
 Flatter'd and fluster'd ; wins, tho' dash'd with death 
 He reddens what he kisses : thus I won 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 109 
 
 Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 
 
 Worth winning ; but this firebrand — gentleness leo 
 
 To such as her ! If Cyril spake her true, 
 
 To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 
 
 To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 
 
 Were wisdom to it.' 
 
 'Yea, but Sire,' I cried, 
 ' Wild nature needs wise curbs. The soldier ? No : 
 What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
 The soldier ? I beheld her, when she rose 
 The yesternight, and storming in extremes, 
 Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
 Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, no 
 
 ISTo, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king. 
 True woman : but you clash them all in one, 
 That have as many differences as we. 
 The violet varies from the lily as far 
 As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
 The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 
 And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
 A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, 
 Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 
 More breadth of culture : is not Ida right ? i80 
 
 They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 
 Severer in the logic of a life ? 
 Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
 Of earth and heaven ? And she of whom you speak. 
 My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
 Creation minted in the golden moods 
 
110 THE P BINGES S: [pakt 
 
 Of sovereign artists ; not a tliouglit, a touch, 
 
 But pure as lines of green that streak the white 
 
 Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 
 
 Not like the piebald miscellany, man, 190 
 
 Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 
 
 But whole and one : and take them all-in-all. 
 
 Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind. 
 
 As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 
 
 Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 
 
 As dues of Nature. To our point : not war ; 
 
 Lest I lose all.' 
 
 ''Nay, nay, you spake but sense,' 
 Said Gama. ' We remember love ourself 
 In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
 This red-hot iron to be shaped with blovv^s. 200 
 
 You talk almost like Ida : she can talk ; 
 And there is something in it, as you say : 
 But you talk kindlier : we esteem you for it. — 
 He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
 I would he had our daughter : for the rest. 
 Our own detention, Avhy, the causes weigh'd. 
 Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
 We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
 We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
 Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 
 
 You did but come as goblins in the night. 
 Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head, 
 Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid, 
 Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream : 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. Ill 
 
 But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 
 
 He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 
 
 And speak with Arac : Arac's word is thrice 
 
 As ours with Ida : something may be done — 
 
 I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 
 
 You likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 
 
 Follow us : who knows ? we four may build some plan 
 
 Foursquare to opposition.' 
 
 Here he reach'd 
 White hands of farewell to my sire, who growPd 
 An answer which, half-muffled in his beard. 
 Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 
 
 Then rode we with the old king across the lawns 
 Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 
 In every bole, a song on every spray 
 Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 
 Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 
 
 In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
 All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode ; 
 And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
 Gathered by night and peace, with each light air 
 On our mail'd heads : but other thoughts than peace 
 Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares. 
 And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 
 With clamor : for among them rose a cry 
 As if to greet the king ; they made a halt ; 
 The horses yell'd ; they clash'd their arms ; the drum 
 Beat ; merrily-blowing shrill'd the martial fife ; 2-n 
 
112 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 
 
 And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
 
 And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
 
 The banner. Anon to meet us lightly pranced 
 
 Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 
 
 Such thews of men : the midmost and the highest 
 
 Was Arac : all about his motion clung 
 
 The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
 
 Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 
 
 Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 250 
 
 That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 
 
 And as, the fiery Sirius alters hue. 
 
 And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
 
 Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 
 
 And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
 War-music, felt the blind wild-bfeast of force, 
 Whose home is in the sinews of a man, 
 Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
 His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
 And now a pointed finger, told them all : 260 
 
 A common light of smiles at our disguise 
 Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
 Had labor'd down within his ample lungs. 
 The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
 Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words : 
 
 ' Our land invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself 
 Your captive, yet my father wills not war : 
 And, 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 113 
 
 But then this question of your troth remains : 
 
 And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 270 
 
 She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
 
 She ask'd but space and fair-play for her scheme ; 
 
 She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 
 
 What know I of these things ? but, life and soul ! 
 
 I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; 
 
 I say she flies too high ; 'sdeath ! what of that ? 
 
 I take her for the flower of womankind, 
 
 And so I often told her, right or wrong. 
 
 And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves, 
 
 And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 280 
 
 I stand upon her side : she made me swear it — 
 
 'Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candle-light — 
 
 Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 
 
 Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 
 
 She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 
 
 Come, this is all ; she will not : wave your claim : 
 
 If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
 
 Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father's will.' 
 
 I lagg'd in answer, loth to render up 
 My precontract, and loth by brainless war 290 
 
 To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
 Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
 And fingering at the hair about his lip. 
 To prick us on to combat, ' Like to like ! 
 The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' 
 A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow ! 
 
114 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 For fiery -short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 
 
 And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point 
 
 Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 
 
 ' Decide it here : why not ? we are three to three.' soo 
 
 Then spake the third : ' But three to three ? no more ? 
 No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
 More, more, for honor : every captain waits 
 Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
 More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
 May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
 Of these or those, the question settled die.' 
 ' Yes,' answer'd I, ' for this wild wreath of air, 
 This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
 Foam of men's deeds — this honor, if ye will. 310 
 
 It needs must be for honor if at all : 
 Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fail. 
 And if we win, we fail : she would not keep 
 Her compact.' ' 'Sdeath ! but we will send to her,' 
 Said Arac, ' worthy reasons why she should 
 Bide by this issue : let our missive thro'. 
 And you shall have her answer by the word.' 
 
 ' Boys ! ' shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen 
 To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
 Regarded ; neither seem'd there more to say : 320 
 
 Back rode we to ray father's camp, and found 
 He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 
 To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 115 
 
 Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
 
 With her own people's life : three times he went : 
 
 The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd : 
 
 He batter'd at the doors ; none came : the next. 
 
 An awful voice within had warn'd him thence : 
 
 The third, and those eight daughters of the plough 
 
 Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 330 
 
 And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek 
 
 They made him wild : not less one glance he caught 
 
 Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
 
 Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
 
 Tho' compass 'd by two armies and the noise 
 
 Of arms ; and standing like a stately pine 
 
 Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
 
 When storm is on the heights, and right and left, 
 
 Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills, roll 
 
 The torrents, dash'd to the vale : and yet her will 340 
 
 Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 
 
 But when I told the king that I was pledged 
 To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 
 His iron palms together with a cry : 
 Himself would tilt it out among the lads ; 
 But overborne by all his bearded lords 
 With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
 He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur ; 
 And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
 And sware to combat for my claim till death. 350 
 
116 THE PRINCESS [part 
 
 All on this side the palace, ran the field 
 Flat to the garden-wall : and likewise here, 
 Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
 A column'd entry shone, and marble stairs, 
 And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 
 And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
 But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 
 All that long morn the lists were hammer'd up, 
 And all that morn the heralds to and fro. 
 With message and defiance, went and came ; 360 
 
 Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 
 But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
 Oration-like. I kiss'd it, and I read : 
 
 ' brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
 What heats of indignation, when we heard 
 Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 
 Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
 Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; 
 Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
 Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — 
 Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 371 
 
 Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 
 The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
 Made for all noble motion : and I saw 
 That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
 With smoother men : the old leaven leaven'd all : 
 Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 
 No woman named : therefore I set my face 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 117 
 
 Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 
 
 Far off from men I built a fold for them : 380 
 
 I stored it full of rich memorial : 
 
 I fenced it round with gallant institutes, 
 
 And biting laws to scare the beasts of -piej : 
 
 And prosper'd ; till a rout of saucy boys 
 
 Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace ; 
 
 Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 
 
 Of insolence and love, some pretext held 
 
 Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 
 
 Seal'd not the bond — the striplings ! — for their sport ! 
 
 I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these ? 390 
 
 Or you ? or I ? for since you think me touch'd 
 
 In honor — what, I would not aught of false - 
 
 Is not our cause pure ? and whereas I know 
 
 Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 
 
 You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 
 
 What end soever : fail you will not. Still, 
 
 Take not his life : he risk'd it for my own ; 
 
 His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do. 
 
 Fight and fight well ; strike and strike home. dear 
 
 Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 400 
 
 The sole men to be mingled with our cause. 
 
 The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime. 
 
 Your very armor hallow'd, and your statues 
 
 Kear'd, sung to, when, this gad-fly brush'd aside. 
 
 We plant a solid foot into the Time, 
 
 And mould a generation strong to move 
 
 With claim on claim from right to right, till she 
 
118 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself ; 
 
 And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 
 
 And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 
 
 Commerce and Conquest, shower the fiery grain 
 
 Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
 
 Between the Northern and the Southern morn/ 
 
 Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest : 
 ^ See that there be no traitors in your camp ; 
 We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
 Since our arms fail'd. — This Egypt-plague of men ! 
 Almost our maids were better at their homes, 
 Than thus man-girdled here : indeed, I think 
 Our chief est comfort is the little child 420 
 
 Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 
 She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 
 To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
 I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
 This morning ; there the tender orphan hands 
 Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
 The wrath I nursed against the world : farewell.' 
 
 I ceased ; he said, ' Stubborn, but she may sit 
 Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms. 
 And breed up warriors ! See now — tho' yourself 430 
 Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
 That swallow common sense — the spindling king, 
 This Gama, swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
 When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up. 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 119 
 
 And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
 
 As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 
 
 Man for the field and woman for the hearth : 
 
 Man for the sword and for the needle she : 
 
 Man with the head and woman with the heart : 
 
 Man to command and woman to obey ; 440 
 
 All else confusion. Look you ! the gray mare 
 
 Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
 
 From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
 
 Shrinks in his arm-chair, while the fires of hell 
 
 Mix with his hearth : but you — she's yet a colt — 
 
 Take, break her : strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd, 
 
 She might not rank with those detestable 
 
 That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 
 
 Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 
 
 They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance : 450 
 
 / like her none the less for rating at her ! 
 
 Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 
 
 But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 
 
 Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 
 
 The bearing and the training of a child 
 
 Is woman's wisdom.' 
 
 Thus the hard old king : 
 I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 
 I pored upon her letter which I held. 
 And on the little clause ' Take not his life : ' 
 I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 46o 
 
 And on the ' Follow, follow, thou shalt win : ' 
 I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
 
120 THE P BIN CESS: [part 
 
 And how the strange betrothment was to end : 
 
 Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 
 
 That one should fight with shadows and should fall ; 
 
 And like a flash the weird affection came : 
 
 King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows ; 
 
 I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 
 
 And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 
 
 To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 470 
 
 And ere I woke it was the point of noon ; 
 
 The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 
 
 We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 
 
 Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
 
 At the barrier like a wild horn in the land 
 
 Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
 
 The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 
 
 Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
 
 And riders front to front, until they closed 
 
 In conflict, with the crash of shivering points, 480 
 
 And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream I dream'd 
 
 Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
 
 And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 
 
 And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
 
 Part sat like rocks : part reel'd, but kept their seats : 
 
 Part roll'd on the earth, and rose again, and drew : 
 
 Part stumbled, mixt with floundering horses. Down 
 
 Prom those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 
 
 Prom Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 
 
 The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 490 
 
 He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 
 
v.] A MEDLEY. 121 
 
 And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — 
 
 Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 
 
 With hammers ; till I thought, ' Can this be he 
 
 From Gama's dwarfish loins ? if this be so, 
 
 The mother makes us most ' — and in my dream 
 
 I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
 
 Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. 
 
 And highest, among the statues, statue-like, 
 
 Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 500 
 
 With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
 
 A single band of gold about her hair, 
 
 Like a Saint's glory up in heaven : but she 
 
 No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
 
 Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight. 
 
 Yea, let her see me fall ! With that I drave 
 
 Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 
 
 And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 
 
 All that I would. But that large-moulded man. 
 
 His visage all agrin as at a wake, 510 
 
 Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back 
 
 With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 
 
 As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 
 
 Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 
 
 And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 
 
 On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits. 
 
 And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 
 
 Keels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 
 
 Gave way before him : only Florian, he 
 
 That loved me closer than his own right eye, 520 
 
122 TUE PBINCESS. [pakt v. 
 
 Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down : 
 
 And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 
 
 With Psyche's color round his helmet ; tough, 
 
 Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 
 
 But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 
 
 And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 
 
 Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, 
 
 And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung. 
 
 Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanced, 
 
 I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 530 
 
 Plow'd from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 
 
Home they brought her warrior dead: 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 
 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 ' She must weep or she will die.' 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved. 
 
 Truest friend and noblest foe; 
 Yet she neither spake nor moved. 
 
 Stole a maiden from her place. 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 
 Took the face-cloth from the face; 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 Rose a nurse of ninety years. 
 Set his child upon her knee — 
 
 Like summer tempest came her tears 
 * Sweet my child, I live for thee.' 
 
124 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 VI. 
 
 r 
 
 My dream had never died, or lived again, 
 As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
 Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
 Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
 So often that I speak as having seen. 
 
 For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
 That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; 
 That when our side was vanquish'd, and my cause 
 For ever lost, there went up a great cry, 
 ' The Prince is slain ! ' My father heard, and ran lo 
 In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
 And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
 Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 
 
 But high upon the palace Ida stood 
 With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
 Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 
 
 ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen: the seed, 
 The little seed they laugh 'd at in the dark. 
 Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
 Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 20 
 
 A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. 
 
 * Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they came ; 
 The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 125 
 
 A noise of songs they would not understand : 
 They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 
 And would have strown it, and are fallen themselves. 
 
 ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they came, 
 The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
 But we will make it faggots for the hearth. 
 And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 3q 
 
 And boats and bridges for the use of men. 
 
 ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they struck ; 
 With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
 There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
 The glittering axe was broken in their arms. 
 Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 
 
 ' Our enemies have fallen, but this shall grow 
 A night of Summer from the heat, a breath 
 Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: and roll'd 
 "With music in the growing breeze of Time, 40 
 
 The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
 Shall move the stony bases of the world.' 
 
 ^ And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
 Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
 To break tbem more, in their behoof whose arms 
 Champion'd our cause and won it with a day 
 Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast. 
 When dames and heroines of the golden year 
 Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
 To rain an April of ovation round 50 
 
 Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
 AYe will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
 Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
 111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
 The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
 
126 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
 Of female hands and hospitality/ 
 
 She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
 Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
 A hundred maids in train across the park. eo 
 
 Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came. 
 Their feet in flowers, her loveliest : by them went 
 The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
 From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 
 And over them the tremulous isles of light 
 Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
 At distance followed : so they came : anon 
 Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
 Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
 That holds a stately fretwork to the sun, 70 
 
 And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 
 Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 
 The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
 To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stay'd ; 
 Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 
 Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers. 
 And happy warriors, and immortal names ; 
 And said, ' You shall not lie in the tents, but here. 
 And nursed by those for whom you fought ; and served 
 With female hands and hospitality.' so 
 
 Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance. 
 She past my way. Up started from my side 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 127 
 
 The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, 
 
 Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
 
 Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
 
 Cold even to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 
 
 The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
 
 Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
 
 Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 
 
 Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 90 
 
 A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 
 
 ^ He saved my life : my brother slew him for it.' 
 
 No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 
 
 Drew from my neck the painting and the tress. 
 
 And held them up : she saw them, and a day 
 
 Eose from the distance on her memory. 
 
 When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 
 
 With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 
 
 And then once more she look'd at my pale face : 
 
 Till, understanding all the foolish work loo 
 
 Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 
 
 Her iron will was broken in her mind ;• 
 
 Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 
 
 She bow'd, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 
 
 A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 
 
 < Sire,' she said, ^he lives : he is not dead : 
 
 O let me have him with ni}- brethren here 
 
 In our own palace : we will tend on him 
 
 Like one of these ; if so, by any means. 
 
 To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make no 
 
 Our progress falter to the woman's goal.' 
 
128 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 She said : but at the happy word ' He lives/ 
 My father stoop' d, re-father 'd o'er my wounds. 
 So those two foes, above my fallen life, 
 With brow to brow like night and evening, mixt 
 Their dark and gray : while Psyche ever stole 
 A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
 Half-lapt in glowing gauze" and golden brede, 
 Lay like a new-fallen meteor on the grass, 
 Uncared for, spied its mother, and began 120 
 
 A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
 Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
 And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
 Brook'd not, but clamoring out ' Mine — mine — not 
 
 yours. 
 It is not yours, but mine : give me the child ! ' 
 Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
 So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd. 
 And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 
 With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
 Ked grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 
 
 And down dead-heavy sank her curls ; and half 
 The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
 The laces toward her babe : but she nor cared 
 Nor knew it, clamoring on ; till Ida heard, 
 Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 
 Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
 The mother, me, the child ;, but he that lay 
 Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
 Trail'd himself up on one knee : then he drew 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 129 
 
 Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd i-io 
 
 At the arm'd man sideways, pitying, as it seem'd, 
 
 Or self -involved ; but when she learnt his face, 
 
 Eemembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 
 
 Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 
 
 Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
 
 When the tide ebbs in sunshine ; and he said : 
 
 ^ fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 
 That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! — 
 But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
 And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 
 
 We vanquish' d, you the victor of your will. 
 What would you more ? Give her the child ! remain 
 Orb'd in your isolation : he is dead. 
 Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
 Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
 Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 
 The common hate with the revolving wheel 
 Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
 Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with fire, 
 And tread you out for ever : but howsoe'er leo 
 
 Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
 To hold your own, deny not hers to her : 
 Give her the child ! if, I say, you keep 
 One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 
 The breast that fed or arm that dandled you. 
 Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer. 
 Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. 
 
130 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 
 
 Or speak to her, your dearest, — her one fault 
 
 The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, — no 
 
 Give vie it : /will give it her.' 
 
 He said : 
 At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
 Dry flame, she listening ; after sank and sank. 
 And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
 Full on the child ; she took it : * Pretty bud ! 
 Lily of the vale ! half open'd bell of the woods ! 
 Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
 Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
 No purple in the distance ; mystery. 
 Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; iso 
 
 These men are hard upon us as of old. 
 We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
 To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
 I might be something to thee, when I felt 
 Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
 In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
 As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
 And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
 Gentle as freedom ' — here she kiss'd it : then — 
 ' All good go with thee ! take it, Sir,' and so loo 
 
 Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 
 Who turn'd half-round to Psyche, as she sprang 
 To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 
 Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot. 
 And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough. 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 131 
 
 And in her hnnger mouth'd and mumbled it, 
 
 And hid her bosom with it ; after that 
 
 Put on more calm, and added suppliantly : , 
 
 ' We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
 For ever : find some other : as for me, 200 
 
 I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet speak to me ; 
 Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.' 
 
 But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
 Then Arac : ' Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the man ; 
 You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
 Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
 I am your warrior : I and mine have fought 
 Your battle : kiss her, take her hand ; she weeps : 
 'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.' 
 
 But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground ; 210 
 
 And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
 And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 
 
 ' I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
 And I believe it. Not one word ? not one ? 
 Whence drew you this steel temper ? not from me, 
 Not from your mother, now a saint Avith saints. 
 She said you had a heart — I heard her say it : 
 " Our Ida has a heart : " just ere she died : 
 " But see that some one with authority 
 Be near her still ; " and I — I sought for one — 220 
 
132 THE PRINCESS. [part 
 
 All people said she had authority — 
 
 The Lady Blanche : much profit ! Not one word ; 
 
 No ! tho' your father sues : see how you stand 
 
 Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maim'd ; 
 
 I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 
 
 For your wild whim : and was it then for this, 
 
 Was it for this we gave our palace up, 
 
 Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 
 
 And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, ■ 
 
 And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 
 
 Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? 
 
 Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom. 
 
 When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 
 
 Now had you got a friend of your own age, 
 
 Now could you share your thought ; now should men see 
 
 Two women faster welded in one love 
 
 Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk'd with, she 
 
 You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 
 
 Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 
 
 And right ascension : Heaven knows what ; and now 240 
 
 A word, but one, one little kindly word. 
 
 Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint ! 
 
 You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay. 
 
 You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one ? 
 
 You will not ? well — no heart have you, or such 
 
 As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
 
 Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.' 
 
 So said the small king, moved beyond his wont. 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 133 
 
 But Ida stood, nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
 By many a varying influence and so long. 250 
 
 Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept : 
 Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
 A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
 In a still water : then brake out my sire, 
 Lifting his grim head from my wounds : ' you. 
 Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
 And were half fool'd to let you tend our son. 
 Because he might have wished it — but we see 
 The accomplice of your madness unforgiven. 
 And think that you might mix his draught with death. 
 When your skies change again : the rougher hand 261 
 Is safer : on to the tents : take up the Prince.' 
 
 He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
 A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
 A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
 Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 
 
 ' Come hither, 
 
 Psyche,' she cried out, ' embrace me, come. 
 Quick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
 With one that cannot keep her mind an hour : 
 
 Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 270 
 
 Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 
 / seem no more : / want forgiveness too : 
 
 1 should have had to do with none but maids, 
 That have no links with men. Ah false but dear. 
 Dear traitor, too much loved, why ? — why ? — Yet see, 
 
134 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 
 With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 
 And trust, not love, you less. 
 
 And now, Sire, 
 Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him. 
 Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 280 
 
 This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
 Taunt me no more : yourself and yours shall have 
 Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
 Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
 What use to keep them here — now ? grant my prayer. 
 Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 
 Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
 Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 
 From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
 The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 
 
 Poor weakling even as they are.' 
 
 Passionate tears 
 Followed : the king replied not : Cyril said : 
 ' Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
 Of your great head — for he is wounded too — 
 That you may tend upon him with the prince.' 
 ^ Ay so,' said- Ida with a bitter smile, 
 ' Our laws are broken : let him enter too.' 
 Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
 And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
 Petition'd too for him. ' Ay so,' she said, ' soo 
 
 ' I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 
 My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 135 
 
 We break our laws with ease, but let it be.' 
 
 ' Ay so ? ' said Blanche : ' Amazed am I to hear 
 
 Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease 
 
 The law your Highness did not make : 'twas I. 
 
 I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind. 
 
 And block'd them out ; but these men came to woo 
 
 Your Highness — verily I think to win.' 
 
 So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye : 310 
 
 But Ida, with a voice that like a bell 
 Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
 Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn : 
 
 ' Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all ; 
 Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
 Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
 Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. 
 Till the storm die ! — But had you stood by us, 
 The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
 Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 320 
 
 But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
 We brook no further insult, but are gone.' 
 
 She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
 Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
 Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
 Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine own 
 Refuse her proffer ; lastly gave his hand. 
 
136 THE PRINCESS. [part 
 
 Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
 Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave way- 
 Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 330 
 The virgin marble under iron heels : 
 And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
 Eested : but great the crush was, and each base, 
 To left and right, of those tall columns, drown'd 
 In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
 Of female whisperers : at the further end 
 Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
 Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
 Bow-back'd with fear : but in the centre stood 
 The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 340 
 They glared upon the women, and aghast 
 The women stared at these, all silent, save 
 When armor clash' d or jingled ; while the day. 
 Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
 A flying splendor out of brass and steel. 
 That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
 Now flred an angry Pallas on the helm. 
 Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame ; 
 And now and then an echo started up. 
 And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 
 Of fright in far apartments. 
 
 Then the voice 
 Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
 And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
 The long-laid galleries, past a hundred doors, 
 To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 
 
VI.] A MEDLEY. 137 
 
 To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 
 
 And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 
 
 That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
 
 And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
 
 Till happier times ; but some were left of those seo 
 
 Held sages t ; and the great lords out and in, 
 
 From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 
 
 Walk'd at their will : and everything was changed. 
 
Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea; 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
 
 But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more: what answer should I give ? 
 
 I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; 
 
 Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! 
 Ask me no more, lest I should hid thee live; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: 
 I strove against the stream, and all in vain: 
 Let the great river take me to the main: 
 
 No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
PAKT VII.] A MEDLEY. 139 
 
 VII. 
 
 So was their sanctuary violated, 
 
 So their fair college turn'd to hospital ; 
 
 At first with all confusion : by and by 
 
 Sweet order lived again, with other laws : 
 
 A kindlier influence reign'd ; and everywhere 
 
 Low voices, with the ministering hand, 
 
 Hung round the sick : the maidens came, they talk'd, 
 
 They sang, they read : till she not fair began 
 
 To gather light, and she that was, became 
 
 Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro lo 
 
 With books, with flowers, with angel oflices. 
 
 Like creatures native unto gracious act. 
 
 And in their own clear element, they moved. 
 
 But sadness on the soul of Ida fell. 
 And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
 Old studies f aiPd ; seldom she spoke : but oft 
 Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
 On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
 Darkening her female field : void was her use. 
 And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 
 
 O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
 Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
 Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, 
 
140 THE PBINCESS: [part 
 
 And suck the blinding splendor from the sand, 
 And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
 Expunge the world : so fared she gazing there ; 
 So blacken' d all her world in secret, blank 
 And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she came, 
 And found fair peace once more among the sick. 
 
 And twilight dawn'd ; and morn by morn the lark 30 
 Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I 
 Lay silent in the muffled cage of life : 
 And twilight gloom'd ; and broader-grown the bowers 
 Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
 Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
 Deeper than those Aveird doubts could reach me, lay 
 Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
 Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
 That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 
 
 But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft 40 
 
 Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
 Her child among us, willing she should keep 
 Court-favor : here and there the small bright head, 
 A light of healing, glanced about the couch. 
 Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
 Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
 With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
 To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
 The sting from pain ; nor seem'd it strange that soon 
 He rose up whole, and those fair charities 50 
 
VII.] A MEDLEY. 141 
 
 Join'd at her side ; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
 So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, 
 Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
 To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
 And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 
 
 Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
 At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
 That after that dark night among the fields 
 She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 
 Not tho' he built upon the babe restored ; 60 
 
 Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
 To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
 When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
 Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
 A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
 A little fiush'd, and she past on ; but each 
 Assumed from thence a half -consent involved 
 In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 
 
 Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
 Held carnival at will, and flying struck 70 
 
 With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
 Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 
 Nor did mine own, now reconciled ; nor yet 
 Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
 Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 
 
 But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : 
 Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
 
142 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 
 
 And fling it like a viper off, and shriek, 
 
 ' You are not Ida ; ' clasp it once again, so 
 
 And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, - 
 
 And call her sweet, as if in irony. 
 
 And call her hard and cold, which seem'd a truth : 
 
 And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 
 
 And often she believed that I should die : 
 
 Till out of long frustration of her care. 
 
 And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons. 
 
 And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
 
 Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 
 
 On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 90 
 
 And out of memories of her kindlier days, 
 
 And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 
 
 And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
 
 And out of hauntings of my spoken love. 
 
 And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 
 
 And often feeling of the helpless hands. 
 
 And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek — 
 
 From all, a closer interest flourish'd up. 
 
 Tenderness touch by touch ; and last, to these, 
 
 Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 100 
 
 By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 
 
 And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
 
 But such as gather'd color day by day. 
 
 Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
 For weakness : it was evening : silent light 
 
VII.] A MEDLEY. 143 
 
 Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
 
 Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
 
 The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
 
 At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
 
 The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest no 
 
 A dwarf-like Cato cower'd. On the other side 
 
 Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
 
 A train of dames : by axe and eagle sat. 
 
 With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
 
 And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins. 
 
 The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 
 
 Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 
 
 I saw the forms : I knew not where I was : 
 They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
 Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 120 
 
 Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
 And rounder seem'd : I moved : I sigh'd : a touch 
 Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
 Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
 Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
 And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
 So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun. 
 Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
 Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 
 
 ' If you be what I think you, some sweet dream, 130 
 I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 
 But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
 
144 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 I ask you nothing : only, if a dream, 
 
 Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
 
 Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.' 
 
 I could no more, but lay like one in trance, , 
 That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends. 
 And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, 
 But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she 
 
 paused ; 
 She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cry ; i4o 
 
 Leapt fiery passion from the brinks of death ; 
 And I believed that in the living world 
 My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
 Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
 Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
 Her falser self slipt from her like a robe. 
 And left her woman : lovelier in her mood 
 Than in her mould that other, when she came 
 From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
 And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 150 
 
 Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
 Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
 To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 
 For worship without end : nor end of mine. 
 Stateliest, for thee ! But mute she glided forth. 
 Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
 FilPd thro' and thro' with love, a happy sleep. 
 
 Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 
 
VII.] A MEDLEY. 145 
 
 A volume of the Poets of her land : 
 
 There to herself, all in low tones, she read : leo 
 
 ' Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; 
 Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
 Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
 The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. 
 
 Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 
 And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 
 
 Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
 And all thy heart lies open unto me. 
 
 Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
 A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 170 
 
 Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
 And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
 So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
 Into my bosom and be lost in me.' 
 
 I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
 Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 
 
 'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
 What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang). 
 In height and cold, the splendor of the hills ? 
 But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 180 
 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine. 
 To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
 And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
 For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he. 
 Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 
 Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
 Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
 With Death and Morning on the silver horns. 
 
146 THE PIUNCESS: [pakt 
 
 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 190 
 
 Nor find him dropt upon tlie firths of ice 
 
 That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
 
 To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
 
 But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
 
 To find him in the valley; let the wild 
 
 Lean-headed eagles yelp alone ; and leave 
 
 The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
 
 Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
 
 That like a broken purjDose waste in air : 
 
 So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 200 
 
 Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
 
 Arise to thee ; the children call, and I, 
 
 Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
 
 Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 
 
 And murmuring of innumerable bees.' 
 
 So she low-toued ; while with shut eyes I lay 
 Listening ; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face ; 
 The bosom with long sighs labor'd ; and meek 210 
 
 Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes ; 
 And the voice trembled, and the hand. She said 
 Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
 In sweet humility ; had fail'd in all ; 
 That all her labor was but as a block 
 Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, 
 She still were loth to yield herself to one 
 That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
 Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
 She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 220 
 
 That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than i^ower 
 In knowledge : something wild within her breast, 
 
VII.] A MEDLEY. 147 
 
 A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
 And she had nursed me there from week to week : 
 Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
 It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
 To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl — 
 ' Ah fool, and made myself a queen of farce ! 
 When comes another such ? never, I think. 
 Till the sun drop, dead, from the Signs.' 
 
 Her voice 
 Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 231 
 
 And her great heart thro' all the faultful past 
 Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
 Till notice of a change in the dark world 
 Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 
 That early woke to feed her little ones, 
 Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
 She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 
 
 ' Blame not thyself too much,' I said, ' nor blame 
 Too much the sons of men, and barbarous laws ; 240 
 
 These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
 Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
 The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free : 
 For she that out of Lethe scales Avith man 
 The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
 His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
 Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
 If she be small, slight-natured, miserable. 
 
148 THE PRINCESS: [part 
 
 How shall men grow ? But work no more alone ! 250 
 
 Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
 
 We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
 
 Will clear away the parasitic forms 
 
 That seem to keep her up, but drag her down — 
 
 Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
 
 Within her — let her make herself her own 
 
 To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
 
 For woman is not undevelopt man. 
 
 But diverse : could we make her as the man, 260 
 
 Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 
 
 Not like to like, but like in difference. 
 
 Yet in the long years liker must they groAV ; 
 
 The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
 
 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world y 
 
 She, mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
 
 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
 
 Till at the last she set herself to man. 
 
 Like perfect music unto noble words ; 270 
 
 And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 
 Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
 
 Self-reverent each and reverencing each. 
 
 Distinct in individualities. 
 
 But like each other even as those who love. 
 
 Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 
 
 Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 
 
VII. A MEDLEY. 149 
 
 Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
 May these things be ! ' 
 
 Sighing she spoke : ' I fear 28o 
 They will not.' 
 
 ' Dear, but let us type them now 
 In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
 Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
 Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
 Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
 Defect in each, and always thought in thought. 
 Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
 The single pure and perfect animal. 
 The two-eel I'd heart beating, with one full stroke. 
 Life.' 
 
 And again sighing she spoke : ' A dream 290 
 
 That once was mine ! what woman taught you this ? ' 
 
 ' Alone,' I said, ' from earlier than I know. 
 Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
 I loved the woman : he that doth not, lives 
 A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 
 Or pines in sad experience worse than death. 
 Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime : 
 Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
 Not learned, save in gracious household ways, . 
 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 300 
 
 No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
 
150 THE PBINCESS: [pakt 
 
 Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
 
 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 
 Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
 
 And girdled her with music. Happy he 
 
 With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
 
 Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high sio 
 
 Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
 
 He shall not blind his soul with clay/ 
 
 ' But I,' 
 Said Ida, tremulously, ' so all unlike — 
 It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
 This mother is your model. I have heard 
 Of your strange doubts : they well might be ; I seem 
 A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
 You cannot love me.' 
 
 ' Nay, but thee,' I said, 
 * From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes. 
 Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 320 
 
 Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
 That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forced 
 Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now. 
 Given back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 
 Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 
 Dearer €or night, as dearer thou for faults 
 Lived over : lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead, 
 My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change. 
 This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
 Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 330 
 
VII.] A MEDLEY. 151 
 
 Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 
 
 Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 
 
 In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
 
 Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 
 
 Is morn to more, and all the rich To-come 
 
 Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
 
 Athwart the smoke of burning w^eeds. Forgive me, 
 
 I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
 
 My wife, my life. we will walk this world, 
 
 Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 340 
 
 And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
 
 That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come. 
 
 Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
 
 Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself ; 
 
 Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.' 
 
152 THE PRINCESS: [epilogue. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 So closed oiir tale, of which I give you all 
 
 The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 
 
 The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 
 
 There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
 
 ' I wish she had not yielded ! ' then to me, 
 
 ' What if you drest it up poetically ! ' 
 
 So pray'd the men, the women : I gave assent : 
 
 Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven 
 
 Together in one sheaf ? What style could suit ? 
 
 The men required that I should give throughout lo 
 
 The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque 
 
 With w^hich we banter'd little Lilia first : 
 
 The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 
 
 For something in the ballads which they sang. 
 
 Or in their silent influence as they sat. 
 
 Had ever seem'd to wrestle w^th burlesque, 
 
 And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
 
 They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 
 
 A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 
 
 Kot make her true-heroic — true-sublime ? 20 
 
 Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 
 
 Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 
 
 Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 
 
 Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 
 
EPILOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 153 
 
 And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 
 
 And yet to give the story as it rose, 
 
 I moved as in a strange diagonal, 
 
 And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 
 
 But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
 In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 30 
 
 Had touch'd her ; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass ; 
 She flung it from her, thinking : last, she fixt 
 A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
 ' You — tell us what we are ; ' who might have told, 
 For she was cramm'd with theories out of books. 
 But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
 At sunset, and the crowd were swarming i^ow, 
 To take their leave, about the garden rails. 
 
 So I and some went out to these : we climb'd 
 The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 40 
 
 The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
 Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
 Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 
 Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
 Half-lost in belt of hop and breadths of wheat ; 
 The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
 A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond. 
 Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 
 
 ' Look there, a garden ! ' said my college friend, 
 The Tory member's elder son, ^and there ! 50 
 
 God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
 
15^ THE PRINCESS: [epilogue. 
 
 And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
 
 A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
 
 Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
 
 Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 
 
 Some patent force to change them when we will, 
 
 Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
 
 But yonder, whiff ! there comes a sudden heat, 
 
 The gravest citizen seems to lose his head ; 
 
 The king is scared, the soldier will not fight ; 6o 
 
 The little boys begin to shoot and stab : 
 
 A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
 
 Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
 
 In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
 
 Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
 
 No graver than a schoolboys' barring out ; 
 
 Too comic for the solemn things they are. 
 
 Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 
 
 Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
 
 As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas ! 70 
 
 I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.' 
 
 ' Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full 
 Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
 Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
 For me, the genial day, the happy crowd. 
 The sport half-science, fill me with a faith 
 This fine old world of ours is but a child 
 Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
 To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides.' 
 
EPILOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 155 
 
 In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, so 
 
 And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
 Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
 Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 
 No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
 A great broad-shoulder' d genial Englishman, 
 A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
 A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
 A patron of some thirty charities, 
 A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
 A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 90 
 
 Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn ; 
 Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
 That stood the nearest — now address'd to speech : 
 Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
 Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
 To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
 The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
 From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
 From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 
 Beyond the bourn of sunset ; 0, a shout 100 
 
 More joyful than the city-roar that hails 
 Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
 Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
 To let the people breathe ? So thrice they cried, 
 I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 
 
 But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
 So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 
 
156 TUE PRINCESS. [epilogue. 
 
 But spoKe not, wrapt in nameless reverie, 
 
 Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
 
 Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, iic 
 
 And gradually the powers of the night, 
 
 That range above the region of the wind. 
 
 Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
 
 Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds. 
 
 Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 
 
 Last little Lilia, rising quietly. 
 Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ealph 
 From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 [The starred notes are desigued for use in connection with a preliminary 
 and more rapid reading of the poem.] 
 
 PKOLOGUE. 
 
 1. ' The scene of the introduction is the garden at Swainston, 
 the seat of the late Sir John Simeon, in the Isle of Wight, and the 
 host, Sir Walter Vivian, is Sir John Simeon himself ' (Waugh). 
 
 2. lawns. Cf. CEnone, 6; Milton, L' Allegro, 71; for a use by 
 Tennyson of this word in its commoner modern meaning, see 95 
 below. 
 
 5. The local People's Institute, with its half-social, half-educa- 
 tional aims, was already (in 1847) a power in England. 
 
 11. Greek, set with busts. It was a comparatively modem 
 country-house, therefore, as this architectural style was not adopted 
 in England until about the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 12. lovelier than their names; their botanical names. 
 
 15. Ammonites. Large fossils, with the appearance of coiled 
 snakes. See Scott, Marmion, II. xiii. 
 
 20. Laborious orient ivory. This is an unexampled instance 
 of the artful adjustment of the sound to express the meaning. Note 
 how accurately the complex ' sphere in sphere ' of the Eastern ivory- 
 carver is represented by the recurrence of the rolling ori sound. 
 The verse stripped of its consonants (except r) and its unimportant 
 vowels, reduces itself to this : 6 | ri d | ri i | ory e | ri ere | . 
 
 21. crease; written also creese and kris. 
 
 38. broke. Note in 43 below, the alternate form brake. Ten- 
 nyson also uses as parallel forms cleft and clove, sioam and swum, etc. 
 
 55-6. sown with happy faces, etc. For a similar hendiadys, 
 see VI. 66-7 below. 
 
 157 
 
158 NOTES. [part 
 
 63. steep-up. Shakespeare uses "both this and the contrasting 
 form, steep-down. 
 *66-7- Echo answered in her sleep from hollow fields; a 
 
 beautiful and characteristic touch, hut — imagine the dainty classic 
 nymph, 'Daughter of the Sphere,' waking to answer 'a man with 
 knobs and wires and vials ' ! 
 
 87-8. Mark the involved alliterative effect of these verses. 
 
 90. satiated. We need to remember, in reading British verse, 
 that the secondary accent which we give to so many words of four 
 or five syllables is almost unknown in England. 
 
 * 92. lighter than a fire. The airy delicacy of the ruin was more 
 noticeable, it has been suggested, from its contrast with the massive 
 strength of the mansion from which they had just come. * Some one 
 has said that the " idea" of Gothic architecture is "weight annihi- 
 lated," while that of the Greek is "weight properly supported"' 
 (Rolfe). 
 
 113-4-7. Proctor — Tutor — Master. See Appendix II. 
 
 128. convention. It is a pity we do not make more use of this 
 good form instead of the cumbrous ' conventionality.' Tennyson 
 employs it later, however, in the ordinarily accepted sense. See IV. 
 490 below. 
 
 * 161. They lost their weeks. The candidate for the bachelor's 
 degree at Cambridge must pass nine terms in actual residence, and in 
 order to ' count ' each term, he must be present — at least at public 
 dinner — for a certain number of weeks, usually about two-thirds of 
 the whole number. Deans. See Appendix II. 
 
 176. to read. The English University man says ' read ' where 
 we say ' study; ' note that here they are ' reading ' mathematics. 
 182. walks ; avenues of trees. 
 199. solecisms. What is the exact force of the word here ? 
 
 PART I. 
 
 7. The weird conception of the possibility of being deprived of 
 one's shadow was not uncommon in mediaeval Europe. The most 
 noted bit of literature with this as its central motive is Chamisso's 
 Peter Schlemihl. 
 
 26. pedant. Cf . Shakespeare, ' like a pedant that keeps a school 
 
I.] NOTES. 159 
 
 i' the church' {Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. ii. 80). Keep this char- 
 acterization in mind, as we shall meet the king later. 
 
 * 33. proxy-wedded. * Proxy marriages were not uncommon in 
 the Middle Ages,' says Mr. Wallace, 'but the word "wedded" is 
 here used loosely. "What really took place at this time was a "be- 
 trothal," a ceremony that bound the parties to nothing, being dis- 
 soluble at the will of either on attainment to years of discretion. 
 It is noticeable that not elsewhere in the poem is the ceremony 
 referred to as a marriage ; Gama speaks of it vaguely as " a compact 
 ... a kind of ceremony " (122-3 below) ; the Prince himself, though 
 here he uses the expression " wedded," dare not in the presence of 
 the Princess call it more than a " pre-contract " (III. 191) — nay, just 
 below (40) he speaks of "wedding" as a necessary complement to 
 the previous performance to constitute a perfect marriage — and the 
 Princess is quite justified in scorning the idea that it was in any 
 way binding upon her in the absence of her own consent — 
 
 " baby troth, invalid, since my will 
 Seal'd not the bond" (V. 388-9).' 
 
 The rite of the bootless calf, i.e., the stripping of the calf of 
 the leg by the representative of the bridegroom in the presence of the 
 bride, belonged properly to the actual marriage by proxy, not to 
 the betrothal. 
 
 56. twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. No demonstration of 
 the scientific accuracy of this simile can condone its prosaic awk- 
 wardness. 
 
 60. snow'd. For a similar transitive use of ' hail'd,' see Pro- 
 logue, 155 above. 
 
 65. cook'd his spleen. This phrase is probably an echo of 
 
 Homer's ' enl v-qval x^^ov SvfJiaKyea necrcrei.,' Iliad, Bk. IV. 51. The 
 
 Latin coquere was frequently used in a similar sense by Cicero 
 and others. The ancients believed that the spleen was the seat of 
 anger. 
 
 * 78-80. It is a coincidence worth noting, in view of what follows, 
 that Cyril's volunteering immediately follows the mention of the 
 'lady of three castles.' 
 
 93. dewy-tasselPd ; 'hung with catkins. It was springtime' 
 (H. Tennyson). The poet used this adjective again in In Memo- 
 riam, Ixxxvi. 6. 
 
160 NOTES. [PART 
 
 96-9. A wind arose, etc. A rather remarkable similarity has 
 been noticed between this passage and one in Shelley's Prometheus 
 Unbound, — 
 
 ' A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
 The chnging music from their boughs, and then 
 Low, sweet, faint sounds, hke the farewell of ghosts, 
 Were heard ; " Oh follow, follow, follow me ! " ' 
 
 See Tennyson's comment, Appendix I. 
 
 110. blowing bosks of wilderness. ' Wilderness of blowing 
 bosks' would be a more natural order in prose. 'Bosk,' and 'bos- 
 cage' (a form which Tennyson uses more commonly), are of course 
 akin to 'bush,' but bear a slightly different meaning. Be sure you 
 get the sense of ' blowing ' in this connection. 
 
 111. mother-city; a literal rendering of 'metropolis.' Else- 
 where {In Memoriam, xcviii.), we find ' mother town' used with the 
 same meaning. 
 
 114-5. These two verses contain an unusually effective simile. 
 Notice the superiority of the present form over the reading of the 
 early editions: 
 
 'But bland the smile that pucker'd up his cheeks.' 
 
 * 116. Gama was not fond of military or regal insignia. But 
 though he lacks imposing qualities, he is attractive as one of the 
 few dramatically consistent characters of the story. 
 
 129. Mr. Wallace offers an ingenious comment on husbandry: 
 ' Note the exquisite irony in the use of this word in connection with 
 the central delusion of the Lady Ida.' 
 
 134-5. knowledge ... all in all. This (rather than that sug- 
 gested by the preceding note) was the really 'central delusion,' the 
 undermining fallacy in the Princess's theory of life. 
 
 167. Why was it a land of hope? 
 
 * 170. the liberties ; the college grounds, in which the students 
 were free to wander as they pleased. 
 
 197-8. a sight to shake the midriff of despair with laugh- 
 ter. Does this (purely Elizabethan) phrase complement the object, 
 or the subject, of the sentence? 
 
 * 213. ' On entering the gates, the disguised youths find the grounds 
 and halls full of knick-knacks and kickshaws — 
 
ii.J NOTES. 161 
 
 Clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
 On silver anvils. 
 
 Everywhere are busts, and statues, and lutes, and such-like bric- 
 a-brac aids to knowledge, — promiscuously strewed about like blue 
 china and crockery-ware bull-dogs in a modern drawing-room. In- 
 stinctively the male reader shrinks through this part of the poem, 
 fearful of upsetting something' (Dawson). 
 
 218. her song. ' It is only the male bird which sings,' says 
 Dawson. ' But the poets, all of them, keep the old Greek myth 
 in mind, and while scientifically wrong, are poetically and histori- 
 cally correct, for Philomela was a princess who was turned into a 
 nightingale which sang.' The Eastern poets, it should be noted, 
 use the masculine (see note on IV. 104 below), as does Tennyson 
 himself in The Gardener's Daughter : 
 
 ' . . The nightingale 
 Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day.' 
 
 233-4. The classical student will find a simile very much like 
 this in Homer, Iliad, Bk. II. 147-8. 
 
 239. Uranian Venus. According to Plato, there were two god- 
 desses called Aphrodite (Venus) ; the Heavenly and the Common. 
 Cupid, the spirit of unenlightened passion, was the son of the Com- 
 mon Venus. Why is the design of the seal an especially pertinent 
 one, in view of the circumstances? 
 
 244. A full sea glazed with muflaed moonlight, etc. See 
 Tennyson's comment, Appendix I. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 * The song is here printed as it appeared in the fifth edition, with- 
 out the intermediate quatrain, which seems to the present editor to 
 mar the perfection of the little lyric : 
 
 ' And blessings on the falling out 
 
 That all the more endears, 
 When we fall out with those we love 
 And kiss again with tears.' 
 
 PART II. 
 
 8. that sang all round with laurel. Several critics have 
 
 taken this to mean that the laurel was ' haunted by birds and bees.' 
 
162 NOTES. [part 
 
 The suggestion of Hallam Tennyson seems more reasonable, as well 
 as more obvious : that the poet had in mind simply the rustling of 
 the laurel-leaves in the wind. 
 
 10. Compact. Compare Shakespeare's 
 
 ' The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
 Are of imagination all compact.' 
 
 boss'd with lengths of classic frieze. Cf. Milton, Paradise 
 Lost, Bk. I. 716. 
 
 38. your ideal; 'you as his ideal,' not 'his ideal (or idea) of 
 you.' 
 
 44. the child. This rather humorously recalls her father's re- 
 mark in I. 1S6 above. 
 
 48. cast and fling; a Shakespearean coupling of synonyms for 
 emphasis which is not uncommon in Tennyson. See, for example, 
 V. 210, below. 
 
 * 60. enter'd on the boards. This is another Cambridge Uni- 
 versity technicality ; there the register of undergraduates' names is 
 officially known as 'the boards.' 
 
 * 62-71. 'It is customary in English colleges,' says Mr. Wallace, 
 * to adorn the Hall or some other public room with portraits or statues 
 of famous past members of the establishment. The college of the 
 poem has no past, and the statues are those of eight of the most 
 eminent women of antiquity, representing respectively legislative 
 sagacity, political enterprise, military prowess, architectural skill, 
 physical courage, intellectual culture, imperial ambition, and wifely 
 devotion.' 
 
 Most of these names will need to be looked up in some classical 
 dictionary. 
 
 65. She that taught the Sabine, etc. The nymph Egeria was 
 fabled to have been the teacher and guide of the lawgiver-king, 
 Numa Pompilius. Be sure to read Byron's noble apostrophe, in 
 Childe Harold, Canto IV. cxv-cxix. 
 
 66. The foundress of the Babylonian wall ; Semiramis. 
 
 68. Rhodope. Both Shakespeare and Landor give the name this 
 form and accentuation. It is to be looked up, however, under Rho- 
 ddpis (accented on the second syllable) . 
 
 69-71. This sounding progress of names has a force and pomp 
 almost Miltonic. 
 
II.] NOTES. 163 
 
 69. Clelia was one of the Roman hostages given to Porsena. 
 She escaped by swimming the Tiber on horseback. 
 
 the Palniyrene; Zenobia. 
 
 95. a double April old. Note that while the child's age is 
 given here in terms of the spring month, Tennyson expresses that of 
 Psyche in ' summers,' and (in The Palace of Art), that of Homer in 
 'winters.' 
 
 97-8. the dame that whisper'd, etc. See Smith's Classical 
 Dictionary under Midas, and note that it was not the wife who 
 told the secret. The traditional uncertainty as to the culprit is 
 hinted at by Pope, in the Epistle to Arhuthnot : 
 
 ' 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring 
 (Midas, a sacred person and a king), 
 His very minister who spied them first 
 (Some say his queen) was forced to speak or burst.' 
 
 * 101-4. These lines give a poetic summary of the ' nebular 
 hypothesis.' 
 
 106. the prime. Cf . In Memoriam, Ivi. : 
 
 ' Dragons of the prime, 
 That tare each other in their slime.' 
 
 Contrast with the meaning of ' prime ' in VI. 186 below. 
 
 112. Appraised here means simply ' praised.' 
 
 the Lyeian custom. Herodotus says that it was the custom 
 among the Lycians to take the maternal name, and to trace the 
 ancestry in the female line. 
 
 113. lay at wine, etc. The Etruscan women were admitted to 
 the banquet on equal terms with the men. Lar (or Lars) and Lu- 
 cumo were Etruscan titles, corresponding approximately to the 
 English ' Lord ' and ' Honorable.' 
 
 117. A sufficient comment upon the laws Salique (or Salic) is 
 to be found in Shakespeare, Henrij V., Act I. Sc. ii. 
 
 118. toueh'd on Mahomet with much contempt. ' The slur- 
 ring over of the name, by allotting to its three syllables the space of 
 one only, is no doubt designed by the poet to accentuate the fair 
 lecturer's contempt for the prophet ; for a similar effect see IV. 309 
 below ' (Wallace) . Hallam Tennyson asks, ' Does she allude to a 
 report once popular that Mahomet denied that women have souls, 
 
164 NOTES. [part 
 
 or had she heard that, according to the Mohammedan doctrine, hell 
 was chiefly peopled with womeil?' Perhaps she had in mind no 
 more than the fact that the Mohammedan civil law permits polyg- 
 amy as well as divorce at the will of the husband. 
 
 144. Verulam. Lord Bacon. Cf . The Palace of Art : 
 
 ' And there the Ionian father of the rest ; 
 
 A million wrinkles carved his skin ; 
 A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast, 
 From cheek and throat and chin. 
 
 And thro' the topmost Oriel's color'd flame 
 
 Two godlike faces gazed below ; 
 Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, 
 
 The first of those who know.' 
 
 168-70. This is only one of many passages in the poem in which 
 an ingenious irregularity of metre serves to bring out the meaning 
 more sharply. For like effects, see IV. 370, 461 ; VII. 210 below. 
 
 * 180. softer Adams. Mr. Dawson interprets this as ' female 
 founders.' Why not take it rather to be the simplest sort of ironical 
 circumlocution for ' Eves,' and to refer in a vague way to the whole 
 personnel of the college? 
 
 The airy flippancy of Florian's opening remark has to be atoned 
 for by a deal of straight-faced wheedling. 
 
 177. HoAV saw you not, etc. The answer to this question is 
 given in I. 210 above. 
 
 224. bestrode my Grandsire. So Falstaff says: 'Hal, if thou 
 see me down in the battle and bestride me, so ; 'tis a point of friend- 
 ship ' (1 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. i). See also Comedy of Errors, Act 
 V. Sc.i.: 
 
 'When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took 
 Deep scars to save thy life.' 
 
 * 260-1. The astute Cyril here touches the right note. The soften- 
 ing of Psyche is the first of those achievements the glory of which 
 he is destined to share with the baby-heroine. 
 
 269. secular. The word is contrasted with ' fading ' and ' mor- 
 tal,' above, and is consequently used in its closely derivative 
 meaning. 
 
III]. NOTES. 165 
 
 273. O hard, when Love and Duty clash! Tennyson has 
 developed this thought at length in the poem Love and Duty. 
 
 319. Danaid. See Smith's Classical Dictionary, under Danaus ; 
 or better, Brewer's Reader's Handbook, under Danalds. 
 
 * 373-ill. This speech of Cyril's greatly excels in spirit and dra- 
 matic force anything we have found thus far. The allusions to the 
 embarrassments of ' stomacher ' and ' zone,' and the half-jesting 
 madcap air of abandon, do not conceal the undercurrent of genuine 
 feeling. The passage is worthy to be called Shakespearean. 
 
 . 420. Astraean age. Look this up under Astraea. See also Vir- 
 gil, Eclogues, IV. 6: 
 
 'Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.' 
 
 * 4:3&-i2. their 3Iay was passing, etc. Some one has noted that 
 here already the seeds of failure in the Princess's scheme are appar- 
 ent. Without the direct interposition of the male element, failure 
 must have been the result of an attempt essentially artificial. 
 
 * 444-5. 3Ielissa . . . gentle satire. Keep this bit of description 
 in mind, and note whether it is consistent with the other pictures of 
 Melissa which are given in the course of the poem. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 dying moon. The third edition has * dropping moon ; ' which 
 do you prefer? 
 
 silver sails, etc. Notice how little the lack of grammatical con- 
 nection between these two verses and the context affects the real 
 feeling of the lyric. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 1-2. Cf. the following description in Love and Duty : 
 
 'Then wlien the first low matin-chirp hath grown 
 Full quire, and morning driven her plow of pearl 
 Far furrowing into light the mounded rack 
 Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.' 
 
 5. the Muses' heads. See II. 13 above. 
 
 9. Shakespeare gives the adjective 'jDale' the same substantive 
 meaning of 'pallor' that wan has here. 
 
166 NOTES. [PAET 
 
 16. wont; a word (like canvass, 24 below) which has an un- 
 usually interesting history. 
 
 35. wholesale. Mr. Dawson calls this ' a very odd use of a 
 modern mercantile word.' It is certainly not a dictionary use, but 
 a striking instance of the value of emi^loying words with reference 
 to their ' connotation.' 
 
 55. They mounted, Ganymedes. See The Palace of Art : 
 
 ' , . . Flush'd Ganymede, his rosy tliigh 
 Half buried in the Eagle's down, 
 Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
 Above the pillar'd town.' 
 
 56. To tumble, Vulcans. Be sure to read the famous descrip- 
 tion of the fall of Vulcan in Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. I. 740-6. Both 
 of these myths should be looked up in the classical reference-books. 
 
 68, 72, 75. still. Tennyson commonly gives this word the older 
 meaning, ' continually ; ' the meaning in which it was used by Shake- 
 speare and Milton. 
 
 74. ' If there be in the same room two stringed instruments, a 
 note struck on a chord of one will cause the corresponding chord in 
 the other to vibrate. The metaphor thus denotes complete unison of 
 heart and mind between the two, causing any emotion or interest in 
 the one to find an immediate sympathetic response in the other' 
 (Wallace). 
 
 There is a similar use of 'shiver,' in Morte d 'Arthur: 
 
 'A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars.' 
 
 * 75. For yet my mother still, etc., the first two editions read: 
 'only Lady Blanche;' a slip which is hardly needed, after lines 
 68-74 (in which it is obviously the poet himself who is speaking), 
 to prove that Tennyson has lost sight of Melissa. 
 
 90. clang ... to the sphere ; call to the upper air. For this use 
 of 'sphere,' compare Milton's: 'Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter 
 of the Sphere.' (Conius, the song to Echo.) 
 
 100. Look up the myth of Memnon, preferably in Brewer's 
 Reader's Handbook. See also The Palace of Art, 171. 
 
 106. the innumerable rose. Cf. V. 13 below. 
 
 108. * Baluster, accented on the penult ; from French balustre, 
 now corrupted into bannister' (Dawson). 
 
III.] NOTES. 167 
 
 111. prime; primeval. So Shakespeare speaks of 'the prime 
 creation.' See note on II. 106 above. 
 
 120. fabled nothing fair. Contrast with another rare use of 
 ' fair ' in II. 305 above. 
 
 126. limed; a common "word in Shakespeare and Milton. Look 
 up its history. 
 
 * 131. Cyril has already tried tlie mother's heart, and with 
 success, in his plea to Psyche ; this time the ruse fails completely. 
 
 153. talce the dip of certain strata ; measure their inclination 
 with respect to the horizon. 
 
 179. retinue; like 'revenue,' formerly accented on the second 
 syllable. Here is an instance from Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. V. 
 854-7: 
 
 ' More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits 
 On princes, when their rich retinue long 
 Of horses led and grooms besmeared with gold 
 Dazzles the crowd.' 
 
 * 203. As girls were once. Having expressed her extreme of 
 contempt for the prince by calling him 'no better than a girl,' it 
 suddenly occurs to her that this is a poor way of asserting the 
 equality of woman with man, and she makes the best qualification 
 she can at the moment. The passage is interesting because it sug- 
 gests that the Princess all along instinctively held just the belief 
 which is formulated by the Prince at the close of the poem. Her 
 contempt for the man who is ' no better than a girl ' implies not that 
 she confesses the inferiority of her sex, but that Love's 
 
 ' dearest bond is this. 
 Not like to like, but like in difiference.' 
 
 212-i. The student who is not familiar with the story of Vashti, 
 should read the first chapter of the book of Esther. 
 
 215. breathes full East. ' The metaphor may have been sug- 
 gested by the preceding reference to the proud and defiant Oriental 
 queen, but is derived from the bitter and blasting character of the 
 east wind ' (Wallace). 
 
 * 228. Love, children, happiness. The Prince's suggestion of 
 the domestic ideal prepares the way for our first glimpse of the ami- 
 able side of the Princess's character. 
 
168 NOTES. [PAET 
 
 246. POU STO. It was Archimedes the mechanician who said, 
 
 in praise of the lever: 6bs nov o-to), Kal Kovt^ov xtr^crw. — ' Give me a place 
 to stand on, and I will pry the world.' 
 
 269-70. against the pikes . . . down the fiery gulf. These 
 two expressions, according to Mr. Wallace's conjecture, were not used 
 vaguely: 'They were probahly suggested by two legends of ancient 
 Rome: — (1) In the Latin War (b.c. 340) Publius Decius Mus, one of 
 the Roman generals, sacrificed himself on the spears of the enemy 
 in order to secure the victory to his army, it having been revealed 
 to him in a vision from Heaven that one army was doomed and the 
 general of the other (a somewhat similar act of devotion is recorded 
 of Arnold von Winkelried in the battle of Sempach, 1388, during 
 the Swiss struggle for independence against the Austrians; this 
 hero, seeing that the Austrian line of spears was impregnable, gath- 
 ered into his breast as many as he could, and falling upon them 
 created a gap into which his comrades poured) ; (2) A chasm having 
 appeared in the market-place of Rome, and the priests having de- 
 clared that this would not close up until there had been cast into 
 it the chief element of Rome's greatness, a young noble named 
 Marcus Curtius, thinking that this condition would best be fulfilled 
 by the sacrifice of one of her sons, leapt into it on horseback and in 
 full armor (b.c. 362).' 
 
 280. Dare we dream, etc. : Dare we dream that the Creator is 
 a mere craftsman, to improve in skill by practice? 
 
 * 282-7. The enthusiasm of the Princess for the study of meta- 
 physics is merged for the moment in a pretty-womanly fondness for 
 the golden trinket prize, and in childlike complacency over the apt- 
 ness of the device. 
 
 286. Diotima. There is a good note on this name in Brewer's 
 Reader's Handbook. 
 
 288. schools. The courses of instruction in English University 
 parlance are ' schools.' 
 
 311. make one act the phantom of succession; fancifully 
 consider the single process of creation as if it were a series of acts. 
 
 324. Elysian lawns . . . built to the sun. In disclaiming a 
 fancied reference here to the towers of Troy, Tennyson wrote, ' The 
 " Elysian lawns " are the lawns of Elysium, and have nothing to do 
 with Troy — or perhaps they refer rather to the Islands of the Blest 
 (Pindar, Olympia, 2d).' 
 
IV.] NOTES. 169 
 
 The passage to •which he refers may be rendered freely : 
 
 •There round the Islands of the Blest 
 * The sea-born airs do breathe. There golden blooms 
 
 Of summer glow, some from the hardy breast 
 Of earth, on glorious boughs, some in the glooms 
 Of silent waters : — these they twine 
 In wreaths to deck their hands divine.' 
 
 334. The bearded Victor, etc. It seems probable that Pindar's 
 defeat was not an altogether inglorious one : ' Now of Corinna, the 
 only woman who ever wrote poetry in Tanagra, there is a statue in 
 an open place in the city, and in the gymnasium there is a picture 
 showing her with the fillet round her hair which she won at Thebes, 
 when she overcame Pindar in singing ; and I think she got the vic- 
 tory partly because she sang not as Pindar did in the Dorian dialect, 
 but so that the ^olians could more easily understand her, and chiefly 
 because she must have been the most beautiful woman of her day, if 
 one may judge from the portrait.' — Pausanias, ix. 22. 3. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 * This song, it is supposed, was inspired by the bugle-music of 
 the boatmen at Lake Killarney. The first peal of the notes is loud 
 and triumphant. The poet's mind is carried back by the martial 
 sound and the distant sight of the ruined walls of Killarney Castle, 
 to the far dim mediaeval past. The impression is intense, but fades 
 quickly as the warlike strain dies away. The echoes now suggest 
 the silver tinkle of elfin horns, and for a moment the eerie charm of 
 fairyland holds the listener. These too die, and with the silence 
 comes the swift lyric turn from the visions of exhausted feudalism 
 and of fruitless superstition to the clear certain life of the present 
 and of the future. That life is to bring the gradual union of his 
 nature with that of his beloved ; to be full of the gentle enduring 
 influences which, like echoes, 'roll from soul to soul,' but, unlike 
 echoes, * grow forever and forever. ' 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 2. that hypothesis ; the * nebular hypothesis ' which has been 
 already summarized by Lady Psyche. 
 
 17. gold. Rolfe remarks, * Of course gold is an adjective refer- 
 
170 NOTES. [PAET 
 
 ring to wine;' while Wallace says: 'gold, i.e. golden goblets and 
 other vessels.' Which meaning seems to you the more probable? 
 21-40. ' The idea of this lyric had been resting in the poet's mind 
 since 1831. Then at the age of twenty-two he published in The Gem, 
 one of the annuals at that time in fashion, the following poem omitted 
 from all the recent editions of his works : 
 
 sad Xo more! O sweet No more! 
 
 O strange Xo more.' 
 By a mossed brookbank on a stone 
 
 1 smelt a wildwood flower alone ; 
 There was a ringing in my ears, 
 
 And both my eyes gushed out with tears, 
 Surely all pleasant things had gone before, 
 Low-buried fathom-deep beneath with thee, 
 Xo more.' 
 
 The melancholy melody of the refrain 'No more,' has evidently 
 haunted the poet's mind, and he has taken the poem which he 
 justly suppressed as unworthy of him, and after long years repro- 
 duced it in this glorified form' (Dawson). 
 
 ' One of my family remembers,' writes Mrs. Ritchie, * hearing Ten- 
 nyson say that "Tears, idle tears " was suggested by Tintern Abbey: 
 who shall say by what mysterious wonder of beauty and regret, by 
 what sense of the "transient with the abiding"?' 
 
 47. cram our ears, as Odysseus did {Odyssey, Bk. VI). 
 
 60. beard-blown. See Appendix I. 
 
 61. hang on the shaft. Keep his doubtful footing on some 
 ruined column. 
 
 69. a death's head at the wine. The allusion is to the fabled 
 Egyptian practice of carrying round the circle of feasters a death's 
 head or a cofl&n, by way of pointing the moral 'Eat, drink, and 
 be merry, for to-morrow ye die.' 
 
 97. Fly to her and pipe and woo her. Professor Hadley has 
 cited this as an illustration of Tennyson's habit of ' blending a final 
 vowel with an initial weak consonant easily elided in pronunciation.' 
 For a similar effect, see 81 above. 
 
 * This lyric and the ' Tears, idle tears ' are the best of Tennyson's 
 imitations of the 'isometric songs' of Theocritus; songs which, 
 retaining the metrical form of the surrounding narrative, triumph 
 
IV.] NOTES. 171 
 
 through sheer perfection of rhythmic feeling, so that the ear hardly 
 notices even the absence of rhyme. 
 
 100. Like the Ithacensian suitors. Mr. Dawson says: 'The 
 suitors at the court of Penelope feel the occult influence of the 
 unseen goddess Pallas causing their thoughts to wander. They 
 fail to recognize Ulysses in his disguise, and their laughter is con- 
 strained and unnatural, they know not why. They laugh with alien 
 lips, which is the nearest possible poetical translation of the Greek 
 idiomatic expression, " They laughed with other men's jaws " ' (oi S' ijSrj 
 
 yvadixolai yekwoiv dAXorpioiacv, Odl/SSey, Bk. XX. 347). 
 
 104. Bulbul. ' The Persian name of the nightingale, whose love 
 for the rose is a favorite theme with Saadi and his brother poets. 
 Gulistan is Persian for rose-garden, and S^adi takes it as the title of 
 his book of poems ' (Rolfe). 
 
 Note in this passage the use of the contemptuous ' thee.' 
 121. ValkjTian. The ValkjTs ('choosers of the slain'), accord- 
 ing to the Northern Mythology, were warrior-maidens who presided 
 over the field of battle, and carried slain heroes to Valhalla, the 
 'palace of immortal delight.' The Princess's ideal of poetry is 
 evidently typified in her song of triumph (VI. 17-42 below). 
 
 130. owed. "What is the meaning in this connection? 
 
 131. to leaven play with profit. Recreation does not mean 
 idleness to this woman-scholar. Here she hopes for the musical ren- 
 dering of some bit of folk-lore — anthropographical data, she might 
 have said, — but is hardly prepared for the 'local color' of Cyril's 
 'careless, careless tavern-catch.' 
 
 * 148-52. The flight of the Princess is probably due rather to an 
 impulse to avoid the contamination of the male presence, than to 
 actual fear. It is perhaps a little odd that the Head should not have 
 caused the intenders to be arrested at this moment. Surely she 
 could not have gone upon this expedition without a guard of some 
 sort. — Is Melissa warning the men or the women to ' flee the death ' ? 
 
 * 159. she miss'd the plank. The poet has plenty of authority 
 for pitching his heroine into the river at this juncture. Obviously, 
 according to the established canons of romance, the rescue of the Prin- 
 cess is now in order. Only in this way, indeed, can the incident of 
 Cyril's song be turned from catastrophe into crisis, and the Prince be 
 restored to a working chance of gaining her favor. 
 
 160. from glo"w to gloom. The evening glow from the West 
 
172 NOTES. [PAET 
 
 still touched the bridge, while the channel beneath was in darkness. 
 * Glow to gloom ' reminds us of Browning's favorite contrast of ' shade 
 and shine.' 
 
 162. the horrible fall. See III. 273 above. 
 
 162-7. * Notice how the broken movement of these lines, the short 
 sharp sentences, the irregular metre, and the harsh dominance of 
 monosyllables, accentuate the strain, the struggle, and the anxiety of 
 the action narrated ' (Dawson) . 
 
 163. -woman-vested as I was, plunged. This is a rather evi- 
 dent reminiscence of Cassius's 
 
 'Accoutred as I was, I plunged in.' 
 
 Julius Csesar, Act I. Sc. 11. 
 
 An even closer parallel metrically is to be found in V. 472-3 below. 
 
 166. The weight of all the hopes, etc. A similar passage has 
 been noted in the Roman poet Statins, in which the baby Apollo is 
 pictured as crawling along the edge of Delos, and by the weight 
 of his divinity actually tipping the island. 
 
 185. the hunter; Actseon. Look up the myth, if you are not 
 familiar with it. 
 
 195. Thro' a great arc. The constellation of the Great Bear 
 (also known as the Great Dipper and Charles's Wain) does not 
 set, but describes an arc about the North Star, fading only with 
 the dawn. 
 
 3D0. out of rules. See Appendix II. 
 
 * 203. a moral leper, I. The sensitive Florian is blameless him- 
 self, yet he feels the taint of Cyril's coarseness. This, with his lack 
 of the Prince's saving sense of humor and his anxiety for the wel- 
 fare of Psyche and Melissa, leads him to take a tragic view of the 
 situation. 
 
 207. Judith . . . Holofernes. See Brewer's Reader's Hand- 
 book, or better, the apocryphal book of Judith. 
 
 217-20. Alas, for our budding admiration for the Princess. The 
 spectacle of her unwomanly, not to say vulgar, fury, which turns 
 itself, for lack of some more responsible victim, against the baby- 
 heroine, is hard to forget. 
 
 236. as the water-lily, etc. A similar use of this figure has 
 been noted in Wordsworth, The Excursion, Bk. V. : 
 
IV.] NOTES. 173 
 
 ' a thing 
 Subject, you deem, to vital accidents ; 
 And, like the -water-lily, lives and thrives. 
 Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head 
 Floats on the tossing waves ' 
 
 In commenting on the parallel, Mr. Dawson said, 'Wordsworth's is 
 the more familiar picture.' This called forth the remark by Tenny- 
 son in Appendix I. 
 
 * 241. He, standing still, was clutched. The solemn Florian 
 surrenders without a thought of escape: hut the Prince is seized 
 by a sudden whimsical impulse, not so much to get away, as to 
 ' breathe the Proctors ' a little. 
 
 242. musky-circled. Cf. Milton, Comws ; 
 
 * And west winds with musky wing 
 About the cedarn alleys fling 
 Nard and cassia's balmy smells.' 
 
 255. the mystic fire, etc. Cf. Longfellow, The Golden Legend : 
 
 'Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars, 
 "With their glimmering lanterns, all at play 
 On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars. 
 And I knew Ave should have foul weather to-day.' 
 
 * 257. BoTv'd toward her, combing, etc. The impressiveness of 
 the royal audience must have been somewhat marred by this process 
 of the toilet. The succeeding description of the ' eight daughters of 
 the plow,' on the other hand, is quite in keeping with the idea of 
 judicial grandeur. 
 
 * 266-8. Again there is the unpleasant suggestion of wilful mal- 
 treatment of the innocent child. It must be noted, however, that her 
 presence is dramatically necessary to the scene. 
 
 275. Castalies ; sources of culture. See classical reference-books 
 under Castalia. 
 
 296. Jonah's gourd. See, if necessary, Jonah, iv. 
 
 311. grace. Look up the history and the many interesting mean- 
 ings of this word (and of use, 317 below). 
 
 338. real ; a dissyllable here, as it is commonly in Shakespeare. 
 
 * 340-3. The Princess is admirable in her summary dismissal of 
 Lady Blanche. She shows perfect self-command, and a really royal 
 
174 NOTES. [part 
 
 dignity of decision. But as for her adoption of the child — what shall 
 we say was her principal motive : a mere feeling of compassion for 
 the deserted baby, a natural longing for child-companionship, or a 
 settled purpose to establish by her complaisance a permanent right to 
 Psyche's little daughter, and so to attain her subtlest revenge upon 
 Psyche herself ? 
 
 352. Niobean. Look this up in some classical dictionary under 
 Niohe. 
 
 366-7. When the wild peasant, etc. ' Referring to the incen- 
 diary fires so common in the trouble with the English agricultural 
 laborers some years before the poem was written ' (Rolfe). 
 
 370. Note how closely the irregularity of the metre corresponds 
 with the vehemence of the Princess's mood. 
 
 * 404-48. This gallant outburst of the Prince contains some real 
 eloquence of the young-lover sort, with a touch of obsequiousness 
 here and there which is not inexcusable under the circumstances. 
 
 418. Sphered up, etc. Milton in a similar phrase calls Cassiopeia 
 'that starred Etliiop queen' {II Penseroso, 19). 
 
 422. frequence. Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, Bk. I. 128-9: 
 
 ' . . . The Most High ... In full frequence bright 
 Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake.' 
 
 426. landskip. This is the older form of the word. The ending 
 * skip ' is a variant of ' ship ' (as in towns/up) ; the word means prop- 
 erly, therefore, a tract of land. 
 
 427. The dwarfs of presage. Cf . ' less than fame,' I. 72 above. 
 
 * 454-68. * It must be borne in mind,' says Mr. Wallace, * that 
 this scene took place after midnight. The Princess is sitting in judg- 
 ment in the Hall, but the greater number of the girls are outside in 
 the quadrangle, which is illuminated by the lights of the Hall 
 streaming through the windows.' 
 
 461. Fluctuated, etc. This verse, which seems at first to be a 
 hexameter, may be read with only five accented syllables by throw- 
 ing the second accent upon ' flowers ' : 
 
 Fluctuated as flowers in storm, some r^d, some pdle. 
 
 For the accentuation of ' fluctuated,' see note on Prologue, 90 above. 
 523. should lord you. Shakespeare has a much more startling 
 figure, in Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. iii. : 
 
v.] NOTES. 175 
 
 'This old man 
 Loved me above the measure of a father, 
 Nay, godded me, indeed.' 
 
 531-2. See note on 166 above. 
 
 INTERLUDE. 
 
 SOXG. 
 
 * Mark what a rousing note of straightforward energy Lilia puts 
 into the little song ; which points the transition from the foregoing 
 ' raillery or grotesque or false sublime ' to a genuine seriousness 
 of motive and depth of feeling in the subsequent narrative. 
 
 An earlier version was this: 
 
 'Lady, let the rolling drums 
 Beat to battle where thy warrior stands. 
 Now thy face across his fancy comes, 
 
 And gives the battle to his hands. 
 
 Lady, let the trumpets blow, 
 Clasp thy little babes about thy knee : 
 Now their warrior father meets the foe, 
 
 And strikes him dead for thine and thee.' 
 
 Why is the present form better ? 
 
 This interlude was one of the many improvements which appeared 
 in the third edition of the poem. Like most of the other additions, 
 it was inserted for the purpose of bringing out more clearly the seri- 
 ous meaning of the work, which the public had failed to find in the 
 original version. From this time on the forces of the poem converge 
 steadily toward the final triumph of wedded love. The interest 
 becomes more and more centred in the two principal characters; 
 they show less and less of weak whimsy and false ambition, and 
 the scene of their final union is so perfect in its feeling that we 
 fairly forget the burlesque and strain of the earlier episodes. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 2. a stationary voice. For the meaning of 'stationary' Mr. 
 Dawson refers us to the post-classical Latin stationarii milites, and 
 the French soldats stationnaires. 
 
176 NOTi:S. [part 
 
 * 4. *The second two.' Who were the first two, and how long 
 before had they probably passed the sentries ? 
 
 13. the innumerous leaf. Cf . Milton, Comus : 
 
 ' In the close dungeon of innumerous boughs.' 
 
 21. the gilded Squire. Evidently Tennyson attributes to this 
 type the same characteristics as are to be found in Chaucer's descrip- 
 tion of the 'yong Squyer,' in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. 
 
 25. mawkin. This word is used by Shakespeare in such phrases 
 as ' the swineherd's malkin,' ' the kitchen malkin,' etc. Be sure to 
 look up its derivation, 
 
 37. transient; used here participially, with the exact meaning 
 of the Latin transiens. 
 
 42. And hit the northern hills; a startling conclusion to a 
 somewhat violent, but notably suggestive, figure of speech. 
 
 46. Amazed; an older use of the word: bewildered, like one in 
 a maze. 
 
 74. Why kept ye not your faith? See II. 275-80 above. 
 
 * 7T. for your child. Here again Cyril connects himself some- 
 what cunningly with the mother's thought of her child. 
 
 * 79-102. One almost regrets that the mother's feeling did not 
 express itself in the lyric form (the two opening lines suggest such 
 a treatment), rather than in the present quasi -dramatic fashion. 
 
 93-96. For a strikingly similar passage, see Shakespeare, 
 Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. v. 287-95. 
 
 121. the trampled year; a figurative use somewhat like that 
 of * clime and age,' Prologue, 16 above. 
 
 125. lightens scorn. Cf. II, 117 above. 
 
 131-2. dash'd your cities, etc. Line 133 in the first two editions 
 read, 'And dusted down your domes with mangonels,' Do you see 
 any reason for the poet's discarding it in later editions? 
 
 162. a cherry net. ' Fruit trees in England are commonly pro- 
 tected by light nets against the depredations of birds ' (Wallace). 
 
 181-4. truer to the law within. Cf. In Memoriam, xxxiii. : 
 
 ' Her faith thro' form is pure as thine. 
 Her hands are quicker unto good : 
 Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
 To which she links a truth divine ! 
 
v.] NOTES. 177 
 
 See thou, that countest reason ripe 
 
 In lioldiug by the law within, 
 
 Thou fail not in a world of sin, 
 And even for want of such a type.' 
 
 188. pure as lines of green. Rolfe notes that this is ' another 
 illustration of the poet's keen observation of nature. Most writers 
 would have taken the white of the snowdrop as the emblem of 
 purity (as Tennyson himself does in St. Agnes, 11), but that delicate 
 green seems more exquisitely pure, even beside the white.' 
 
 190. What is the force of piebald here ? 
 
 231. oozed. There ife a similar use of the word in Sea Dreams : 
 
 'And then began to bloat himself and ooze 
 All over with the fat affectionate smile 
 That makes the widow lean.' 
 
 250. the airy Giant; Orion. Look up the myth in the classical 
 reference-books. The constellation is one of the most easily identi- 
 fied in the winter heavens, on account of the prominence of the 
 ' three stars ' which form the ' zone.' What is the force of ' airy ' in 
 this passage ? 
 
 252-4. Much the same figure is used in Homer, Iliad, Bk. V. 5. 
 The passage is rendered by Lord Derby as follows : 
 
 ' Forth from his helm and shield a fiery light 
 There flash'd, like Autumn's Star, that brightest shines 
 When newly risen from his ocean bath.' 
 
 The phrase wash'd with morning finds also a parallel in Brown- 
 ing, Old Pictures in Florence : 
 
 ' Washed by the morning water-gold 
 Floi'ence lay out on the mountain-side, 
 
 River and bridge and street and square 
 Lay mine, as much at my beck and call 
 
 Thro' the live translucent bath of air 
 As the sights in a magic crystal ball.' 
 
 284. St. something. ' St. Catherine of Alexandria, the Cather- 
 ine usually painted with a wheel, or with a book, or disputing with 
 philosophers. The patron saint of philosophy, the daughter of King 
 
178 NOTES. [part 
 
 Costis. Costis married Sabinella, Queen of Egypt, and on her death 
 Catherine became Queen. She devoted herself to learning, and 
 would not marry, but was espoused in a vision to Jesus Christ. [Em- 
 peror] Maxentius sent fifty of the wisest philosophers to convert her, 
 but she converted them. Unable to kill her with the wheel, Maxen- 
 tius cut off her head, and the angels carried her body to heaven ' 
 (Dawson). 
 
 325. Strangely enough, life here has precisely the meaning of 
 'death' in 157 above. 
 
 332. They made him wild; a touch of oddly colloquial humor. 
 
 355. Tomyris. Herodotus tells the story of Tomyris, Queen of the 
 Massagetae. When she heard that Cyrus was meditating an expedi- 
 tion into her territories, she sent him a formal remonstrance. ' Hav- 
 ing solemnly warned him to desist, she at last gave him battle. He 
 was slain on the field, and she then took his head and dipping it in 
 a skin of blood bade him, since he was so bloodthirsty, drink his fill 
 therefrom' (Wallace). 
 
 358. the lists were hammer'd up. The manner of arranging 
 the lists is described fully in the eighth chapter of Scott's Ivanhoe. 
 
 367-373. The presentation by the bride of a whip to her future 
 husband is an old Russian custom. The allusions which follow are 
 of course to the Hindoo customs of burning widows on the funeral 
 pyre of their husbands,, and of casting female children into the 
 Ganges (as things of no use, perhaps, rather than as objects of 
 'prophetic pity' ). 
 
 382. gallant institutes; fine regulations. 
 
 412. orbs ; forms a part of the prb of the earth. 
 *414:. This womanish postscript to a sounding peroration recalls 
 the whimsical episode of the prize brooch. 
 
 419. mellay ; an Anglicized form of the French melee. 
 
 500. Miriam . . . Jael. See Exodus, xv. ; Judges, iv. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 * In 1865 Tennyson published another version of the song : 
 
 ' Home they brought him slain with spears, 
 They brought him home at even fall ; 
 All alone she sits and hears 
 Echoes in the empty hall, 
 Sounding on the morrow. 
 
VI.] NOTES, 179 
 
 The sun peeped in from open field, 
 The boy began to leap and prance, 
 
 Kode upon his father's lance, 
 Beat upon his father's shield : 
 Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow.' 
 
 'The new rendering,' says Mr. Waugh, 'has a charm*of its own 
 from a certain allusiveness and vagueness of suggestion which are 
 more artistic than the fullest detail. The removal of the face-cloth 
 and the strategy of the nurse are unrecorded. Only, the child plays 
 with his father's lance and shield, and in his game reminds her of 
 her loss. Then with an outburst of grief she reproves him : 
 
 " Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow ! " 
 
 There is a suddenness of pathos here which is irresistible. This ver- 
 sion was many years afterward published with a musical setting by 
 Lady Tennyson.' 
 
 Mr. Dawson calls the song an ' unconscious imitation ' of a pas- 
 sage in Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. It is probably 
 a safer criticism to call it an interesting parallel. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 16. that great dame of Lapidoth; Deborah. See Judges, iv. 
 and V. 
 
 47. Blanch'd. Compare the employment of the word here with 
 the use of the Latin albus in the sense of propitious. 
 
 48. the golden year. Ohe of Tennyson's dominant thoughts is 
 expressed in the poem called The Golden Year: 
 
 ' We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; 
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun : 
 The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse, 
 And human things returning on themselves 
 Move onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land. 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Thro' all the circle of the golden year?' 
 
180 NOTES. [PAKT 
 
 62-3. by them went the enamor'd air, etc. This is another 
 purely Elizabethan conceit. 
 
 65. tremulous isles of light. See Appendix I. 
 69. timorously. ' The word occupies in the metre of the line 
 the place of one foot only, the resolution of which into four short 
 syllables that must be hurriedly pronounced indicates the timidity 
 and nervousness with which the girls approach the ghastly scene ' 
 (Wallace). 
 
 126. on tremble; atremble. Remember that the prefix a- in such 
 words as 'asleep,' 'afoot,' 'aboard,' 'alive,' is merely a contraction 
 of 'on.' 
 
 129-30. hollow w^atch . . . Red grief. Notice how powerfully 
 the meaning is condensed in these figurative touches. 
 186. in the dead prime. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I. Sc. ii: 
 
 'In the dead Avaste and middle of the night.' 
 
 234-9. There are in Shakespeare two similar descriptions of close 
 friendship between women : in As You Like It, Act I. Sc. iii ; and 
 in Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III. Sc. ii. 
 
 * 266-77. Previous to this scene what strength the Princess pos- 
 sessed has seemed to be of a masculine sort. From this point on her 
 natural strength of womanly sweetness and nobility becomes more 
 and more evident, as the hard aggressiveness and self-confidence 
 gradually fade from view. 
 
 287-90. Still another flawless bit of Elizabethan workmanship. 
 
 * 314-22. In the early editions this speech was about four times 
 as long as in its present form, and contained much of the rhetoric 
 which the reader has long ago learned to expect from her Highness. 
 The final version is far superior in compactness, dignity, and dra- 
 matic power. 
 
 319. The Pharos. This was a famous lighthouse built on the 
 island of Pharos, near Alexandria, by Ptolemy Philadelphus (about 
 250 B.C.). 
 
 338. In heraldry the supporters are the figures which flank the 
 central shield of a coat of arms; as, for example, in the arms of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 355. due. Cf. IV. 123 above. 
 * 361. those held sagest. Note that in the event their wisdom 
 
VII.] MOTES. 181 
 
 turns out to be of the sort which is celebrated in the following 
 song. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 * 'Notice the predominance in this song of monosyllables,' says 
 Mr. Wallace. ' Of the 125 words which it contains, only seven have 
 more than one syllable, and these only two. This feature imparts a 
 peculiar stateliness to the composition, emphasizing the solemnity 
 of its tone without impairing its melody. . . . This peculiar mourn- 
 ful and reserved tone is strikingly noticeable in such of Shake- 
 speare's sonnets as are constructed after the monosyllabic type.' 
 
 No critical comment seems necessary upon this perfect lyric of 
 absolute womanly surrender. 
 
 PART VII. 
 * 19. void "was her use. Cf . Aylmej^'s Field : 
 
 ' the gentle creature shut from all 
 Her charitable use.' 
 
 This, like most genuinely poetic expressions, loses force in pro- 
 portion as it gains explicitness, when it is turned into prose. Her 
 life was empty of its usual occupations, and she had as yet found 
 nothing to take their place. Her being was already stirred by the 
 inward pleading of emotions which she had abjured ; but she had no 
 thought, as yet, of laying aside her practical aims. 
 
 21. sees a great black cloud, etc. See Appendix I. 
 
 81-97. Of these seventeen verses only three do not begin with 
 'And.' What is the effect of this monotonous structure? 
 
 98. flourished up. Look up the literal meaning of 'flourish,' 
 and cf. II. 292 above. 
 
 100-1. In the opinion of the present editor, this is by far the most 
 beautiful simile in the poem. 
 
 108-11. The Oppian law, enacted when Hannibal was approach- 
 ing the gates of Rome, ordered that women should not wear bright- 
 colored robes, or own more than half an ounce of gold ornaments, or 
 drive in or near Rome. When the war was finished, and the neces- 
 sity for economy no longer pressing, the women demanded that the 
 law be repealed. One of the two consuls agreed, but Cato refused, 
 
182 WOTES. [part 
 
 whereupon ' the ■women rose, thronged the streets and forum, and 
 harassed the magistrates until the law was repealed.' 
 
 112. Hortensia, daughter of the orator Hortensius, spoke suc- 
 cessfully against a tax which had been imposed by the triumvirate 
 which succeeded Julius Csesar, upon the wealthy Roman matrons. 
 
 * 120 — From this point until the end, as the narrative changes to 
 what may be called a series of monologues, — always a favorite mode 
 of expression with Tennyson, — we find a more even excellence than 
 in any other portion of the main poem. 
 
 147-8. mood; spirit: mould; physical form: that other; 
 Aphrodite. If you are not familiar with the story of the birth 
 of Aphrodite, look it up in the classical reference-books. 
 
 189. horns; Alpine peaks. Cf. Matter/ior/i. Explain the ex- 
 pression ' walk with Death and Morning.' 
 
 205-7. A bewilderingly melodious passage, whose technical merit 
 equals that of Keats at his best. 
 
 198. water-smoke. So Tennyson writes, in The Lotos-Eaters : 
 
 'And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
 Along the chfif to pause and fall did seem.' 
 
 199. like a broken purpose. * To illustrate the material by the 
 immaterial is rare in figurative language ' (Rolfe). 
 
 229. the Signs. Consult a dictionary under Zodiac. 
 245. out of Lethe; here, simply * out of oblivion,' i.e., from the 
 moment of birth. 
 
 * 248. Stays all the fair young planet, etc. : \Yoman, the poet 
 says, holds the fate of this still childish, but gradually developing 
 world of men. 
 
 * 259-79. In these lines the fallacy, not narrowly of the ' woman's 
 rights ' doctrine, but in a broad sense of all efforts to ignore or annul 
 the difference in natural endowment of man and woman, is clearly 
 exposed. 
 
 295. besotted in sweet self; a phrase which comes dangerously 
 near the affectation of which Tennyson has been so often accused. 
 301-8. Cf. Wordsworth, * She was a phantom of delight ' : 
 
 'A creature not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food ; 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles. 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 
 
VII.] NOTES. 183 
 
 A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A Traveller between life and death ; 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
 A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, to command; 
 And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
 With something of angelic light.' 
 
 311. comes easy; an odd colloquialism to find in so serious a 
 context. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 24. realists. The use of the word here is quite different from 
 that which it commonly has with us ; the meaning is clear, however, 
 from the connection. 
 
 64. our own, i.e., 'the fantastic serio-comic tale we have just 
 been telling.' 
 
 73-4. maybe wUdest dreams are but the needful preludes, 
 etc. Cf . Love and Duty : 
 
 ' Shall Error in the round of time 
 Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout 
 For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself 
 Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law, 
 System, and empire? Sin itself be found 
 The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?' 
 
 76-7. This fine old world, etc. The poet's prophecy of hetter 
 times to come has already been quoted in the note on VI. 48 above. 
 87. pine; pineapples. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 [This letter was written by Tennyson to Mr. S. E. Dawson, soon after 
 the publication of Mr. Dawson's monograph, ' A Study of The Princess.' 
 This ' excellent little book,' says Dr. Van Dyke, ' was the occasion of draw- 
 ing from Tennyson a letter, which seems to me one of the most valuable, 
 as it is certainly one of the longest, pieces of prose that he has ever given 
 to the public.'] 
 
 Aldworth, Haslemere, 
 Surrey, Nov. 21st, 1882. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I thank you for your able and thoughtful essay 
 on The Princess. You have seen, amongst other things, that if 
 women ever were to play such freaks the burlesque and the tragic 
 might go hand-in-hand. 
 
 I may tell you that the songs were not an afterthought. 
 Before the first edition came out I deliberated with myself 
 whether I should put songs in between the separate divisions 
 of the poem — again, I thought, the poem will explain itself, 
 but the public did not see that the child, as you say, was the 
 heroine of the piece, and at last I conquered my laziness and 
 inserted them. You would be still more certain that the child 
 was the true heroine if, instead of the first song as it now stands, 
 
 'As thro' the land at eve we went' 
 
 I had printed the first song which I wrote. 
 
 The losing of the child. 
 
 The child is sitting on the bank of a river, and playing with 
 flowers — a flood comes down — a dam has been broken thro' — 
 the child is borne down by the flood — the whole village dis- 
 
 185 
 
186 APPENDIX I. 
 
 tracted — after a time the flood has subsided — the child is 
 thrown safe and sound again upon the bank and all the women 
 are in raptures. I quite forget the words of the ballad, but I 
 think I may have it somewhere. 
 
 Your explanatory notes are very much to the purpose, and 
 I do not object to your finding parallelisms. They must always 
 recur. A man (a Chinese scholar) some time ago wrote to me 
 saying that in an unknown, untranslated Chinese poem there 
 were two whole lines of mine, almost word for word. Why not ? 
 are not human eyes all over the world looking at the same ob- 
 jects, and must there not consequently be coincidences of thought 
 and impressions and expressions ? It is scarcely possible for any 
 one to say or write anything in this late time of the world to 
 which, in the rest of the literature of the world, a parallel could 
 not somewhere be found. But when you say that this passage 
 or that was suggested by Wordsworth or Shelley or another, I 
 demur, and more, I wholly disagree. There was a period in my 
 life when, as an artist, Turner for instance, takes rough sketches 
 of landskip, <§:c., in order to work them eventually into some 
 great picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or 
 five words or more, whatever might strike me as picturesque 
 in nature. I never put these down, and many and many a 
 line has gone away on the north wind, but some remain, e.g. : 
 
 'A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight.' 
 
 Suggestion : 
 The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most 
 lovely sea-village in England, tho' now a smoky town. The sky 
 was covered with thin vapour, and the moon was behind it. 
 
 *A great black cloud 
 Drag inward from the deep.' 
 
 Suggestion : 
 A coming storm seen from the top of Snowdon. In the Idyls 
 of the King 
 
APPENDIX I. 187 
 
 'with all 
 Its stormy crests that smote against the skies.' 
 
 Suggestion : 
 A storm which came upon us in the middle of the North Sea. 
 'As the water-lily starts and slides.' 
 Suggestion : 
 Water-lilies in my own pond, seen on a gasty day with my 
 own eyes. They did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind, 
 till caught and stayed by the tether of their own stalks — quite as 
 true as Wordsworth's simile and more in detail. 
 
 'A wild wind shook — 
 
 follow, follow, thou shalt win.' 
 
 Suggestion : 
 I was walking in the Xew Forest. A wind did arise and — 
 
 ' Shake the songs the whispers and the shrieks 
 Of the wild wood together.' 
 
 The wind, I believe, was a west-wind but, because I wished the 
 Prince to go south, I turned the wind to the south and, naturally, 
 the wind said ' follow.' I believe the resemblance which you 
 note is just a chance one. Shelley's lines are not familiar to me, 
 tlio', of course, if they occur in the Prometheus, I must have 
 read them. 
 
 I could multiply instances, but I will not bore you, and far 
 indeed am I from asserting that books, as well as nature, are not, 
 and ought not to be, suggestive to the poet. I am sure that 
 I myself, and many others, find a peculiar charm in those pas- 
 sages of such great masters as Virgil or Milton where they adopt 
 the creation of a bye-gone poet, and re-clothe it, more or less, 
 according to their own fancy. But there is, I fear, a prosaic 
 set growing up among us, editors of booklets, bookworms, index- 
 hunters, or men of great memories and no imagination, who 
 impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, has no 
 
188 APPENDIX I. 
 
 imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the pages of 
 some old volume in order to see what he can appropriate. They 
 will not allow one to say ' Ring the bells,' without finding that we 
 have taken it from Sir P. Sydney — or even to use such a simple ex- 
 pression as the ocean ' roars ' without finding out the precise verse 
 in Homer or Horace from which we have plagiarised it (fact!). 
 
 I have known an old fish-wife, who had lost two sons at sea, 
 clench her fist at the advancing tide on a stormy day and cry out 
 — ' Ay ! roar, do ! how I hates to see thee show thy white teeth ! ' 
 Now if I had adopted her exclamation and put it into the mouth 
 of some old woman in one of my poems, I daresay the critics 
 would have thought it original enough, but would most likely 
 have advised me to go to Nature for my old women and not to 
 my own imagination; and indeed it is a strong figure. 
 
 Here is another little anecdote about suggestion. When I was 
 about twenty or twenty-one I went on a tour to the Pyrenees. 
 Lying among these mountains before a waterfall that comes 
 down one thousand or twelve hundred feet I sketched it (accord- 
 ing to my custom then) in these words — 
 
 'Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn.' 
 
 When I printed this a critic informed me that ' lawn ' was 
 the material used in theatres to imitate a waterfall, and graciously 
 added ' Mr. T. should not go to the boards of a theatre but to 
 Nature herself for his suggestions.' —And I had gone to Nature 
 herself. 
 
 I think it is a moot point whether — if I had known how that 
 effect was produced on the stage — I should have ventured to 
 publish the line. 
 
 I find that I have written, quite contrary to my custom, a let- 
 ter, when I had merely intended to thank you for your interest- 
 ing commentary. 
 
 Thanking you again for it, I beg you to believe me 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 A. Tennyson, 
 
APPENDIX I. 189 
 
 P.S. By-the-bye, you are wrong about 'the tremulous isles 
 of light ' : they are ' isles of light,' spots of sunshine coming 
 through the leaves, and seeming to slide from one to the other, 
 as the procession of girls 'moves under shade.'' 
 
 And surely the ' beard-blown ' goat involves a sense of the 
 wind blowing the beard on the height of the ruined pillar. 
 
190 APPENDIX II. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 [The following facts about Cambridge University and ber colleges will 
 serve to explain several alUisions in the Prologue, as well as many hints in 
 the body of the narrative as to the constitution of the Princess's establish- 
 ment. They are taken from ' The Student's Guide to the University of 
 Cambridge' (Geo. Bell, London, 1880]. 
 
 The Colleges are foundations established and endowed at 
 different times by private munificence to secure a studious leis- 
 ure to learned men, and education to the young. They are of 
 later date than the University itself, but have in process of time 
 grown into an intimate union with it. For a considerable time 
 it was impossible to be a student of the University without being 
 a member of some College. ... At present every Undergradu- 
 ate is admitted either as the member of some College, or as a 
 ISTon-Collegiate student. The colleges are seventeen in number, 
 and differ from each other in innumerable details. . . . Every 
 College has a Head, who is generally called Master, but some- 
 times Provost or President. The student has few personal deal- 
 ings with him. He performs the ceremony of scholarships and 
 fellowships, and grave cases of misconduct are referred to him. 
 Then come the body of Fellows, out of whom and by whom the 
 Master is, in most cases, chosen. These are graduates of the 
 University in receipt of annuities arising from the founder's 
 bequest, and in possession of other privileges defined by stat- 
 utes. . . . 
 
 The Fellows with the Master constitute the governing body in 
 most Colleges, though in some the work is in the hands of a sec- 
 tion of this body. But the superintendent of the work of educa- 
 tion in the College, and the authority to whom the students look 
 
APPENDIX II. 191 
 
 up, is the Tutor. There is one or more of sucli officers in every 
 College, and in addition to the duty of lecturing in the College, 
 which he commonly shares with others, the Tutor's function is 
 to maintain discipline and control over all within the College 
 who are in statu piipillari. The Tutor is generally a Fellow, 
 and to aid in the work of instruction other Fellows or other 
 graduates are generally appointed with the title of Assistant 
 Tutors, whose business it is to lecture and enforce attendance at 
 their own lectures, and possibly in some degree to concern them- 
 selves with the general discipline of the Undergraduates. Be- 
 sides holding authority, the Tutor is a guardian and adviser to 
 the Undergraduates, and it is to him that the student should go 
 in any difficulty that may arise. 
 
 Besides the Tutors, Deans are appointed from the number of 
 the Fellows, who are charged to provide for the celebration of 
 Divine Service daily in the College Chapel, and in some cases to 
 enforce the attendance of the students. In the more important 
 colleges, the Deans also share with the Tutors the general super- 
 vision of the conduct of the students, especially in taking care 
 that proper hom-s are observed for returning home at night. . . . 
 The University [by way of supplement to the discipline of the 
 several colleges] maintains discipline among its students, i.e., 
 among all its members below the degree of Master in some 
 faculty, by means of Proctors. These officers are two in number, 
 annually elected, Masters of Arts or Laws, of three years' stand- 
 ing at the least, or Bachelors of Divinity. It is part of their duty 
 to watch over the behavior of the students, and, to assist them 
 in this, four Pro-proctors are annually appointed. They inflict 
 fines on those students whom they find abroad after dark with- 
 out cap and gown, and for graver offences they can inflict graver 
 penalties. They are attended by servants, who act as a kind of 
 University Police. Every Undergraduate or Bachelor is bound to 
 state to the Proctor or Pro-proctor, when called upon, his name 
 and College. The penalties inflicted at Cambridge are fines, con- 
 finement within the lodging-house or within the walls of the 
 
192 APPENDIX II. 
 
 College in the evening, rustication (dismissal from the Univer- 
 sity for one or more terms or part of a term, which of course 
 entails a prolongation of the time of undergraduateship), and 
 expulsion from the University. . . . 
 
 The Undergraduates of a college may be divided into the 
 classes of Scholars, Pensioners, Fellow-commoners and Sizars. 
 Noblemen may enter as a separate class, but few, if any, do so ; 
 and the class of Fellow-commoners is no longer an important 
 one. 
 
 The Scholars are students Avho receive an annuity from the 
 College, and enjoy besides certain exemptions varying at the 
 different Colleges. Scholarships are given in reward of merit, 
 and it is the first ambition of a student to win this distinction. 
 . . . The ordinary student of a College, who pays for every- 
 thing, and enjoys no exemptions, is called a Pensioner, i.e., a 
 boarder. Slzarships consist of certain emoluments and exemp- 
 tions given to students in consideration of poverty as well as 
 merit. The Sizar must of course occupy a position of inferiority, 
 as one avowedly poor in the company of richer men ; but on the 
 other hand the very avowal of his poverty secures him from 
 many temptations. 
 
 The duties commonly exacted by a College from its students 
 are attendance at Chapel and at lectures, and at the dinner in 
 the College Hall. At some Colleges those who do not attend 
 Chapel regularly will receive warnings from the Dean, and after 
 repeated warnings will be in danger of punishment, i.e., being 
 deprived of the liberty of passing the College gates, or the outer 
 door of lodgings, during some hours before they are closed for 
 the rest of the students. . . . There is a public dinner in the 
 hall of every College every day. Grace before meat is read com- 
 monly by the Scholars, and after meat by Scholars or the senior 
 Fellow present. 
 
 . . . Some persons prefer lodgings to rooms in College. They 
 have one practical advantage, viz., that in them, as in lodging- 
 houses anywhere else, the servants can be summoned at any 
 
APPENDIX 11. 193 
 
 time, whereas in College rooms there are no bells, and the ser- 
 vants, who go by the names of gyps and bedmake^^s, are not 
 constantly on the staircase, but make their rounds at fixed hours. 
 On the other hand, so far from there being greater liberty m 
 lod-in-s as might be supposed, there is somewhat less, tor the 
 lock which the lodging-house keeper is bound to turn at nme 
 or ten o'clock, confines you to the house itself, whereas the clos- 
 ing of the College gate at the same hour leaves to those withm 
 liberty to range the whole College. 
 
 Amon- the first and most indispensable steps to be taken after 
 entering,'ls the purchasing of a cap and gown. Each College has 
 its own pattern for the gown worn by its Undergraduates; for 
 Non-Collegiate students also a distinct pattern is prescribed. 
 The proper gown, with the cap, will be furnished by the Univer- 
 sity tailor The cap and gown constitute the academic dress, 
 and are to be used on all occasions when a student acts in the 
 character of a member of the University or College ; on all public 
 occasions . • at all University or College lectures, at the pub- 
 lic dinner in the College Hall, and generally at the College 
 Chapel At Chapel, instead of the gown, a surplice is worn on 
 Sunday, on Saturday evening, on all Saints' days, and at the even- 
 in- service of the day before every Saint's day. For the sake of 
 discipline, the cap and gown are required to be worn by all stu- 
 dents appearing in the streets in the evening, and throughout 
 the whole of Sunday. These rules are strictly maintained. 
 
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