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ALFRED TENNYSON

MAYNARD’S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.—No. 195–196
THE PRINCESS
* - 4.
7.e. a wºod, *. 7– 44' e--
ALFRED,(LoRD) TENNYSON
WITH INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY
NOTES
NEW YORK
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO.

A COMPLETE COURSE IN THE STUDY OF ENGLISH,
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Kellogg & Reed's The English Language.
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Kellogg’s Text-Book on English Literature.
In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object’
clearly in view—to so develop the study of the English language as
to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to
the study of English Literature, The troublesome contradictions
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school-
room, will be avoided by the use of the above “Complete Course.”
Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books.
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & Co., PUBLISHERS,
29, 3 I, and 33 East Nineteenth St., New York.
Copyright, 1897, by MAYNARD, MERRILL, & Co.
i.
.//
%-4,
INTRODUCTION
ALFRED TENNYSON was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby, a
hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neighboring
parish, his father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was rector. The
poet’s mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche,
vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven sons—Frederick,
Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, and Septimus. A
daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmund Law Lushington,
long professor of Greek in Glasgow University. Whether there .
were other daughters, the biographies of the poet do not mention.
Tennyson's career as a poet dates back as far as 1827, in which
year, he being then but eighteen years of age, he published anon-
ymously, in connection with his brother Charles (who was only
thirteen months his senior, having been born July 4, 1808), a
small volume, entitled “Poems by Two Brothers.” The Preface,
which is dated March, 1827, states that the poems contained in
the volume “were written from the ages of fifteen to eighteen,
not conjointly but individually; which may account for the differ-
ence of style and matter.” sº
In 1828, or early in 1829, these two brothers entered Trinity
College, Cambridge, where their eldest brother, Frederick, had
already entered. At the Cambridge Commencement in 1829, Al-
fred took the Chancellor's gold medal, by his poem entitled “Tim-
buctoo.” That appears to have been the first year of his acquaint-
ance, which soon ripened into an ardent friendship, with Arthur
Henry Hallam, this friendship, as we learn from the xxii. section
of “In Memoriam,” having been, at Hallam's death, of “four
sweet years’.” duration. It is an interesting fact that Hallam was
one of Tennyson's rival competitors for the Chancellor’s prize.
His poem is dated June, 1829. It is contained in his “Literary
Remains.” Among other of Tennyson's friends at the University
3
4 INTRoDUCTION ?
were John Mitchell Kemble, the Anglo-Saxon scholar; William
Henry Brookfield, long an eloquent preacher in London ; James
Spedding, the biographer and editor of Lord Bacon ; Henry Alford,
Dean of Canterbury; Richard Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord
Houghton), who united the poet and the politician, and was the
biographer of Keats; and Richard Chenevix Trench, who became
Dean of Westminster in 1856, and Archbishop of Dublin in 1864.
A brilliant array of college friends !
Tennyson’s prize poem was published shortly after the Cam-
bridge Commencement of 1829, and was very favorably noticed
in The Athenæum of July 22, 1829. In it can already be recognized
much of the real Tennyson. There are, indeed, but very few
poets whose earliest productions exhibit so much of their after-
selves. The real Byron, the most vigorous in his diction of all
modern poets, hardly appears at all in his Hours of Idleness,
which was published when he was about the age that Tennyson
was when Timbuctoo was published.
In 1830 appeared Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson.
In this volume appeared, among others, the poems entitled Ode
to Memory, The Poet, The Poet's Mind, The Deserted House, and
The Sleeping Beauty, which were full of promise, and struck key-
notes of future works. The reviews of the volume mingled praise
and blame—the blame perhaps being predominant. In 1832 ap-
peared Poems by Alfred Tennyson, among which were included
The Lady of Shalott, The Miller's Daughter, The Palace of Art,
The Lotos Eaters, and A Dream of Fair Women, all showing a
great advance in workmanship and a more distinctly articulate
utterance—many of the poems of the previous volumes being
rather artist-studies in vowel and melody suggestiveness. It was
reviewed, somewhat facetiously, in The Quarterly, July, 1833,
(vol. 49, pp. 81–96) by, as was generally understood, John Gibson
Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, at that time editor
of The Quarterly; and in a more earnest and generous vein, by
John Stuart Mill, in The Westminster, July, 1835.
A silence of ten years succeeded the 1832 volume, broken only
by an occasional contribution of a short poem to some magazine
or collection. In 1842 appeared Poems by Alfred Tennyson, in
two volumes, containing selections from the volumes of 1830 and
1832, and many new poems, among which were Ulysses, Love and
INTRODUCTION … 5
Duty, The Talking Oak, Godiva, and the remarkable poems of
The Two Voices and The Vision of Sîn. The volumes were most
enthusiastically received, and Tennyson took at once his place as
England’s great poet. A second edition followed in 1843, a third
in 1845, a fourth in 1846, and a fifth in 1848. Then came The
Ph'êncess : A Medley, 1847; a second edition, 1848; In Memoriam,
1850, three editions appearing in the same year.
The poet was married June 13, 1850, to Emily, daughter of
Henry Sellwood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin, of Arctic
Expedition fame. Wordsworth had died April 23 of that year,
and the laureateship was vacant. After some opposition, the
chief coming from The Athenæum, which advocated the claims of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson received the appointment,
his In Memoriam, which had appeared a short time before, and
which at once laid hold of so many hearts, contributing much, no
doubt, to the final decision. His presentation to the queen took
place at Buckingham Palace, March 6, 1851, and in the same
month appeared the seventh edition of the Poems, with an intro-
ductory poem To the Queen, in which he pays a high tribute to
his predecessor in the laureateship :
“Victoria, since your royal grace
To One of less desert, allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that uttered nothing base.”
$
To do much more than note the titles of his principal works
since he became Poet-Laureate, the prescribed limit of this
sketch will not allow. In 1855 appeared Maud, which, though
it met with great disapprobation and but stinted praise, is, per-
haps, one of his greatest poems. In July, 1859, the first of the
Idyls of the ſºng appeared, namely, Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and
Guinevere, which were at once great favorites with all readers of
the poet ; in August, 1864, Enoch Arden, with which were pub-
lished Aylmer's Field, Sea Dreams, The Grandmother, and The
Worthern Farmer ; in December, 1869, four additional Idyls,
under the title The Holy Grail and Other Poems, namely, The
Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettare, and
The Passing of Arthur, of which forty thousand copies were
ordered in advance; in December, 1871, in The Contemporary
JReview, The Last Tournament ; in 1872, Gareth and Lynette ; in
6 INTRODUCTION .
1875, Queen Mary: A Drama, in 1877, Harold : A Drama; in
1880, Ballads and Other Poems.
Tennyson's Muse has been productive of a body of lyric, idyllic,
metaphysical, and narrative or descriptive poetry, the choicest,
rarest, daintiest, and of the most exquisite workmanship of any
that the century has to show. In a strictly dramatic direction he
can hardly be said to have been successful. His Queen Mary is
but little short of a failure as a drama, and his Harold but a
partial success. With action proper he has shown but little
sympathy, and in the domain of vicarious thinking and feeling,
in which Robert Browning is so pre-eminent, but little ability.
But no one who is well acquainted with all the best poetry of the
nineteenth century will hesitate to pronounce him facile princeps
in the domain of the lyric and idyllic ; and in these departments
of poetry he has developed a style at once individual and, in an
artistic point of view, almost “faultily faultless”—a style which
may be traced from his earliest efforts up to the most complete
perfection of his latest poetical works.
The splendid poetry he has given to the world has been the
product of the most patient elaboration. No English poet, with
the exception of Milton, Wordsworth, and the Brownings, ever
worked with a deeper sense of the divine mission of poetry than
Tennyson has worked. And he has worked faithfully, earnestly,
and conscientiously to realize the ideal with which he appears to
have been early possessed. To this idea he gave expression in
two of his early poems, entitled The Poet and The Poet's Mind ;
and in another of his early poems, The Lady of Shalott, is mys-
tically shadowed forth the relations which poetic genius should
sustain to the world for whose spiritual redemption it labors, and
the fatal consequences of its being seduced by the world's tempta-
tions—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life. e
Great thinkers and writers owe their power among men, not
necessarily so much to a wide range of ideas, or to the originality
of their ideas, as to the intense vitality which they are able to
impart to some one comprehensive, fructifying idea, with which,
through constitution and the circumstances of their times, they
have become possessed. It is only when a man is really pos-
sessed with an idea (that is, if it does not run away with him)
INTRODUCTION y
that he can express it with a quickening power, and ring all
possible changes upon it.
What may be said to be the dominant idea, and the most
vitalized, in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson ? It is easily noted.
It glints forth every where in his poetry. It is, that the complete
man must be a well-poised duality of the active and the passive
or receptive; must unite with an “all-subtilizing intellect,” an -
“all-comprehensive tenderness " ; must “‘gain in sweetness and
in moral height, nor lose the wrestling the ws that throw the
World.”
[Thus far Dr. Corson, of Cornell University, in his Introduc-
tion to The Two Voices and A Dream of Fair Women, poems
edited by him for Maynard's English Classic Series.] -
THE PRINCESS
The Princess was first printed in 1847, and the fifth and defini-
tive edition was published in 1853. At the time of its first publi-
cation, the miovement in favor of woman's rights was in great
danger, because of the absurd length to which it had been carried
by ill-advised and short-sighted reformers, of defeating its own,
ends. The general public did not, as a rule, see the importance
and significance of the agitation underlying the absurdities and
violence which had become incorporated with the movement.
“If women ever play such freaks,” wrote Tennyson to Mr. Daw-
Son in a letter expressing the poet’s appreciation of the latter's
“Study of ‘The Princess,’’’ ‘‘the burlesque and the tragic might
go hand in hand,” and this remark is significant of the poet's method
in the attempt to point out the true life of woman. The poem is,
as its sub-title implies, miscellaneous in subject-matter and in
treatment. If, as Dr. Van Dyke thinks, this is its most serious
defect, yet it is a defect that is all but inevitable; for the subject
of woman's rights could not, at that time, be discussed in all
seriousness and gain the hearing which it must gain to accom-
plish its end; for the poem is essentially didactic. That Tennyson
recognized the dangers of the mock-heroic style is evident from
passages in the Prologue and Conclusion which are more definitely
pointed out in the notes.
Professor Wallace has instanced a passage from Comte's Sys-
tem of Positive Polity as an admirable summary of the teaching
of the poem:
“Viewed thus, marriage is the most elementary, and yet the
most perfect, mode of social life. It is the only association in
which entire identity of interests is possible. In this union, to
the moral completeness of which the language of all civilized
nations bears testimony, the noblest aim of human life is realized,
as far as it ever can be. . For the object of human existence, as
shown in the second chapter, is progress of every kind; progress
in morality, that is to say, in the subjection of self-interest to
social feeling, holding the first rank. Now this unquestionable
principle, which has been already indicated in the second chapter,
8
THE PRINCESS 9
leads us by a very sure and direct path to the true theory of mar-
riage. ºr
“Different as the two sexes are by nature, and increased as that
difference is by the diversity which happily exists in their social
position, each is consequently necessary to the moral develop-
ment of the other. In practical energy and in the mental capacity
connected with it, man is evidently superior to woman. Woman's
strength, on the other hand, lies in feeling. She excels man in
love, as man excels her in all kinds of force. It is impossible to
conceive of a closer union than that which binds these two beings
to the mutual service and perfection of each other, saving them
from all danger of rivalry. The voluntary character, too, of this
union gives it a still further charm when the choice has been on
both sides a happy one. In the Positive theory, then, of marriage,
its principal object is considered to be that of completing and con-
firming the education of the heart by calling out the purest and
strongest of human sympathies,”
The Princess, more than any other of Tennyson's longer poems
with the possible exception of In Memoriam, is dependent on
explanatory notes for its proper appreciation and enjoyment, and
especially is this true in the case of children; the themes which
are its subject are beyond their experience and, to a large degree,
their interest, its structure is intricate and unusual, and its beauty
as poetry lies largely, as it were, under the surface; but its value
as a field for study rather lies in these characteristics than exists
in spite of them. *
The notes of the present edition have been rigidly subjected to
the test of the question, “Is the pupil likely to find this out for
himself?” and it is believed that they contain nothing which will
not be a distinct help in the understanding and enjoyment of the
poem. On the other hand, more has been sought for than the
Iºere ability to pass an examination on the subject-matter of the
poem, and an attempt has been made to help the student to an
appreciation of the more distinctively artistic features of Tenny-
son's work as such.
In preparing the present edition constant use has been made of
the notes to the edition of Professor Wallace of the Anglo-Indian
College, Aligarh (Macmillan).
August 16, 1897
CRITICAL OPINIONS
“The Princess, as we now possess it, is the outcome of careful
and sustained effort on the poet's part, the offspring of his mature
powers, polished and refined through several editions, and may
thus be fairly regarded as a work upon which its author has
bestowed the utmost of his critical after-thought as well as creative
power. And when we consider with what marked success Ten-
nyson has throughout his career maintained the high standard of
excellence that he early trained us to expect from his pen, whether
we look for healthiness and sobriety of thought, artistic treatment
of materials, or splendor and grace of language, this poem will
appear worthy in an especial degree of our earnest and reverent
study, with respect both to his handling of the various problems
and points at issue in the main theme of the story, and to the
manner and form of their presentation.”—P. M. WALLACE.
“To describe his command of language by any ordinary terms
expressive of fluency or force would be to convey an idea both
inadequate and erroneous. It is not only that he knows every
word in the language suited to express his every idea; he can
select with the ease of magic the word that above all others is best
for his purpose; nor is it that he can at once summon to his aid
the best word the language affords; with an art which Shake-
speare never scrupled to apply, though in our day it is apt to be
counted mere Germanism, and pronounced contrary to the genius
of the language, he combines old words into new epithets, he
daringly mingles all colors to bring out tints that never were on
sea or shore. His words gleam like pearls and Opals, like rubies
and emeralds. He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue
to the chariot of his imagination, and they become gracefully
brilliant as the leopards of Bacchus, soft and glowing as the
Cytherean doves. He must have been born with an ear for verbal,
10
CRITICAL OPINIONS - 11
sounds, an instinctive appreciation of the beautiful and delicate
in words, hardly ever equaled. Though his later works speak
less of the blossom-time—show less of the efflorescence and irides-
cence and mere glance and gleam of colored words—they display
no falling off, but rather an advance, in the mightier elements of
rhythmic speech.”—PETER BAYNE. ... - - - - - - - -
“Not often has a lovelier story been recited. After the idyllic
introduction, the body of the poem is composed in a semi-heroic
verse. Other works of our poet are greater, but none is so fasci-
nating as this romantic tale : English throughout, yet combining
the England of Coeur de Leon with that of Victoria in one be-
witching picture. Some of the author's most delicately musical
lines—"jewels five words long '—are herein contained, and the
ending of each canto is an effective piece of art. .
“Few will deny that, taken together, these [songs] constitute
the finest group of songs produced in our century; and the third,
knöwn-as-the-‘Buglé Soñg,” seems to many the most perfect
English lyric since the time of Shakespeare. In The Princess
we also find Tennyson's most successful studies upon the model
of the Theocritan 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. Not one of the
blank-verse songs in his Arthurian epic equals in structure or
feeling the ‘Tears, idle tears,’ and ‘O swallow, swallow, flying,
flying south.’”— Victorian Poets : E. C. STEDMAN.
“One hardly knows how to take the poet. At one moment he
is very much in earnest; the next moment he seems to be making
fun of the woman's college. The style is like a breeze that blows
northwest by Southeast ; it may be a very lively breeze, and full
of sweet odors from every quarter; but the trouble is that we
cannot tell which way to trim our sails to catch the force of it, and
so our craft goes jibing to and fro, without making progress in any
direction. -
“I think we feel this uncertainty most of all in the characters
of the Princess and the Prince,—and I name the Princess first
because she is evidently the hero of the poem. Sometimes she
appears to be very admirable and lovable, in a stately kind of
beauty ; but again she seems like a woman from whom a man
with Ordinary prudence and a proper regard for his own sense of
12 - CRITICAL OPINIONS
humor would promptly and carefully flee away, appreciating the
truth of the description which her father, King Gama, gives of
her :
“‘Awful odes she wrote,
Too awful sure for what they treated of,
But all she says and does is awful.”
“There is a touch of her own style, it seems to me, here and
there in the poem. The epithets are somewhat too numerous and
too stately. The art is decidedly arabesque; there is a surplus of
ornament ; and here, more than any where else, one finds it diffi-
cult to defend Tennyson from the charge of over-elaboration.”
— The Poetry of Tennyson : HENRY WAN DYKE.
“The poem of The Princess, as a work of art, is the most com-
plete and satisfying of all Tennyson's works. It possesses a play
of fancy, of humor, of pathos, and of passion which give it vari-
ety; while the feeling of unity is unbroken throughout. It is full
of passages of the rarest beauty and most exquisite workman-
ship. The songs it contains are unsurpassed in English literature,
The diction is drawn from the treasure-house of old English poe-
try—from Chaucer, from Shakespeare, and the poets of the Eliza-
bethan age. The versification is remarkable for its variety; while
the rhythm, in stateliness and expression, is modelled upon Milton.
There are passages which, in power over language to match
sound with sense, are not excelled by anything in Paradise
Lost for strength, or in Milton’s minor poems for sweetness.
—Study of the Princess : S. E. DAWSON.

1/vºc ºf e- ºr a 3.

* - - - - ---
~
THE PRINCESS
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 flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighboring borough with their Institute 5
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son, the son
A Walter too, with others of our set,
Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place.
aw
And me that morning Walter show’d the house, 10
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall
The purpose of the prologue is to provide a setting for the tale and to
give it an atmosphere. The description of the fête with the implied
changing gonditions and methods in education Seryes as a prelude to
the central thought of the poem proper. With this is contrasted the
Quiet group of story-tellers.' -
2. lawns, broad meadows.
5. Institute, an educational and social institution established in the
interests of the working classes.
11. Greek, of Grecian architecture.
13
14 THE PRINCESS
SJ
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 ; 15
And on the tables every clime and age
(J umbled together ; celts and calumets,
Claymore and Snowshoe, toys in lava, fans
Of Sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, -
Laborious Orient ivory sphere in sphere, 20
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 ; 25
And that was old Sir Ralph'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 mixed with these, a lady, one that arm’d
. 12 names, even more beautiful than their beautiful names ; not a
contrast between beauty and harshness.
15 Ammonites, fossil shells of cuttle-fishes, once thought to be petri-
fied snakes. -
first bones, fossils of prehistoric animals.
17. celts, the stone weapons of the ancient Danes.
calumets, Indian tol)acco-pipes: “the pipe of peace.”
18, clay more, the two-handed sword of the Scottish Highlanders.
19. sandal, sandalwood. -
b 20. laborious ivories, carved ivory balls, one within another; bric-a.
I’à,C.
21. cursed crease, a double-edged sword, with a serpentine blade;
“Cul'sed '' for the terrible wound that, it inflictS.
22, isles of palm, the South Sea, Islands. ".
r: Agincourt, a famous battle (1415), in which Henry V. defeated the
1°CIn Cºll. .
26. Ascalon, in Palestine, where in 1192 Richard I, defeated the Sara-
cens under Saladin in oneof the greatest battles of the crusades.
THE PRINCESS 15
Her own fair head, and Sallying thro’ the gate,
IHad beat her foes with slaughter from the walls.
- - |
“O miracle of women,” said the book, 35
“O 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—
IHer stature more than mortal in the burst 40
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire—º
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt,
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,
And some were whelm’d with missiles of the wall, 45
And some were push’d with lances from the rock,
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook :
O 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 55
With happy faces and with holiday.
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : .
|
36, strait, hard and close ; cf. “in sore straits.”
55. murmured, resounded with voices. -
56. with happy faces and with holiday, a classical figure of speech
called Hendiadys, meaning one thought in two expressions. The
jºhere is “with the happy faces of those who were enjoying the
|10|1Clay. - - - - *
16 THE PRINCTESS
\
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 65
A cannon : Echo answer'd in her sleep
From hollow fields : and here were telescopes
For azure views ; and there a group of girls
In circle waited, whom the electric shock
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter : round the lake
A little clockwork steamer paddling plied 71
And shook the lilies: perch’d about the knolls
A dozen angry models jetted steam :
A petty railway ran : a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 75
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 80
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
66. Echo, personified ; the Grecian Nymph. -
73. angry, acting in a way which in man would denote anger ; the
“pathetic fallacy,” i.e., the attribution to inanimate objects of the fac-
ulties which properly belong to man. -
81. pure, without any attempt at instruction.
82, stumped the wicket, a term in the English game of cricket,
THE PRINCESS , 17
And shadow, while the twangling violin 85
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 90
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 : 95
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends
From neighbor seats; and there was Ralph himself,
A broken statue propt against the wall,
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 100
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 105
Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests,
86. Soldier-laddie, the name of a favorite tune for dancing.
87–88. Notice the onomatopoeia, i.e., the correspondence between the
sound of the Words and the sound of that which they describe.
89. smacking of the time, characteristic of the age, indicative of an
awakening interest in science. .
92. Gothic architecture, which reached its greatest popularity in Eng-
land during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is graceful and
delicate as contrasted with Norman or classic architecture.
93. thro' . . . frost, a chasm in the Walls due to age and the action of
the elements.
93. gave, allowed a view of.
98. neighbor seats, adjacent country-seats.
106, silver-set, set with silver plate.
18 TEIE PRINCESS
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 110.
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 homeying at the whisper of a lord ; 115
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain,
Veneer'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 “Where,”
Ask’d Walter, patting Lilia’s head (she lay 125
Beside him) “lives there such a woman now 2°
Quick answer'd Lilia: “ There are thousands now
Such women, but convention beats them down :
It is but bringing up ; no more than that :
108. this fair day, this fête of the working-people.
110. all things great, elevated topics.
111. spikes, on the wall of the college gardens.
112. bars, on the window of a college room.
113. breathed, tired out with running.
. Proctor, a university officer, whose duty it is to superintend the
discipline of the students and to maintain good order.
dogs, college Slang for proctor’s assistants.
115. honeying, becoming affable.
116. Master, the head of a Cambridge college,
128; convention, custom,
TEIE PRINCESS 19
You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 130
Ah, were I something great ' I wish I were
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then,
That love to keep us children I O I wish
That I were some great princess, I would build
JFar off from men a college like a man’s, 135
And I would teach them all that men are taught ;
We are twice as quick l’ 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 140
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns,
But move as rich as Emperor-moths or Ralph
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 145
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 150
For any male thing but to peep at us.”
Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh’d ;
A rosebud set with little willful thorns, .
138. played the patron, rested patronizingly on her hair.
140. halls, college buildings. -
141. dowager, the widow of a nobleman.
... dean, the chief disciplinary officer of a college. Notice the
alliteration in 141–142. -
144, Emperor-moths, moths of magnificent coloring. * *
20 THE PRINCESS
\
And sweet as English air could make her, she
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 155
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 : 160
They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of deans;
They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends,
And caught the blossoms of the flying terms,
But miss’d the mignonette of Vivian-place,
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 165
Part banter, part affection.
“True,” she said,
“We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much.
I’ll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.”
She held it out ; and as a parrot turns
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 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 :
155. hailed, cf. I. 60—“Snow’d it down,” VI. 50—" rain,” and our ex-
pression, “showered.”
158. she-society, cf. III. 147—“our fair she-world.”
161. lost their weeks. In the English universities, residence in col-
lege for a certain number of terms is a condition of receiving a degree.
Absences from dinner in hall beyond a certain limit render a Stu-
dent unable to count the week in which they occurred as weeks of
residence toward his degree. The expression, then, Simply denotes
irregularity of attendance. &
163. Cf. Herrick: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”
164. In , the French, from which the , name of the fiower comes,
mignonette is the diminutive of migmom (darling).
172, for true heart, for real affection.
TELE PRINCESS 21
We seven stay’d at Christmas up to read ; 176
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 molder'd in a sinecure as he 180
For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet,
And our long walks were stripped 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— 185
As many little trifling Lilias—play’d
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,
And what’s my thought and when and where and how,
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth
As here at Christmas.”
- She remember'd that : 190
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 2
A half-disdain
Perch’d on the pouted blossom of her lips : 195
And Walter nodded at me ; “ He began,
The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind P what kind 2
176. to read, the English expression for “to study.”
178. Mathematics.
180. led such an idle life. Simecure, a Latin word (lit. “without
care ") meaning a position of ease. -
183, pledge in wassail, drink your health ; from the Scandinavian
expression 10CEs hoºl, i.e., “good health to you.”
185. hollies and yews, Christmas decorations.
187–8. Christmas games.
191. Lilia, girl-like, prefers the quieter games.
22 THE PRINCESS
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200
Time by the fire in winter.”
“IGill him now,
The tyrant ſ kill him in the summer too,”
Said Lilia; “Why not now 2° the maiden Aunt.
“Why not a summer’s as a winter’s tale P
A tale for summer as befits the time, 205
And something it should be to suit the place,
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 ;
IHeroic if you will, or what you will, 215
Or be yourself your hero if you will.”
“Take I.ilia, then, for heroine,” clamor’d he,
“And make her some great Princess, six feet high,
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you
199. Chimera, a monster in Greek mythology, having the head of a
lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. The Word here
means a grotesque and incongruous tale.
crotchets, whimsical fancies. .
solecism, something absurd and extravagant ; here an extrava-
gant Story. g *
204. winter's tale. The reference is to Shakspeare's play, The Wim-
ter's Tale ; see 231 below.
208. warp'd, twisted. *
210, sudden-shrilling. Tennyson’s use of , alliterative compound
words is noticeable. Cf. “point-painted,” “work-wan,” “gloomy-
gladed,” “mock-meek,” etc.
213. A little . . . color. She was annoyed at the frivolity of Walter
and Lilia. .
219, homicidal, referring to Lilia's speech, 127-137 above.
THE PRINCESS 23
The Prince to Win her | *
“Then follow me, the Prince,” 220
I answer'd, “each be hero in his turn
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream.—
Heroic seems our Princess as required—
But something made to suit with Time and place,
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 225
A talk of college and of ladies’ rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments
For 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.
No matter : We will say whatever comes.
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, 235
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.
222. Shadows in a dream, following each other without the slightest
IleCeSSary COn nection.
223-228. Almost a complete prophecy of the poem.
229. AS Witches.
230. were, would indeed be.
239, songs. The Songs were introduced in the third edition of The
Primcess (1850).
24 TEIE PRINCESS
$ 4
* *
r ..., ,
*.. ...
* ** 3.
# . - *
º i Af\f
º As 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. 5
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. 10
For so, my mother said, the story ran. f
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, 15
And while I walk’d and talk’d 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,
2. Amorous, as the first of May, cf. Locksley Hall, 20– -
“In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
4. I was born in the North.
7. Because he cast no shadow, considered a proof of complicity with
the Evil One.
13. affection, disease.
14. weird, supernatural.
.19. Galen of Pergamus (130–209), the greatest, physician of ancient
times. His name is used as a synonym for medical authority. So we
have “a perfect Samson,” etc.
THE PRINCESS 25
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,
So gracious was her tact and tenderness :
But my good father thought a king a king ; 25
He cared not for the affection of the house ;
He held, his scepter like a pedant’s wand
To lash offense, and with long arms and hands
Reach'd out, and pick’d offenders from the mass
For judgment. . -
—---------" Now it chanced that I had been, 30
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, 35
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 grew nigh that I should wed, 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 :
23. Half-canonized, regarded almost as a saint.
27. pedant, here used in its old sense of schoolmaster.
33. Proxy-wedded with a bootless calf. In the ceremony of proxy-
marriage, which was common during the Middle Ages, the représenta-
tive of the bridegroom removed his boot and placed his leg, bare to
the knee, in the bridal bed. Anne of Brittany and Maximilian of
Austria were so married in 1489. -
26 THE PRINCESS
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts; 45
BIe 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.
**-*-a-.. . . \- ... - .
~" "
That morning in 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 . 55
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 60
The wonder of the loom thro’ warp and woof
Trom 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. 66
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,
50, presence-room, audience-chamber. -
ºf hewed the thrice-turned cud of wrath, meditated upon the
insult. -
65., cooked his spleen, let his heart brood over his anger. The an-
Cients believed that the spleen was the seat of wrath, as the heart
was that of love. 4 -
THE PRINCESS 27
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, 75
Who Wedded with a nobleman from thence :
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,
The lady of three castles in that land :
Thro’ her this matter might be sifted clean.”
And Cyriſ whisper'd : “Take me with you too.” 80
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 l’’ 85
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 bath’d
In the green gleam of dewy-tassel'd trees :
What were those fancies P. Wherefore break her troth P
Proud look’d the lips : but while I meditated 95
A wind arose and rush’d upon the South,
93. dewy-tassel'd, hung with catkins like tassels.
96–100. Cf. Shelley: Prometheus Umbowmd, II. i.--
“A wind arose among the pines; it Shook
The clinging music from their boughs, and then
Low, Sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard: “Oh follow, follow, follow me !’”
28 TENE PRINCESS
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
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 106
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, --
And flying reach'd the frontier : then we crost
To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange,
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, 110
We gain’d the mother-city thick with towers,
And in the imperial palace found the king.
--~~~~ S-- ~~~
- i 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; 115
A little dry old man, without a star,
Not like a king : three days he feasted us,
And on the fourth I spake of why we came,
And my betroth’d. “You do us, Prince,” he said,
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120
“All honor. We remember love ourselves
In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass
100–101. Before the crescent moon became full.
06. Bastion'd, fortified with ramparts.
109. tilth, tilled land. grange, farmhouse.
110. bosk, a bush, a shrub. . -
111. nº other-city, Capital city.
116, without a star, with no decorations or orders of nobility.
THE PRINCESS & 29
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, 125
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 women were an equal to the man. 130
They harp'd on this : with this our banquets rang;
Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ;
Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot
To hear them : knowledge, so my daughter held,
Was all in all ; they had but been, she thought, 135
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 140
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change -
Beyond all reason : these the women sang ;
And they that know such things—I sought but peace ;
No critic I—would call them masterpieces: -
They master'd me. At last she begged a boom, 145
A certain summer palace which I have
Hard by your father’s frontier : I said no,
Yet being an easy man, gave it : and there
All wild to found an University
For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more 150
124. The failure of the olive crop was a matter of greater importance
to the king than was the marriage of his daughter. -
136–137. lose the child, assume the woman, cease to be submissive,
assert their rights as mature beings. Cf. Prologue, 133,
30 - THE PRINCESS
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 155
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.”
- Thus the king ; 160
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 165
Many a long league back to the Worth. 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; 170
There, enter’d an old hostel, call’d mine host
To council, plied him with his richest wines,
And show’d the late-writ letters of the king.
He, with a long low sibilation, stared
158, in some sort, to a certain extent.
163. frets, hindrances, impediments ; fret is here used in its etymo-
logical sense of friction.
167. a land of hope, because it contained that for which he hoped, i.e.,
the Princess.
170, the liberties, an English legal term. Here is meant the estate of
which the Princess had been given possession by her father, and over
which she exercises jurisdiction.
171. hostel, tavern, inn. . . g
174, sibilation, the low whistle of Surprise,
TEIE PRINCESS 31
As blank as death in marble ; then exclaim’d 175
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 2
The king would bear him out ; ” and at the last— 180
The summer of the vine in all his veins—
“No doubt that we might make it worth his while.
She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ;
She scared him ; life he never saw the like ;
She look’d as grand as doomsday and as grave : 185
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there ;
He always made a point to post with mares ;
His daughter and his housemaid were the boys :
The land, he understood, for miles about
Was till’d by women ; all the swine were sows, 190
And all the dogs”— ”
But while he jested thus,
A thought flash'd thro’ me which I clothed in act,
Remembering how we three presented Maid
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast,
In masque or pageant at my father’s court. 195
We sent mine host to purchase female gear;
He bought it, and himself, a sight to shake
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes
We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 200
181. the summer of the vine, the genial warmth of the wine.
187. to post, to run a Service of coaches.
188. boys, postilions.
192. clothed in act, garried out in actual performance.
193. presented, acted the rôle of.
195, Masques and pageants were theatrical representations, usually
Spectacular and allegorical in character, accompanied by music. They
were often produced in the open air. Milton's Comus is a celebrated
example of a masque. -
198, holp, old past tense of help.
32 THE PRINCESS
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 205
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 änd 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
Of fountains spouted up and showering down 215
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose :
And all about us peal’d the nightingale,
Rapt 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-armed Ostleress and a stable wench
Came running at the call, and help’d us down.
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 225
201. guerdon, reward.
20á. copse, cluster of trees or shrubs. -
206. linden alley, avenue of linden or lime trees.
209. Cf. II, 178. º * -
218. her, it is the male nightingale that sings, but the poets almost
universally make the bird a feminine songster. In classic legend the
nightingale is Philomela, a woman.
219, Pallas, in Greek mythology, the goddess of Wisdom, and patron
of Athen S.
320, blazoned, portrayed.
\ - • * --" \ \, ,
THE PRINCESS 33
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 Pysche.” “Which 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 235
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
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 245
226. gave, opened upon, cf. Prologue, 93.
233–234. In the slanting handwriting of women.
238. Cupid, the god of passion, was blind to spiritual love, of which
Uranian Venus was the patron deity. The reference is to Plato's
Symposium. -
t % The Prince's dreams are colored by his vague hopes and expec-
8,510 Il S.
Tennyson, in a letter to Mr. Dawson, tells us that the songs were not
an after thought, although they were not included in the poem until
the publication of the third edition. “The public did not see,” he
says, “that the child, as you Say, was the heroine of the piece, and at
last I conquered my laziness and inserted them.”
The central theme of all the songs is the º and endurance of the
affections, and four refer especially to the love of children. The first
of these sings the power of their love for their child in bringing about
a reconciliation between a husband, and wife who have quarreled,
and is contrasted with Ida's careless disclaimer of the power of child.
love in the lives of mature men and women : -
“Children die; and let me tell you, girl,
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die.”—III. 236–7.
34 THE PRINCESS
II
As thro’ the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Othere above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.
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, 5
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 10
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay
1. The Second speaker here takes up the story.
2. Academic silks, cf. Prologue, 143.
10. boss'd, carved in relief, like the “boss” of a shield.
11. frieze, that part of the building, in classic architecture, that lies
between the edge of the roof and the bar that stretches along the tops
of the Supporting columns; it is usually decorated in relief. .
THE PRINCESS * 35
Betwixt the pillars, and with 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 15
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,
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 25
Lived thro’ her to the tips of her long hands,
And to her feet.) She rose her height, and said:
“We give you welcome : not 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”
13. The Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
They presided over the various departments of art and Science. They
were Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Poly-
hymnia, Urania, and Calliope. The three Graces, types of female
loveliness, and attendant upon Aphrodite, Were Euphrosyne, Aglaïa,
and Thalia.
28. redound, requital. *
30. The first-fruits of the stranger, the first students from beyond the
borders of her own country. -
31–32. Posterity will applaud your good sense, shown in your desire to
aSSociate yourselves With my work.
36 THE PRINCESS
She answer'd, “then ye know the Prince P” and he
“The climax of his age as tho’ there were 36
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, 40
Light coin, the timsel 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 45
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
You may with those self-styled our lords ally
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.”
At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves,
z Perused the matting ; then an officer
| Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these : 55
Not 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, 60
38. your ideal, his ideal of...you ; cf. III. 193; IV. 430.
40. verbiage, wordiness.
43. arguing. indicating.
50. will, wish.
53. conscious of ourselves, conscious of our disguise.
. 60, entered on the boards, the technical term at Cambridge for reg-
istering as undergraduates. *
~
i , , fºss e. THE PRINCESS 37
lº il. Cº. / Q_{_ º {
“Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall !
Our statues l—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 65
The foundress of the Babylonian wall,
The Carian Artemisia strong in war,
The Rhodope, 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. O lift your natures up ;
./ Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, 75
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal’d : *
63. Odalisques, slaves in a Turkish harem.
oracles of mode, those who set the fashion; authorities in mat-
ters of dress.
64. Stunted, morally and socially beaten down.
..she that taught the Sabine, Egeria, the wood-nymph, who in-
Structed Numa Pompilius, the Second King of Rome, and a Sabine by
birth, in civil and religious government.
65., she the foundress, Semiramis, a legendary queen of Assyria, who
lived toward the close of the third century before Christ ; she is said
to have built Babylon.
67. The Carian Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, who helped
Xerxes in the battle of Salamis (480 B.C.).
68. The Rhodope, another form of Rhodopis, an Egyptian, to whom
was wrongly attributed the building of the pyramid really erected
by Nicotris.
69. Clelia, a Roman heroine, a hostage given by the Romans to Lars
Porsena of Clusium, leader of the expelled Tarquins. She escaped
and Swam across the Tiber to Rome.
Cornelia, who died about 110 B.C., was the daughter of Scipio
Africanus and the mother of the Gracchi, Tiberius and Caius. She
was the ideal of Roman motherhood.
the Palmyre fie, Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, defied Aurelian,
Emperor of Rome, who seized her possessions. She was captured in
274, and taken to Rome.
71. Agrippina, granddaughter of the Roman Emperor Augustus,
and wife of Germanicus. She died in 33
72–74. Cf. Shelley, Primce Athamase, II. i :
“The mind becomes that which it contemplates,
And thus Zonoras, by forever seeing
Their bright creations, grew like wisest men.”
38 THE PRINCESS
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave,
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite
And slander, die. Better not be at all
Than not be noble. W Leave us : you may go :
To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue
The fresh arrivals of the week before 3
For they press in from all the provinces,
And fill the hive.”
She spoke, and bowing waved
Dismissal : back again we crossed the court
To Lady Psyche : 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,
A quick brunette, well-molded, 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,
Aglaïa 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. “O hush, hush l’ and she began.
80
85
90
95
100
92. on the hither side, below.
94, headed like a star, with golden hair
95. a double April old, two years old. Cf. Emoch, Ardem, 57:
** Ere he touch’d his one and twentieth May.”
96. Aglaia, the name of one of the Graces. meaning “ Brightness.”
97. the dame, the wife of Midas, King of Phrygia. He incurred the
enmity of Pan, by deciding against him in a musical contest between
Pan and Apollo. Pan turned his ears into those of an a SS.
His Wife
alone knew his secret, and not daring to tell any human being, but
being unable to keep it to herself, she confided it to a hole in the earth,
from which a plant grew up, whose leaves whispered it to the whole
World.
TEIE PRINCESS - 39
“This world was once a fluid haze of light,
Till toward the center 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, 105
Raw from the prime, and crushing down 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 110
As emblematic of a nobler age ;
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ;
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines
Of empire, and the woman’s state in each, 115
How far from just ; till warming with her theme
She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique
And little-footed China, touch’d on Mahomet
With much contempt, and came to chivalry :
When some respect, however slight, was paid 120
101–104. A concise Statement of that explanation of the origin of the
Solar System known as the “Nebular Hypothesis.”
105. woaded, stained with woad, a plant from the leaves of which
the ancient Britons made a dye with which they colored their skins.
5. Raw from the prime, newly come into being, primitive.
110. the legendary Amazon, a mythical nation of women warriors
in Asia, Minor.
12. appraised, estimated the value of.
li the Lycian custom, that of tracing ancestry through the female
1In C.
113. In Etruscan Wall-paintings, the women are represented as feast-
ing With the men. Lar, a title of honor borne by the Etruscan priests.
Lucumo, an Etruscan noble.
117. ful mined, thundered. . - -
laws Salique, the French law which forbade the accession of
woman to the throne. -
118. little-footed, the feet of the Chinese women are artificially
shortened, to conform to their arbitrary standard of beauty.
119, chivalry, the Social system existing in Europe in mediaeval times,
40 THE PRINCESS
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 125
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 ; they must build.
Here might they learn whatever men were taught : 130
Let them not fear : some said their heads were less :
Some men’s were small ; not they the least of men ;
For often fineness compensated size :
Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew
With using ; thence the man’s, if more was more ; 135
He took advantage of his strength to be
IFirst in the field : 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 140
The highest is the measure of the man,
And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay,
Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe,
But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so
With woman ; and in arts of government, 145
Elizabeth and others; arts of war,
126. pales, bounds.
135. if more were more, if the fact that one brain was greater than
another as regards size implied that it was the greater intellectually.
142. Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, the lowest forms of human life.
143. glebe, Soil.
144. Homer, the world’s greatest poet; Plato, the great philosopher;
Verulam. the title of the barony conferred upon Bacon, quoted as the
greatest of experimental philosophers.
146, Elizabeth, queen of England, 1558–1603.
THE PRINCESS 41
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
(§ ancient influence and scorn.
At last
She rose upon a wind of prophecy
Dilating on the future; “everywhere 155
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 : 160
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 165
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 170
147. The peasant Joan, Joan of Arc (1412–1431), who led the French
army to Victory at the siege of Orleans, and had Charles VII. Crowned
at Rheims. Two years later she was burned at the stake on a charge
Of Witchcraft. g
148. Sappho, the great lyric poetess of Greece, born in Lesbos about
B.C. -
149. She, the Princess. place, her royal station.
166. parted, departed.
168. gratulation, congratulation.
42 THE PRINCESS
“My brother 1* “Well, my sister.” “O,” she said,
“What do you here P and in this dress P 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 !” 175
“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 P ‘’
“And if I had,” he answer'd, “who could think
The softer Adams of your Academe, 180
O sister, Sirens tho’ they be, were such
As chanted on the blanching bones of men P”
“But you will find it otherwise,” she said.
“You jest : ill jesting with edge-tools my vow
Binds me to speak, and O that iron will, 185
That axelike edge unturnable, our Head,
The Princess.” “Well then, Psyche, take my life,
And nail me like a weasel on a grange
For warning : bury me beside the gate,
And cut this epitaph above my bones ; 190
Here lies a brother by a sister slain,
All for the common good of womankind.”
“Let me die too,” said Cyril, “ having seen
And heard the Lady Psyche.”
I struck in,
178. Cf. I. 209, and the inscription which Dante ascribes to the Gate
of Hell:
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
180, the softer Adams, the women who were attempting to be man-
like. Cf. “Galen,” I. 19. -
Academe, academy. w
181. Sirens, legendary sea-nymphs who, by the irresistible attraction
of their singing, led on Sailors to Shipwreck on the rocks where they
Sàng.
189. For warning, to other weasels.
192. All, just, simply.
THE PRINCESS 43
“Albeit so mask'd, madam, I love the truth ; 195
Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince
Your Countryman, affianced years ago
To the Lady Ida : here, for here she was,
And thus (what other way was left P) I came.”
“O sir, O 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 P love-whispers may not breathe *
Within this vestal limit, and how should I,
Who am not mine, say, live : the thunderbolt 205
ITangs 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 2 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 215
A stormless summer.” “Let the Princess judge
Of that,” she said : “farewell, Sir–and to you.
I shudder3. th9 sequel, but I go.”
jº ºr "
\ \º. you that Lady Psyche,” I rejoin’d,
“The fifth in line from that old Florian, 220
204. vestal, maiden. The name comes from the Latin goddess to
whose service only virgins were consecrated,
205. who am not mine, who am subject to the will of the Princess.
209. clapper, a small windmill set on a pole which, when turned by
the Wind, makes a clapping sound.
garth, a fruit-garden.
213. in the halloo, in the tumult of War,
44 THE PRINCESS
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 2 we point to it, and we say, 225
‘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 P are you
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow,
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read
My sickness down to happy dreams ? are you 235
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one P
You were that Psyche, but what are you now P”
“You are that Psyche,” Cyril said, “for whom
I would be that forever 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
From all her old companions, when the king
Riss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 245
222–223. beetle brow sun-shaded, with eyebrows so heavy that they
shaded his eyes from the Sun.
224. bestrode, to defend him.
227. current, flowing vigorously.
230. raced the purple fly, chased butterflies. &
rº. read down, charmed away by reading to me. Cf. “blush away,”
241. sapience, Wisdom.
THE PRINCESS 45
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 P look 1 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. 255
That was fawn’s blood, not brother’s, yet you wept.
O by the bright head of my little niece,
You were that Psyche, and what are you now P”
“You are that Psyche,” Cyril said again,
“The mother of the sweetēst 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 P
Him you call great : he for the common weal, 265
The fading politics of mortal Rome,
As I might slay this child, if good need were,
Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom
The secular emancipation turns
Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 270
255. kirtle, dress. º
262, play the Spartan mother with emotion, the Spartans taught that
man's first duty was to the state, and that family affection, when it
conflicted with this duty, ought to be disregarded.
264. Lucius Junius Brutus, who was chosen Consul when the Tarquins
were expelled from Rome (509 B.C.), and who ordered the death of his
sons when he discovered that they were in a conspiracy to restore the
Tarquins to the throne.
269, secular, enduring through the ages.
46 THE PRINCESS
A prince, a brother ? a little will I yield.
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.
O hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear
My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet—
Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 275
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 :
“I knew you at the first : tho’ you have grown 285
You Scarce have alter'd : I am sad and glad
To see you, Florian. I 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, them, 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 295
Began to glisten and to fall : and while
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,
295. far allusion, allusions to events that happened long ago.
gracious devs, loving tears.
THE PRINCESS 4?
“I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.”
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, 305
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 P’’ and Melissa, “O pardon me, 310
I heard, I could not help it, did not wish :
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not,
Nor think I bear that heart within my breast,
To give three gallant gentlemen to death.”
“I trust you,” said the other, “for we two 315
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine :
J3ut 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,
801. Melissa, a Greek name meaning “Honey.”
304. her mother's color, the color worn by those of the students who
Were the pupils of Lady Blanche.
305. fair, easily seen. --
319. The Danaid of a leaky vase ; the reference is to the fifty daughters
of Danaiis, who murdered their husbands, and were condemned, for
this crime, forever to carry water in sieves. The expression means
here : “Do not let the secret slip from you.”
320, foundation, establishment.
48 THE PRINCESS
No, not for all Aspasia’s cleverness,
No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.” 325
“Be it so,” the other, “that we still may lead *
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' Madam you should answer, we 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, 335
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 swoll’n cheek of a trumpeter,
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child
Push’d her flat hand against his face and laugh’d ; 345
And thus our conference closed.
And then we stroll’d
323. Aspasia (440 B.C.), friend of Pericles, and the most intellectual
Woman in Athens at the time of its greatest prosperity.
325. Sheba, the queen of Sheba, who came to test Solomon's Wisdom
by hard questions. *
331. Lebanonian cedar. The cedars of Lebanon, in the north of Pales-
tine, were famous for their excellence. -
335. Something more, his awakening love for her.
THE PRINCESS 49
For half the day thro’ stately theaters
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 thunderous epic licted out
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies
And quoted odes, and jewels five words long 355
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, 300
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, *5
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 P”
“ Ungracious !” answer'd Florian ; “ have you learnt
No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk’d 3.71
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad P”
“O trash,” he said, “but with a kernel in it.
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ?
347. theaters, lecture-rooms with rows of seats in Semicircles.
353. licted, chanted or declaimed. -
355, jewels five words long, phrases so perfect in thought or expres-
sign that they are immortal.
360. frame, perhaps physiology.
50 TEIE PRINCESS
And learnt P I learnt more from her in a flash, 375
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, 380
Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but O
With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy,
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 385
What think you of it, Florian P do I chase
The substance or the shadow P will it hold P
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 P. Three of them P Is she
The sweet proprietress a shadow 2 If not,
Shall those three castles patch my tatter’d coat P
For dear are those three castles to my wants, 395
And dear is Sister Psyche 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 O to hear
376, brain pan, the part of the skull that holds the brain.
377. every muse, see note on II. 13. -
378. There are a thousand hearts here capable of love, but with noth-
ing to arouse it.
baby loves, Cupids. -
384. The long-limbed lad, Cupid himself, or, in Greek mythology, Eros
(Love), who loved Psyche.
387. The substance or the shadow P Cf. I. 9.
388. malison, curse.
394. Shall her Wealth raise me from my poverty ?
THE PRINCESS 51
The Doctors | 0 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 405
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 !”
And in we stream’d
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, 415
The long hall glitter’d like a bed of flowers.
How might a man not wander from his wits
Pierc’d thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own
Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams,
The second-sight of some Astraean age, 420
Sat compass'd with professors : they, the while,
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro :
A clamor thicken'd, mixt with inmost terms
403. mincing mimicry, an affected daintiness and delicacy of demea-
404. bassoon, a deep-toned instrument that takes the bass part.
406. Star-sisters answering, bright eyes that respond to his glances.
420. second sight, power of foreseeing the future.
Astraean age ; the reference is to Astraea (Star-bright), the goddess of
justice and the ſast of the deities to leave this earth when the Golden
Age was past. The Greeks believed that she would be the first to
return, should the Golden Age ever come again.
423, in most, most technical.
52 THE PRINCESS
Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone -
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 425
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 436
Above the fountain-jets, and back again
With laughter : others lay about the lawns,
Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May
Was passing: what was learning unto them P 440
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, 445
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
427, shallop, a light boat. -
443. the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, described as muffled
because in their breasts they hold the future hidden from mortal sight.
448. clad in purest white : all the students, when they attended chapel,
Wore a white Surplice over their ordinary ăress.
TEIE PRINCESS 53
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. 455
453. silver, clear and bell-like, as opposed to “brazen,” etc.
454. The work of Ida. She had written and composed the psalms and
litanies.
See note to first song. “Sweet and Low " has been set to music by
the English composer Joseph Barnby. It is a cradle-song, telling of
the love of a father for his child.
54 THE PRINCESS
III
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea l
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon,” and blow,
Blow him again to me ;
While 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.
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 5
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,
* dying moon, the setting moon.
+ Silver sails, silvered by the moonlight.
1. The third speaker here takes up the narrative.
the morning star: Venus, when west of the sun, is the morning
star, and is then called Lucifer ; when east of the Sun, Venus is the
evening star, called Hesperus.
6. their native East, Greece,
9, wan, paleness,
THE PRINCESS 55
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 10
The circled Iris of a night of tears;
“And fly,” she cried, “O fly, while yet you may !
My mother knows : ” and when I ask’d her “how,”
“My fault,” she wept, “my fault 1 and yet not mine ;
Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 15
My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night
To rail at Lady Pysche 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 ;
Hers more than half the students, all the love.
And so last might she fell to canvass you :
Her countrywomen she did not envy her. 25
‘Who ever saw such wild barbarians ?
Girls 2–more like men l’ and at these words the Snake,
IMy 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 :
‘O 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 comment.” Pardon, I am shamed 35
That I must needs repeat for my excuse
11. Iris, in Greek mythology the rainbow here, dark rings under the
eyes, caused by Weeping. g
17. her side, that part of the university under her Supervision.
30. lynx, keen as the eye of a lynx. e -
, 34, set in rubric, printed in red (here, a blush), like the capital letters
in old manuscripts,
56 THE PRINCESS
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 l’ 40
Then came these dreadful words out one by one,
‘Why—these—are—men ; ' I shudder'd : * and you
know it.”
‘O ask me nothing,' I said : “And she knows too,
And she conceals it.’ So my mother clutch'd
The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 45
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.”
“What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush P” 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, 55
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,” Florian ask'd,
51. than wear those lilies, than be so pale.
54. classic, versed in the classics.
Angel, used for “student,” to keep up the metaphor of “ Heaven.”
55–56, Ganymedes, a Phrygian boy, was taken up to heaven to be the
Cup-bearer of the gods. g
Vulcan was cast out of heaven by his mother, Juno, because of
his ugliness.
57, this marble, Lady Blanche.
THE PRINCESS
57
“How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.”
“O 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 up.
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 :
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.
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 with Cyril's random wish :
Not like your Princess cramm’d with erring pride,
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.”
61
65
70
75
80
85
62. long ago, for a long time.
73. inosculated, blended into one.
74. consonant, harmonizing. “If there be in the same room two.
stringed instruments, a note strugk on a chord of one will cause the
corresponding chord in the other” (Wallace); i.e., the union of their
minds was so complete that any emotion in the heart of one found its
response in the heart of the other.
58 THE PRINCESS
*
“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, O my princess true she errs,
But in her own grand way : being herself
Three times more noble than three score of men,
She sees herself in every woman else,
And so she wears her error like a crown - 95
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 Samian Heré rises and she speaks
A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.” 100
So saying from the court we paced, and gain’d
The terrace ranged along the Northern front,
And leaning there on those balusters, high
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale
That blown about the foliage underneath, 105
And sated with the innumerable rose,
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came
Cyril, and yawning, “O hard task,” he cried ;
“No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way
Thro’ solid opposition crabb’d and gnarl’d. 11()
90. clang, with ringing note. sphere, the sphere of the heavens.
94. She sees her own nobility in all women.
96. her, and her, as for the other two.
97. Hebe, in Greek mythology the cup-bearer at the banquets of the
gods before Ganymedes.
99 Samian Here, queen of the gods and wife of Zeus; her favorite
city was Samos on the AEgean Sea.
100. Memnon, the name incorrectly given to an immense statue at
Thebes in Egypt, which, when struck by the rays of the rising sun,
was said to give forth music.
104. em purpled champaign, the open fields lying blue in the distance.
109. See I. 10.
THE PRINCESS 59
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 115
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 2 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 125
And our three lives. True—we had limed ourselves
With open eyes, and we must take the chance.
Dut 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 :
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, 135
~~~
111. prime. See II. 106.
112. summer solstice, the point when the Sun seems to stand still in
his journey toward the north, before beginning to turn back toward
the south, and is nearer to the earth than at any other time of the year.
In the northern hemisphere this occurs on the 21st of June.
115. at point to move, on the point of moving.
120. I fabled nothing fair, invented no pleasant lie.
121. your example pilot. Cf. II. 195.
122. She threw up her hands and her eyes in amazement.
125. inscription. Cf. II 178. .
126. limed, ensnared as birds with bird-lime.
180. puddled, polluted.
60 THE PRINCESS
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 145
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
For 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 155
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 platans of the vale.
Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro’ all 160
---, 4
136. clear of, regardless of.
142. authentic, as if she were already foundress in fact ; a piece of
clever flattery.
broadening, like a river. .
153-4. to take the dip, a geological expression: to measure the incli-
nation of the strata, to the horizon.
158. ran up his furrowy forks, raised up two peaks, like a two-pronged
fork.
159. platan, plane-tree.
TEITE PRINCESS
61
Its range of duties to the appointed hour.
Then summon’d to the porch we went. She stood
Among her maidens, higher by the head,
Her back against a pillar, her foot on One
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roll’d
And paw’d about her sandal. I drew near ;
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came
Upon me, the weird vision of our house :
The Princess Ida, seem’d a hollow show,
Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy,
Her college and her maidens, empty masks,
And I myself the shadow of a dream,
For 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.
I rode beside her and to me she said :
“O 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
165
170
175
180
185
Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say.”
170. cats, her leopards.
179. retinue, pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, as in
Guinevere, 382: -
e “Of his and her retinue moving,”
and in Shakspeare and Milton.
183. yestermorn. Cf. II. 39.
185. one, the Prince himself.
186, the thing you say, i.e., “too harsh,” 183 above.
62 THE PRINCESS
“Again P” she cried, “are you ambassadresses
From him to me 2 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 P 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 - 195
Your purport, you will shock him ev’n to death,
Or baser courses, children of despair.”
“Poor boy,” she said, “ can he not read—no books P
Quoit, tennis, ball—no games P 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, 205
Being other—since we learnt our meaning here,
To lift the woman’s fall’n divinity
|Upon an even pedestal with man.”
She paused, and added with a haughtier smile :
“And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210
189, a license, liberty to speak.
199. tennis, not lawn tennis, but a much more arduous game playe
in a closed court, like hand-ball. -
204. dreams, fancies. -
206, being other, being changed from what we were. Cf. In Memo-
riam, XLV. 7–8:
“I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.”.
THE PRINCESS 63
At no man’s beck, but know ourself and thee,
O Vashti, noble Washti ! Summon’d out
She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.”
“Alas your Highness breathes full East,” I said, 215
“On that which leans to you. I know the Prince,
I prize his truth : and then how vast a work
To assail this gray prečminence of man
You grant me license ; might I use it P 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
ReSmooth to nothing : might I dread that you, 225
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss,
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due,
Love, children, happiness P”
- And she exclaim’d,
“Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild 230
What I tho’ your Prince's love were like a God’s,
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice P
You are bold indeed : we are not talk’d to thus :
212. Vashti, wife of Ahasuerus, king of India and Ethiopia, who
refused to obey the commandment of the king to come to the banquet
that he had made for his princes. Cf. Esther, i. 10–12.
214. Shushan, the palace of Ahasuerus. Cf. Esther, i. 2.
215. breathes full East, cold hike the east wind.
218 gray, hoary with age, long established.
227, issue, children.
yet, in spite of fame and your great deeds. .
233, we are not talk'd to thus, are not accustomed to such familiarity,
64 THE PRINCESS
Yet will we say , )r children, would they grew
Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well: 235
But children die; and let me tell you, girl,
Howe'er you bab'.]e. great deeds cannot die ;
They with the sº and moon renew their light
For ever, blessing the ea that look on them.
Children—that men may pluck them from our hearts,
Rill us with pity, break us with ourselves— 241
O—children—there is nothing upon earth
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 after-hands 246
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 255
If that strange Poet-Princess with her grand
Imaginations might at all be won.
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts :
241. break us with ourselves : children are almost a part of the
mother’s own life, and it is through them that she can be most effect-
ively reached for injury. & -
242–4. Cf. Proverbs of Solomon, i. 10. -
246. POU STO, a phrase meaning “a place whereon to stand,” taken
from Archimedes' (287–212 B.C.) famous words: 6bs trot, a to kai kāo pov
kuvio wo, “Give me a standing-place [some basis from which to work]
and I will move the world.”
249, dissipated, Scattered.
THE PRINCESS 65
“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,
I)warfs of the gynaeceum, 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–
Oh 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,
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, 275
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
2:
261. South-sea-isle taboo, a word in use among the islanders of Poly-
nesia, meaning interdiction, Something prohibited.
262. Dwarfs, intellectually.
gynaeceum, the woman’s apartments in a Greek house.
268. immolation, Self-sacrifice.
269, spring against the , pikes, like, Publius Decius Mus (B.C. 350),
who, on being informed by the Oracle, that the army whose general
* slain should be victorious, Sacrificed himself on the pikes of .
e enemy. -
270. down the fiery gulf, like Marcus Curtius (362, B. C.), who leaped
into the chasm in the marketplage at Rome, which, the priest de-
clared, would not close up until it had regeived, as a sacrifice, the
chief element of Rome's greatness. Curtius believed that the sacrifice
demanded was one of the city's young men, and, armed and on horse-
back, plunged into the “fiery gulf.”
276. the color, in a rainbow.
277, bones, fossil bone of Some prehistoric animal,
66 "THE PRINCESS
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 285
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, . 295
And holy secrets of this microcosm,
Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest,
Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know -
Rinowledge 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
280–82. ‘‘ Dare—betters ?” ...Is it not wrong to think of the Creator of
mankind as an artisan that improves by practice 2
285. Diotima, the instructress of Socrates, he who was condemned
to drink the fatal hemlock.
293-4. A reference to the alleged practice of vivisectionists of feedin
; animals destined to vivisection on fragments of already #jºi
OC, 10.S.
295. dark, mysterious.
296. microcosm, a word derived from the Greek, meaning “little
world,” and applied to the human body in reference to the intricacy
Of its Structure. .
298. Encarnalize, make Sensual, brutalize.
300, casualty, accident.
THE PRINCESS 67
Would tend upon you. To your question now,
Which touches on the workman and his work. 305
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 mold
The woman to the fuller day.”
She spake, 315
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. “O 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 325
The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers
306–313. The Statement. Of the Princess' idea of the relation of knowl-
edge to Nature. Wallace paraphrases: “Creation was complete in
One moment of the Divine volition—does not depend on Time for its
development. The fault is in us, who, being of weak and limited
vision, cannot see all at once, and are compelled to study Creation in
a series of observations. This weakness in ourselves we transfer to
Nature, whom we thus grow to regard as working bit by bit; hence
the fallacious conception of Time, which does not exist in Nature at
all, only in ourselves, and that because of our imperfection.”
324. Elysian lawns, in Greek mythology, the Islands of the Blest,
the home of the righteous after death. º
325, Demigods, in Greek mythology, men of divine descent.
68 * THE PRINCESS
IBuilt 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 335
Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, 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 345
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all
The rosy heights came out above the lawns.
327. Built to the Sun, towering high into the heavens.
331. Corinna (522-442), a Grecian poetess, who won five times over
Pindar, the famous writer of odes, the prize for poetry in the publie
gameS. .
332, florid, blushing, blooming with youth.
334. the bearded Victor, Pindar. -
#. mineralogical Specimens, with names as “stony ” as them
SelVOS.
THE PRINCESS 69
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, O sweet and far from cliff and scar
& A." 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.
“THERE sinks the 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-feathèr’d chasm and cleft, 5
Dropt thro’ the ambrosial gloom to where below
No bigger than a glowworm shone the tent
A.
See note, to first song. Notice the gnomatopoeia (see note to Pro-
logue, 87-88). *T**-tºessºr, arºsa.
* The horns of Elfland, the echoes. See note on Prologue, 66. Cf.
"VI. 349–351. .
1. The fourth speaker here takes up the narrative.
2. hypothesis, the Nebular Hypothesis, stated in II. 101–104.
5. coppice-feathered, covered with light foliage. Cf. The Gardener's
Dawghter, 46: tº
“And all about the large lime feathers low,”
70 THE PRINCESS
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, 10
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 tripod in the midst 15
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow’d
Fruit, blossom, Viand, amber wine, 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 the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more. 25
“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
A-
17. amber, amber-colored.
gold, gold plate, goblets, etc.
19. fledged, winged.
21. Qne of the perfect lyrics of the English language; it was sug-
gested to Tennyson by a visit to Tintern Abbey. -
22., some divine despair, the longing of every human soul for an
ideal that cannot be defined. This is commonly considered one of the
evidences of the immortality of the soul. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode om,
Imtimations of Immortality. ... •
27, the underworld, a word taken from the Greek mythology; the
place of departed spirits. Here it refers to that part of the ocean that
is under the horizon.
29, verge, horizon,
TEIR, PRINCESS
71
“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 with all regret ;
J O Death in Life, the days that are no more.”
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 molder'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,
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,
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
Found golden : let the past be past ; let be
35
40
50
55
47. cram our ears with wool. Odysseus, warned by Circe, of the irre-
sistible fascination of the songs of the Syrens on the rocks, stopped
the ears of his sailors and was himself bound to the mast that they
and he might remain unmoved by the fatal songs.
º to weep for lost Opportunity.
4–55. Throne . . . cloud, monarchies and long-established institutions
cannot withstand the progress of the Sun of Civilization. The thought
was perhaps suggested by recent European revolutions,
72 THE PRINCESS
Their cancel’d Babels : tho’ the rough kex break
The starr'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 60
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 ; 65
“R now 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, flying South, 75
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell 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. 80
“O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
59. cancell'd Babels. Cf. Genesis, xi. 1-9. The phrase refers to the
dead past.
kex, hemlock.
61. hang on the shaft, stand aloft on the ruins.
68. the other distance, the future as opposed to the past.
69, a death's-head, a reference to the story of Herodotus, that, at
their banquets, the Egyptians had a mummy brought in as a re-
minder of the uncertainty of life ; the mememlo monºi of the Romans.
71. the swallow-winging south, cf. III. 194.
82–83. pipe, trill, cheep, twitter, onomatopoetic words.
THE PRINCESS 73
“O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me on her bosom; and her heart 85
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 7
“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. 95
“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, 100
Stared with great eyes, and laugh’d with alien lips,
And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice
Rang false : but smiling, “ Not for thee,” she said,
“O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan
Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid, 105
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake
84–86. Cf. Shakspeare, Venus amd Adonis, 1185–86:
“Ilo in this hollow cradle take thy rest,
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night.”
l ; the tender ash delays, the ash is one of the last trees to come into
6%,T.
100. Ithacensian suitors, in Homer's Odyssey, those who sought the
hand of Penelope, while her husband, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, was
absent at the Siege of Troy and during his Subsequent wanderings.
On his return Pallas threw an enchantment over them so that, their
presentiment of their death at the hand of Odysseus caused them
to laugh nervously without apparent reason.
101. laughed with alien lips, constrained ly, Cf Homer, Odyssey,
XX. 347 :
“ yuaguoſov yeXºjow a NAorptovo tu ?” (“laughing with other men's jaws").
104. Bulbul, the Persian word for nightingale
Gulistan, the Persian word for rose-garden.
The love of the Nightingale for the Rose was a favorite subject
of Hafiz, a celebrated Persian poet, *
105. marsh-divers, as meadow-crake below, are birds of harsh Voice,
74 THE PRINCESS
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this
A mere love-poem | 0 for such, my friend,
We hold them slight : they mind us of the time
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, 110
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 ; 115
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.
Tove is it P Would this same mock-love, and this 125
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
109. mind, remind.
110, when we made bricks in Egypt, when, like the children of Israel
in Egypt, we were slaves Cf. Eatodus, i. 8–14.
112. Ornament, the victim for sacrifice
117. canzonets, an Italian word meaning a light Song, like a serenade.
121. Valkyrian In Norse mythology, the Valkyrs (“Choosers of the
Slain ") were the handmaidens of Odin, the ruler of the gods, who en-
couraged Warriors in battle, and bore the souls of those who died
fighting to Valhalla, the Scandinavian heaven. Valkyrian hymns,
then, are inspiring battle-songs.
123. du er unto, more appropriate to.
124. junketing, revelry.
126. Hymen, the Tlatin god of marriage.
129–30. sphered whole in ourselves, perfect in our own nature,
180, owed, rightly responsible.
THE PRINCESS 75
But now to leaven play with profit, you,
Know you no song, the true growth of your soil,
That gives the manners of your country-women P”
* She spoke and turn’d her sumptuous head with eyes
Of shining expectation fixed on mine. 135
Then while I dragged my brains for such a song,
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth’d glass had wrought,
Or master’d by the sense of sport, began
To troll a careless, careless taverm-catch
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 140
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, 145
I Smote him on the breast ; he started up ;
There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd : -
Melissa clamorºd, “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, 15
And every hoof a knell to my desires,
Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek,
5
137. with , whom ..... had wrought, on whom the wine from “the
bell-mouth’d glass" had taken effect.
139, to troll, to sing jocularly, a catch, a light song.
id:" parting, departing. Cf. “mind,” 109 above, and “parted,” II.
76 THE PRINCESS
“The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head..!”
For blind with rage she miss’d the plank, and roll’d
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom : 160
There whirl’d her white robe like a blossom'd branch
Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave,
No 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 165
The weight of all the hopes of half the world,
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. Right on this we drove and caught, 170
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, 175
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 180
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art
160. from glow to gloom, from the lighted tent to the darkness out-
162. Rapt, Snatched away. Cf. III. 273–5.
166. half the world, the woman-half.
172 glimmeringly, indistinct in the darkness.
f 180 Indian craft, Wood-craft, for which the American Indians were
8, IO CºllS.
183., Caryatids, in Greek architecture, pillars consisting of draped
female figures which support the beam on which the frieze rests. f
THE PRINCESS }}
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 185
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, 190
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,
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns.
A step 195
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form
Than female, moving thro’ the uncertain gloom,
T)isturb’d me with the doubt “if this were she,”
But it was Florian. “Hist O 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 . 205
With hooded brows I crept into the hall,
184. valves, folding gates.
185. the hunter, Actaeon, who, having surprised Diana bathing, was
turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own hounds.
In the design of the gates his sprouting horns compose the pat-
tern of spikes on top. g
Bear, the constellation of the Great Bear, composed of seven
stars, and commonly called “the Dipper,” which revolves once in
twenty-four hours around the North Star. Its astronomical name is
Ursa Major.
78 THE PRINCESS
And, couch’d behind a Judith, underneath
The head of Holofermes 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 : 215
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her,
Easily gather’d either guilt. She sent
For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call’d
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors;
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220
And I slip out : but whither will you now P
And where are Psyche, Cyril 2 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.” 225
“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
207. Judith, the heroine of the Apocrypha, a Jewess who, when her
native city, Bethulia, was besieged by the Assyrians under Holofernes,
gained admittance to his tent, and cut his head off while he was asleep,
212. knew us men, knew that we were men.
217, either guilt, the guilt of each.
227, proper to the clown, to be expected of the ill-bred,
TH TE PRINC ESS '9
These flashes on the surface are not he.
He has a solid base of temperament : 235
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 245
I heard the puff'd pursuer ; at mine ear
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not,
And secret laughter tickled all my soul.
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, 255
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side -
236–8. Cf. Wordsworth, Ea:Cursion, V. :
“And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head
Floats on the tossing waves.”
240. Proctors. See note on Prologue, 113.
242, thrid, thread.
243. boles, large trunks of trees.
250. Mnemosyne, memory. See note on II. 13.
252. haled, dragged.
255. mystic fire, an electrical ball of light that is sometimes seen play-
ing, about the masts of a ship. It is called by sailors St. Elmo's fire,
and is considered as prophetic of impending storm,
80 THE PRINCESS
Bow’d toward her, combing out her long black hair
Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men,
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,
And labor. Fach 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, 265
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, O Princess, in old days :
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : *
I led you then to all the Castalies ; 275
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
260. blowzed, with faces reddened.
261. a Druid rock, great stones found at Stonehenge and other parts
of England, and considered to be the altars of the Druids, the priests
of the early Celts. -
263. mews, sea-gulls.
275. Castalies. Castalia, was one of the fountains on Mount Parnas-
sus, Sacred to the Muses (see note on II. 13). “All the Castallies,” then,
means “all the founts of knowledge and culture.” A-
281, taken, fascinated.
THE PRINCESS 81
You turn’d your warmer currents all to her,
To me you froze : this was my meed for all. V
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love,
And partly that I hoped to win you back, 285
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 two 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. 295
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 ;
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 301
Then came these wolves: they knew her : they endured,
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn,
To tell her what they were, and she to hear :
And me none told : not less to an eye like mine 305
A lidless watcher of the public weal,
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot
Was to you : but I thought again : I fear'd
To meet a cold “We thank you, we shall hear of it
283. meed, reward.
292. Jonah’s gourd that grew up in a night. Cf. Jomah, iv. 5–11.
295. In trying to lessen my influence you hurt your own power.
296. planed, made easy. - *.
307. patent, easily discernible.
307-8. my foot was to you, I was about to go to you.
82 THE PRINCESS
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 315
To push my rival 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,
Riddºn to the hills, she likewise : now, I thought,
That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 325
Did she P 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,
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, 335
311. grace, pardon. -
-- § ºrsery, a “nursery-garden "Where young plants and trees are
CareCI TOI’.
314, less grain than touchwood, soft and rotten rather than firm and
viºus Touchwood is the name given to a kind of half-decayed
WOOCl. -
317. use, advantage . Cf. II. 29. &
326, blazon'd, proclaimed like a herald.
328. my work, through my labors,
TEIE PRINCESS 83
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 ourself.”
Thereat the Lady stretch'd a vulture throat,
And shot from crooked lips a haggard Smile. 345
“The plan was mine. I built the nest,” she said,
“To hatch the cuckoo. Rise !” 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 Niobéan 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 355
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
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell
Delivering seal’d dispatches which the Head 360
Took half-amazed, and in her lion’s mood
339. the wisp, the ignis fatww.s or will-of-the-wisp, a light seen in
marshes. Cf. froiogue, 64. -
347. the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in the nests of other birds,
352. A Niobean daughter. Niobe, Queen of Thebes, had twelve chil-
dren, and boasted that she was greater than Leto, who had only two
Artemis and Apollo. . In reyenge for this her children were slain, an
she herself, standing in their midst, was turned to Stone as She wept,
84 THE PRINCESS
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, 365
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 375
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,
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 381
Came ałl 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, 385
And here he keeps me hostage for his son.”
The second was my father’s running thus:
“You have our son : touch not a hair of his head :
362. Surmise, conjecture. & -
366. rick, a stack of hay which the peasant burns in revenge.
370. The irregular meter of this line indicates the disturbed beatin
of her heart in its surprise and wrath. Cf. II. 168–70, IV, 162–7, 195.
385, invested, surrounded. -
THE PRINCESS 85
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 we this night should pluck your palace down ; 395
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.
“O not to pry and peer on your reserve,
Put 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, 405
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, 410
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south
And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ;
The leader wild swan in among the stars
400. golden, most precious, best. Cf. 58 above.
401, regal compact ; cf. I. 33.
414. The leader wild swan ; wild Swans fly in a wedge-shaped figure,
following the track of their leader,
86 THE PRINCEss
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light
The mellow breaker murmur’d Ida. Now, 416
Because I would have reach'd you, had you been -
Sphered up with Cassiopéia, or the enthroned
Persephonè 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,
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait
On you, their center : let me say but this,
That many a famous man and woman, town 4.25
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen
The dwarfs of presage : tho' 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 master'd, 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,
I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 435
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 : O more than poor men wealth,
Than sick men health—yours, yours, not mine—but
half
415. clang. Cf. III. 90. &
418. Cassiopeia, Queen of Ethiopia and mother of Andromeda. Here,
the constellation that bears her name Sphered up, Set as a star. ,
419. Persephone, wife of Hades or Pluto, king of the lower world.
420. abeyance, inactivity, suspense.
422 frequence, throng.
426. landskip, old spelling of landscape.
427. The dwarfs of presage. Cf. “less than fame,” I, 72.
TEIE PRINCESS 8%
Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves
You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 442
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 445
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 4. 450
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips,
As waits a river level with the dam
Ready 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 45.5
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 460
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 465
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, -
*
, 445, clench'd, determined, from the metaphor of clenched teeth or
St.S.
455. court, the outer courtyard, lit up by the light from the windows
of the hall where the Princess sat.
466. Babel, a tower designed to reach to heaven, but during whose
construction the tongues of the builders were confounded, so that no
man might understand another. Cf. Gemesis, xi. 1–9.
88 TELE PRINCESS
And worse-confounded : high above them stood
The placid marble Muses, looking peace.
Not 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
Eixt 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
call’d - 475
Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. -
“What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head 2
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : I dare
All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye fear 2
Peace there are those to avenge us and they come: 480
If not, myself were like enough, O 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; 485
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

472. a beacon-towe, a lighthouse.
473. crimson-rolling, the revolving light.
478. dare, defy.
480. those, her brothers.
484, protomartyr, the first martyr of a cause, as St. Stephen.
THE PRINCESS 89
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff,
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,
I'ull of weak poison, turnspits for the clown 4.95
The drunkard’s football, laughing-stocks of Time,
Whose brains are in their 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 : 505
“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, 515
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears—
494. chattels, mere articles of personal property.
495, turnspit, one who turns the spit on which a fowl is placed for
roasting ; a cook.
497, without any intellectual life.
510. bitter thanks, thanks hard to give. -
510 et Seq. Her hurried and confused Speech bespeaks the tumult in
her mind. Cf. III, 190–94. -
516. Cf. III. 239.
90 THE PRINCESS
O would I had his scepter for one hour !
You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd , .
Our servants, wrong’d and lied and thwarted us—
I 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,
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:
I trample on your offers and on you : •. 525
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 plow
Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd
Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 530
I3ut 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 535
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 working side by side,
The cataract and the tumult and the kings
523. Not though you should be lord of every country.
529. address'd, directed.
531–32. their heavy hands the weight of destiny, for a similar half-
jocular identification compare 166 above: **
“The weight of all the hopes of half the world.”
TEIF PRINCESS 91
Were shadows ; and the long fantastic night
With all its doings had and had not been,
And all things were and were not.
This went by 545
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 shadowings I was one
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 550
As might to him that sitting on a hill
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway Sun
Set into sunrise ; then we moved away.
Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands; 555
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, 560
And strikes him dead for thine and thee,
So Lilia sang : we thought her half-possess'd,
She struck such warbling fury thro’ the words ;
And, after, feigning pique at what she call’d
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime— 565
552. Norway sun. Within the arctic circle there is at least one day .
in every year when the sun does not set, but is visible through the
night. The meaning is, then, that the Prince was naturally of an
optimistic disposition, and that his love was ever with him, making it
impossible for anything to cause him long to despair.
See note on first song. The present song of the power of love for
wife and child, even to the imparting of physical strength, is con-
trasted with the refusal of the Princess to allow love any part in her
IIC,
562. half-possess'd, half inspired.
564, feigning pique, disliking the mock-heroic tone of the narrative
up to this point, and asking for greater genuineness of feeling.
92 THE PRINCESS
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, 570
“Sir Ralph has got your colors: if I prove
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me **
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb
Lay by her like a model of her hand.
She took it and she flung it. “Fight,” she said, 575
“And make us all we would be, great and good.”
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque,
A cap of Tyrol borrow’d from the hall,
Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince.
571. Cf. Prologue, 100–5. &
578. Tyrol, a district lying north of Italy, noted for the picturesque-
ness of the costumes of its natives.
579, assumed. Cf. I. 136.
THE PRINCESS 93
V
Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,
We stumbled on a stationary voice,
And “Stand, who goes P’ “Two from the palace ’I.
“The second two : they wait,” he said, “ pass on ;
His Highness wakes : ” and one, that clash’d in arms, 5
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 10
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 15
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.
1. The fifth speaker takes up the narrative.
2. stationary voice, the voice of a sentinel.
4. The second two, Cyril and Psyche were the first two. Cf. IV. 222.
5. His Highness, the king.
6. glimmering. See note on IV. 172.
9. blazon'd lions, lions pictured on the ensign. Cf. I. 220.
13. in numerous, innumerable.
21. In medieval times Squire was the name given to a young man,
tºdant upon a knight, and in his Service fitting himself for knight-
OO º
94 THE PRINCESS
At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears,
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, 25
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, “Ilook,
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 35
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 4.5
Eollow’d his tale. Amazed he fled away
25. mawkin, the diminutive of Mary (Mary-kin); a Scullery-maid.
26. sludge, mire.
28. from the sheath, when it has just bloSSomed.
29. disprinced. Cf. “ dislink'd,” Prologue, 70.
37. transient, passing:
38. Slough, the skin thrown off by a Snake.
40. harness, armor.
45, resolder'd, made Solid again.
THE PRINCESS 95
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.” -
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, 55
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, 60
“Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus.
What have you done but right 2 you could not slay
Me, nor your prince : look up : be comforted :
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought,
When fall’n in darker ways.” And likewise I: 65
“Be comforted ; have I not lost her too, .
In whose least act abides the nameless charm
That none has else for me P” 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
§§ It is a comfort in misfortune to know that one has acted
I'lgntly.
t ºose that mourn, the marble figures of angels often carved over
ODIl Q8, -
96 TEIE PRINCESS
In deathless marble. “Her,” she said, “my friend—
Parted from her—betray’d her cause and mine—
Where shall I breathe P why kept ye not your faith ?
O base and bad what comfort P. mone for me !” 75
To whom remorseful Cyril, “’Yet I pray
Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child
At which she lifted up her voice and cried.
| >>
“Ah me, by babe, my blossom, ah, my child,
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more 80
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 85
Remembering her mother : O 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 95
Wailing for ever, till they open to me,
And lay my little blossom at my feet,
My babe, my sweet Aglaïa, my one child :
74. your faith, referring to the promise (II. 275–80) to leave the college
as soon as possible. -
90. ill, wicked. Cf. Henry IV., Pt. 2, I. ii. 162 : -
“You follow the young prince up and down like his ill angel,”
THE PRINCESS 97
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 P’ “Be comforted,”
Said Cyril, “ you shall have it :” but again
She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so
Like tender things that being caught feign death, 105
Spoke not, nor stirr’d. * --
* By this a murmur ram
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 “Ilook you,” cried
|My father, “that our compact be fulfill'd : 111
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 : 115
“We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time
With our strange girl : and yet they say that still
You love her. Give us, them, your mind at large :
How say you, war or not ?”
“Not war, if possible,
0 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
110. parle, ;. discussion.
121. year, harvest.
98 sº THE PRINCESS
Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 125
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
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 135
The book of scorn, till all my fitting chance
Were caught within the record of her wrongs,
And crush’d 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 I hear you prate I almost think 145
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 ;
132. shards, fragments. catapults, machines for hurling missiles.
134. By the lifting of whose eyelash I am ruled.
136. the book of scorn, the mental record of her wrongs.
139. the old God of war, in Latin mythology, Mars.
141, with ribs of wreck, like the framework of a wrecked vessel.
142. mammoth, a huge animal of the prehistoric age, specimens of .
which have been found in Siberia enclosed in ice-banks.
146. idiot legend. Cf. I, 5.
THE PRINCESS 99
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150
Wheedling and siding with them Out I 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 155
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 -
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife,
Worth winning ; but this firebrand—gentleness 160
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 natures need wise curbs. The soldier * No :
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 166
The soldier P 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, 170
No, 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
152–158. Cf. Othello : ..
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed.”
157. dashed with death, red with blood. -
162 cherry net, a net placed over cherry-trees to protect the fruit
from birds.
163. gossamer, a light cobweb.
166. In answer to 153.
170, shunn'd the death. Cf. IV. 148–9.
100 THE PRINCESS
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 175
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 P 180
They worth it 2 truer to the law within P
Severer in the logic of a life P
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences
Of earth and heaven 2 and she of whom you speak,
My mother, looks as whole as some serene 185
Creation minted in the golden moods
Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, 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,
IBut 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 195
As dues of Nature. To our point : not war :
Lest I lose all.” -
Nay, may, 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 blows. 200
179. Satyr, a mythological being, half man and half goat : here, a
brutal man.
181. truer to the law within, governed by conscience.
183. magnetic, susceptible to.
186. golden. Cf. note on IV. 400. ,
191. great heart, good impulse.
195. mooted, disputed.
THE PRINCESS 101
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, 205
Our own detention, why, 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 r
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 plowman’s head,
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid,
Nor robb’d the farmer of his bowl of Cream :
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 215
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 2 we four may build some plan
Foursquare to opposition.”
Here he reach’d
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl’d
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard,
Let So much out as gave us leave to go. 225
204. Here Gama, addresses himself to the king.
211. goblins, fairies friendly to men, that were believed to come in
the night to help men in their work and to depart before Sunrise.
213. grange. See note on I. 109. buss'd, kissed.
219. ours, our party.
220. you, Florian and Cyril.
222, foursquare. Cf. Ode om.the Death of the Dulce of Wellington, 39:
e “That tower of stréngth
Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew.”
I02 THE PRINCESS
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
Gather’d 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, 236
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 ; 241
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 245
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 ;
229. Valentines, love-songs. *
234. by night and peace. For figure, see note on Prologue, 56.
246. Such thews, of men; the ws, muscles and sinews. The expres-
Sion means, then, “such muscular men.”
247–48. A resemblance existed between the Princess and Arac.
250. the airy Giant's zone. The bright stars in the constellation
named after Orion, the giant hunter of Boeotia, are called his “belt.”
Orion is brightest in England during the winter months,
THE PRINCESS - 103
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 .255
War-music, felt the blind Wildbeast 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. 265
“Our land invaded, "sdeath ! and he himself
Your captive, yet my father wills not war :
And, 'scleath ! myself, what care I, war or no P
But then this question of your troth remains :
And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 27.
She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet w
She ask'd but space and fairplay for her scheme ;
She prest and prest it on me—I myself,
What know I of these things 2 but, life and soul |
I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; 275
I say she flies too high, 'sqeath ! what of that ?
I take her for the flower of womankind,
252. Sirius, the dog star, when low down in the sky frequently
** alters hue.”
254, morions, helmets. . -
266. 'scieath I, a contraction of “God's death,” an old oath. Cf.
“zounds” (“God’s wounds”). -
269. troth, betrothal.
104 - THE PRINCESS
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. 285
Come, this is all ; she will not : waive your claim :
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once
Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father’s will.”
T 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 above his lip,
To prick us on to combat, “Like to like
The woman’s garment hid the woman’s heart.” 295
A taunt that clench’d his purpose like a blow !
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.” 300
Then spake the third, “But three to three ? no more ?
No more, and in our noble sister’s cause P
284. St. Catharine of Alexandria, a legendary saint who converted
to Christianity the fifty wise men sent by the Emperor Maximin to
Win her over from the faith.
285. She was a princess too. St Catherine was a daughter of Costus,
ºther of the Emperor Constantine and of Sabinella, the Queen
Of Egypt.
299. Cowards to their shame, afraid to undergo the imputation of
physical cowardice that they would undergo by not fighting.
THE PRINCESS 105
More, more, for honor : every captain waits
Hungry for honor, angry for his king.
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 305
May breathe himself, and quick by overthrow
Of these or those, the question settled die.”
“Yea,” 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 315
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 my father’s camp, and found
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates,
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim,
Or by denial flush her babbling wells
With her own people’s life : three times he went : 325
The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd : .
306. breath, take violent exercise. Cf. Prologue, 113.
308. wild wreath of air. Cf. Hemiry IV, Pt. 1, V. i. 134–5:
** What is honor P A Word. What is that Word honor P Air.”
316. Bide by this issue, act according to the result of the fight.
317, by the word, in her very words.
319. º: daughters, ducks that the hen has hatched.
cede, -
323. allow. -
324, flush, to fill full, and to stain With red ; a blended meaning.
106 THE PRINCESS
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 plow
Came sallying thro’ the gates, and caught his hair,
And so belabor’d him on rib and cheek 331
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 335
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: 345
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
All on this side the palace ran the field
Flat to the garden-wall; and likewise here,
Above the garden’s glowing blossom-belts,
336, a stately Pine. Cf. IV. 472–5.
344. iron palms, hands enclosed in iron gauntlets.
347. § and state, his time of life and the important position he
OCCupleCl, - • *
THE PRINCESS 107
*
A column’d entry shone and marble stairs,
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 355
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 morm 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.
“O brother, you have known the pangs we felt,
What heats of indignation when we heard 365
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 375
355. emboss'd, see note on II., 10. Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae,
against whom Cyrus carrièd on an expedition, purely for the sake of
conquest. He was defeated and killed on the field (529 B.C.), and
Tomyris, taking his head, dipped it in a skin of blood, saying that
Since he was so thirsty for blood he might, here drink his fill.
358, the lists, the enclosure with the seats for spectators, etc.
366, those . . . feet. See note on II. 118 -
367, lands, the reference is to a Russian marriage custom.
369 living hearts, the reference is to the Hindoo custom of burnin
widows On the funeral piles of their dead husbands. -
371. prophetic pity, fearing that their daughters would live to be
dishonored by failing to marry before a certain age.
372, flood, the Ganges, the sacred river of the Hindus,
108 THE PRINCESS
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 -
Against all men, and lived but for mine own, ºvu-
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 prey,
And prosper’d ; till a rout of saucy boys
Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace ; 385
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 395
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,
JFight and fight well ; strike and strike home. O dear
Brothers, the woman’s Angel guards you, you 4.00
The sole men to be mingled with our cause,
376. the old leaven, the old belief that woman is inferior to man,
381. memorial, commemorative paintings, statues, etc.
l ; gallant institutes, a magnificent curriculum and code of regu-
la, UlOIn S.
388. invalid, null and Void,
392. I would not aught of false, I wish to realize my real situation,
whatever it may be.
the woman's Angel. Cf. I. 207.
THE PRINCESS 109
The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime,
Your very armor hallow’d, and your statues
Rear'd, sung to, when, this gadfly brush’d aside,
We plant a solid foot into the Time, 405
And mold a generation strong to move
With claim on claim from right to right, till she
Whose name is yoked with children’s, know herself ;
And Knowledge in our own land made 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 : 415
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 chiefest 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 4.25
404. this gadfly, this trifling hindrance.
408. She whose name is yoked with children, woman, who is con-
sidered as having no higher sphere than as a child's nurse,
411. Commerce and conquest, the two chief agencies in the dissemi-
nation of “the grain of freedom,” from which springs civilization.
412. all that orbs, etc., all countries that lie between the poles of this
orb of earth. º
417. this Egypt-plague. The reference is to the plagues that God sent
upon the Egpytians as punishment for the refusal of Pharoah to let
the Israelites.go. These plagues sometimes took the form of locusts,
frogs, etc. Cf. Eacodus, viii.-x.
110 THE PRINCESS
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 I 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,
And topples down the scales; but this is fixt 435
As are the roots of earth and base of all ; º
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
And 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— 445
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 bawl
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she’s comely ; there’s the fairer chance : 450
I like her none the less for rating at her
. 441, the gray mare:, The reference is to the proverb, “the gray mare
is the better horse,” alluding to a wife who is the real head of the
house.
443. tile to scullery, roof to cellar.
447. those detestable, supply Ones.
448. bantling, infant.
449, potherbs, vegetables.
THE PRINCESS 1.il
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.”
|
455
|
f
}
- 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, 460
And on the “ Follow, follow, thou shalt win :”
I thought on all the wrathful king had said,
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 : 466
Ring, 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 a land 475
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
456, worman's wisdom, Woman's best use.
460. that wild morning, See I. 96–9.
464. curse. Cf. I. 10,
472. Empanoplied, in full armor.
478, bare on, carried along.
112 THE PRINCESS
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 : 486
Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down
From those two bulks at Arac’s side, and down
From 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,
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 P if this be so, 495
The mother makes us most—and in my dream
Iglanced 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
486 drew, their Swords.
488. those two bulks, Arac's brothers.
bºi mellay, from the French méléc, the confusion and tumult of
attle. -
500. Miriam, the sister of Moses, who sang the Song of Triumph over
Pharoah. Cf. Eacodus, xv. 20, 21. Jael; a Jewish, heroine, who killed
* ºppressor, Sisera, by driving a nail through his temples While he
SIOpU.
THE PRINCESS 113
No Saint—inexorable—no tenderness—
Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 505
Yea, let her see me fall ! with that I drawe
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 515
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and Cracks, and
splits,
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth
Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything
Gave way before him : only Florian, he
That loved me closer than his own right eye, 520
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 525
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
Flow’d from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell.
509. that large-moulded man, Arac.
510. a wake, a merry-making.
515. shadowing down, shutting off the light of the Sun in its course.
530, dream and truth flowed from me, I became totally unconscious,
114 THE PRINCESS
VI
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 spoke 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.”
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. 5
For so it seem’d, or so they said to me,
That all things grew more tragic and more strange ;
See note on first song. The central theme of this song is the power
of love for one's child as an inspiration and influence in daily life, as
that of the last song was the power of love as the inspiration of the
action of a moment. This glorification of the maternal instinct is in
constant contrast with the Princess's disregard and almost scorn of
love as a moving force in life.
* Like summer tempest, because suddenly and unexpectedly.
1. The sixth speaker here takes up the narrative.
My dream ..., again, either my dream survived the shock of un-
consciousneSS, or returned after an interval.
THE PRINCESS - 115
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 10
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque
And grovel’d on my body, and after him
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaïa.
But high upon the palace Ida stood
With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 15
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang.
“Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : 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 fall'n, have fallen : they came ;
The leaves were wet with women's tears : they heard
A noise of songs they would not understand :
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 25
And would have strown it, and are fall’n themselves.
“Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they came,
The woodmen with their axes: lo, the tree
But we will make it faggots for the hearth, º ... . . .
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor;” 30
And boats and bridges for the use of men. a.
“Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n : 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, 35
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder-blade.
16. great dame of Lapidoth, Deborah, who sang a song of triumph
over the dead Sisera. Cf. Judges, iv.-W., and note on “Jael,” V. 500.
17. This song compares the College, or, in a larger Sense, the cause of
woman, to a tree.
21. to the Sun. Cf. III. 327.
t; the red cross. This, marked on a tree, was the Symbol of destruc-
10Il. -
116 THE PRINCESS
“Our enemies have fall’n, but this shall grow
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth
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, O maids, behold our sanctuary
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not
To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 45
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,
We will be liberal, since our rights are won.
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind,
Ill nurses; but descend, and proffer these
The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 55
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. 60
Some cowl’d, and some bareheaded, 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,
38. A night of Summer, protection from the heat of summer. a
breadth of Autumn, a mighty harvest.
41. fangs, roots.
47. Blanch'd, marked with white. Cf. the expression “to mark with
a white stone.” - -
48. golden. See note on IV. 400.
49. Spring, spring blossoms. }
50. April, the month of showers.
THE PRINCESS 11%
And over them the tremulous isles of light 65
Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche
At distance follow'd : 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 75
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.” - 80
Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance,
She past my way. Up started from my side
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye,
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, –
Dishelm’d and mute, and motionlessly pale, 85
Cold ev’n 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
65. isles of light, the sunlight rifted through the leaves.
I Jºtwork. the pattern formed by the deer's antlers. See note On
8i. this, her sympathy for the wounded.
83. The old lion, the father of the Prince,
118 THE PRINCESS
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress,
And held them up : she saw them, and a day 95
Rose 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 100
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all,
Iſer 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 105
“O Sire,” she said, “ he lives : he is not dead :
O let me have him with my 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 110
Our progress falter to the woman’s goal.”
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 115
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-fall’n meteor on the grass,
94 the painting and the tress. Cf. I. 37–38.
101. Fancy, her fanciful ideas. *
110–111 The feeling of dependence on man, which her gratitude to the
Prince for saving her life and to her brothers for their support implies,
have caused the Princess's faith in the certainty of progress to “the
woman’s goal” to falter. .
118. brede, embroidery. e
119. meteor. See note on “headed like a star,” II, 94.
THE PRINCESS 119
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” 125
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,
Red 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 135
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
|Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look’d 140
At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it seem’d,
Or self-involved ; but when she learnt his face,
Remembering 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 145
When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said :
«t,
122. fatling, a word combining the idea of “fat, " and “ little.”
124. Brook'd, withstood.
130. Red grief, grief that makes red the eyes with weeping.
142. self-involved, wrapt in her own thoughts.
145. Tall. Cf. Prologue, 40. Shadows on wet sand are greatly length-
ened by the reflection of the Sun's rays.
120 TEIE PRINCESS
“O 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,
We vanquish’d, you the Victor of your will.
150
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
Fix’d in yourself, never in your own arms
To hold your own, deny not hers to her,
Give her the child ! 0 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,
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,
Give me it : I will give it her.”
He said :
At first her eye with slow dilation roll’d
155
160
165
170
148, play the lion's mane, assume the character of the male.
153. Orb'd. See note on IV. 129.
156. common, universal. -
157. the revolving wheel, the wheel of Fate.
158. Nemesis, in Greek mythology the goddess of retribution and
moral justice.
106, port, portal.
THE PRINCESS
121
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 ;
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 : them—
“All good go with thee take it, Sir,” and so
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,
And in her hunger 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
175
180
185
190
195
173. Dry, tearless.
179. No purple, with nothing of the rose-color of hope.
180, a love not to be mine, the love of wife and mother.
186. prime, early dawn. e -
193, swum in thanks; flooded with thankful tears.
122 THE PRINCESS
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 205
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.”
Af #
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 P not one P
Whence drew you this steel temper ? not from me,
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 216
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
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, 225
For your wild whim ; and was it then for this,
202. part. Cf. “parted,” II. 166 and note.
206. grace, favor.
224, Stiff as Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt in punish.
ment for disobedience. -
THE PRINCESS 123
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 2 Is it kind P
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 235
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
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 24.1
Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint
You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; may,
You shame your mother’s judgment too. Not one P
You will not ? well—no heart have you, or such 245
As fancies like the Vermin in a nut
IHave fretted all to dust and bitterness.”
So said the small king moved beyond his wont.
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
239. Sine and arc, mathematical terms. spheroid . . . ascension, astro-
nomical terms.
245, such, a heart from which her fanciful ideas have taken all nat-
ural feeling. *
250. By many emotions, different in character and prolonged in time,
251, wept, Softly and slowly, like the falling of tears. -
124 THE PRINCESS
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon
In a still water : then brake out my sire, r
Lifting his grim head from my wounds. “O you, 255
Woman, whom we thought woman even now,
And were half fool'd to let you tend our son,
Because he might have wish’d 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
Is safer : on to the tents: take up the Prince.” 262
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 265
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend.
- . - “Come hither.
O 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
Riss and be friends, like children being chid
I seem no more : I want forgiveness too :
I 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 2–why 2–Yet see,
Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 276
261. When your skies change again, when your present sympathy has
given place to angel'.
263. attend, await.
270. hollow. Cf. 245–7 above.
272. no more, sc. “ than a child.”
275. why 2–why P. She was beginning to ask, “Why need our friend-
; have been broken P” but recognizes the futility of such idle ques-
1Onling.
THE PRINCESS 125
With all forgiveness, all oblivion,
And trust, not love, you less.
+ And now, O 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 P grant my prayer.
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 286
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 ev’n as they are.”
- Passionate tears
Follow'd : 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.” 295
“Ay so,” said Ida with a bitter smile, C’
“Our laws are broken : let him enter too.”
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song,
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain,
JPetition'd too for him. “ Ay so,” she said, 300
277. oblivion, forgetfulness.
281. This nightmare weight of gratitude
283. adit. entrance, access.
284. proper, in the Latin Sense of “own.”
287-8. that . . . myself, the womanly nature, which is almost crushing
ber with the force of its return.
289. mob me up, merge me with the mob of.
292. Cyril said, to Psyche.
298. the mournful song. Cf. IV. 21–40.
299. tumbled, thrown from his horse.
Cf. 110 above.
&
*
126 THE PRINCESS
“I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour :
We break our laws with ease, but let it be.”
“Ay so P” said Blanche : “Amazed am I to hear
Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease
The law your Highness did not make : ’twas I. 306
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
Eut 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, 315
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
IHer brother came ; the king her father charm’d 325
302. eddy, a little whirlpool in the stream which remains in the same
place. The heart of the Princess cannot withstand the force of her
Woman's nature, long pent up. -
# tº lighthouse built by Ptolemy P
. . the Pharos, the famous lighthouse built by Ptolemy Philadelphus.
(B.C. 250) on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. - p
TELIE PRINCESS 127
Pſer wounded soul with words : nor did mine own
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand.
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
Rested : but great the crush was, and each base,
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 335
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 center 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, 345
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head,
Now fired 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.
330. Vestal, untrodden by man, See note on II. 204.
337. cats, the tame leopards. Cf. II. 19 ; III. 170.
338.. supporters, in heraldry, the name given to the two figures, usu-
ally animals, that stand on either side of the coat of arms.
347. Pallas, the goddess of Wisdom. .
348, Dian, Diana, the Latin goddess Whose Symbol Was the moon,
128 THE PRINCESS
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 355
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 360
Held Sagest, and the great lords out and in,
IFrom those two hosts that lay beside the walls,
Walk’d at their will, and everything was changed.
352. ordinance, commands.
355, due. Cf. IV. 123.
THE PRINCESS 129
VII
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 2
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 bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd : f
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.
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 5
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 10
See note on first song. This song anticipates the Princess's Self-sur-
render to the all-powerful influence of love.
* the moon may draw the sea. The reference is to the phenomenon of
the tides, which are largely controlled by the moon,
+ Sympathy may exist between various forms of Nature, but when
have I given you any reason to expect that it may exist between us?
£ sealed, sc." by Fate"; irrevocable. -
130 TEIE PRINCESS
With books, with flowers, with Angel offices,
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. 15
Old studies fail'd ; 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,
Plot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, .
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand,
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 25
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
Shot up and shrill’d in flickering gyres, but I 31
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, 35
11. Angel offices, gracious ministrations.
17. Clomb, the old past tense of “climb.”
18 leaguer, camp * iº
19 void was her use, she no longer busied herself in her usual duties.
23, verge, horizon -
25 tarn, a small lake.
26. Expunge, blot out of Sight.
31, gyres, circles.
TEIF PRINCESS 131
Deeper than those weird 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 45
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
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. 55
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
45. silks, the silken curtains of the beds.
50–1. fair charities . . . side ; Florian joined Melissa in her kindly min-
istrations. s
56. obtain'd, prevailed.
60. Cf. V. 101–2.
132 . THE PRINCESS
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 65
A little flush'd, and she passed 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 y 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. 75
/
-\ / But I lay still, and with me oft she sat :
Then-came a change ; for sometimes I would catch
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, - 80
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 : 85
Till out of long frustration of her care,
And pensive tendance in the all-weary moons,
And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks
71, showers of random sweet, a continuance of the metaphor of a car-
nival, during which it is the custom to pelt passers-by with handfuls
of Sweetmeats. X-
86. frustration of her care, the failure of her nursing to obtain a cure.
88. the dead, Sc. “ of night.”
TEIE PRINCESS 133
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, 95
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 4.
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 105
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 110
A dwarf-like Cato cower’d. On the other side
Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind,
91. her kindlier days. Cf. III. 204.
96. often, frequent.
109. Oppian law, passed during the Second Punic War (215 B.C.) to
restrain the Roman women from their extravagance in dress: twenty
years later, after the War was over, the Women rose in the Forum and
compelled its repeal. -
Titanic, gigantic ; the Titans were a mythological race of giants.
111. Cato, the Roman consul (195 B.C.) who protested against the
repeal of the Oppian law.
112. Hortensia, a Roman woman who prevented the passing of a law
taxing, wealthy, Roman matrons for the support of the army of the
Second Triumvirate (44 B.C.).
134 - THE PRINCESS
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, 115
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, I25
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 fulfill yourself :
But if you be that Ida whom I knew,
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.” 135
I could no more, but lay like one in trance,
That hears his burial talk’d of by his friends,
113. axe and eagle, the Roman symbols of civil and military author-
ity, respectively.
115. wolf's-milk, Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of
Rome, were said to have been suckled by a wolf.
116. triumvirs, Anthony, Octavius, and Lepidus.
THE PRINCESS 135
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 ; 140
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 145
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood \
Than in her mold 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, 155
Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept,
Fill'd thro’ and thro' with Love, a happy sleep.
Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held
A volume of the Poets of her land :
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 160
“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 firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
148. that other, Venus, the goddess of Love, who, in Latin mythology,
Was Said to have risen from the Sea, and to have been clothed by the
Graces with all adornments of beauty. -
154. mine, sc. “worship.”
155, thee, the Princess.
136 THE PRINCESS
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, 165
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. -
Now lies the Earth all Danaë 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 175
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, - . 185
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, -
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or fox-like in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white, ravine, 190
Nor find him dropt upon the 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
*. Danaë, a Fº of Argos, who was confined in a brazen tower
for sºº which Zeus gained admittance, coming in the form of a
railr, OI go1Cl. \
177–207. An adaptation of the Eleventh Idyl of Theocritus, the Greek
O62t,
186. maize, corn.
189. horns, the peaks of the mountain.
191-193. The glacier, Slanting down in ridgy (huddling) masses, at
the foot of which the mountain stream begins. .
THE PRINCESS 137
To find him in the valley; let the wild 195
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 purpose 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, 205
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.”
So she low-toned ; 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 215
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 £20
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power
In knowledge : something wild within her breast,
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down.
And she had nursed me there from week to week :
198, water-smoke, the spray and foam of the waterfalls.
201, azure pillars, the blue Smoke rising from the hearth.
205–7. Notice the Onomatopoeia.
215-16, block, left in the quarry, she had not been able to complete
the sculpture of her design. -
138 THE PRINCESS
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 225
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 P 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, 235
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 with man 245
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—
230. the signs, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, of the old astronomy.
ſº these lies the path which the Sun appears to follow in the
ea,Ven S.
234. Change, the breaking of day
235. acacias, a kind of flowering shrub, t
245, out of Lethe, from the beginning of life. Lethe (oblivion) was
the Fº of a river of Hades, whose waters gave forgetfulness of past
eX1SLen Ce.
245–6. scales . . . the steps of Nature, keeps pace in development
With man.
THE PRINCESS 139
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow 2 but work no more alonel 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 255
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 a man,
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 grow,
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in Sweetness and in moral height, 265
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world :
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 ; 2.
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, ~~~
%
;0
251. Our, of men.
253, parasitic forms, conventions that tend to degrade woman.
255. burgeon, to blossom out.
260. diverse, cf. V. 152–3.
266. The practical side of man's nature.
272, full-summed, fully developed. -
271-9. So, in the distant future, man and woman each properly de-
veloped, shall lay the foundation for higher and more perfect de-
velopment, each recognizing the individual sphere of each, but know-
ing that each attains to the greatest usefulness only when joined with
the other. Then Shall come again the Golden Age. Cf. IV. 56. -
140 THE PRINCESS
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities, 275
But like each other ev’r, as those who love. - -
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men :
Then reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm :
Then springs the Crowning race of humankind.
May these things be l’
Sighing she spoke : “I fear 280
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 fulfills 285
Defect in each, and always thought in thought,
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,
The single pure and perfect animal,
The two-cell’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 P”
“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, 295
Or pines in Sad experience worse than death,
Or keeps his wing’d affections clipt with crime :
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one
Not learned, Save in gracious household ways,
281. type, typify.
282, rest, dependent on “let ’’ above.
288. animal, being.
THE PRINCESS - 141
N ot 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,
Who look’d all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seem’d to touch upon a sphere - 305
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 310
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 315
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,
302. breathing Paradise. Cf. III. 215, W. 154.
304. native to. Cf. 12, above.
298–312. It is supposed that Tennyson alludes to his own mother.
308. The reference is to the poetical belief in the “Music of the
Spheres.”
319. thy pictured eyes, cf. I. 37–39
321. the crust of iron moods, the unnatural severity of character
and life which the Princess had assumed. -
142. THE PRINCESS
Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro’ thee,
Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 325
Dearer for 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
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 - 335
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me,
I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride,
My wife, my life. O 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.” 345
331. blind half-world, that hemisphere yet in the darkness of night.
333. In that fine air I tremble, as physically in rarefied air.
334. mist-like, as does, mist.
335, morn to more, only the beginning of what is to come.
336–7. His future seems so blissful that he cannot think calmly of it.
338, signs, metaphors.
340, end, aim.
THE PRINCESS - 143
CONCLUSION.
So closed our 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, 5
“What, if you drest it up poetically l’
So pray’d the men, the women : I gave assent :
Yet how to bind the scatter’d scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf P What style could suit P
The men required that I should give throughout 10
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which 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, 15
Had ever seem’d to wrestle with 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
Not make her true-heroic, true-sublime P 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:
And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 25
And yet to give the story as it rose,
11, the sort, cf. Prologue 217–19.
144 * THE PRINCESS
ſ 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, 35
but that there rose a shout : the gates were closed
At Sunset, and the crowd were swarming now,
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 belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 45
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.
27. a strange diagonal. Explanatory of the inconsistency of the tone
throughout. A diagonal is a mechanical term meaning the direction
of motion of the resultant of two forces. Dr. Van Dyke in his Poetry
of Tennyson, p. 115, says: “ This diagonal movement is the essentia,
fault of the poem ; for it is not really a diagonal, but a zigzag, and
we can never teiſ how to trim our sails to catch the force of the
breeze. At one moment the poet seems to be making fun of the
woman's college, and the next moment he is very much in earnest.
As a Serious poem The PrinceSS is too amusing ; as an amusing poem
it is too serious.”
33. showery, tearful.
42. far-shadowing, shadowed from a distance.
48, the skirts of France, the borders, the extreme boundaries. Cf.
“the skirts of Time,” VII, 271. $
THE PRINCESS
145
“Look there, a garden l’” said my college friend,
The Tory member’s elder son, “and there !
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,
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 patient 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,
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
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.”
50
60
70
50. Tory, the name given to the Conservative Party in English poli-
tics. -
member, sc. “ of Parliament.”
57. the crowd, the masses. Cf. Im Memoriam, CXXVIII. 14:
“To fool the crowd with glorious lies.”
58. sudden heat, revolution.
66, no graver, of no more importance.
barring out, barring the door against the entrance of the school-
master. * e - gº & # e G
67. too comic, too ridiculous in their beginnings.
70. the narrow seas, a name often given to the Straits of Dover
which separate England from France. Cf. Merchant of Venice, II. viii.
* “The narrow seas that part
The French and English.”
146 THE PRINCESS
|
\ “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, 75
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.”
In such discourse we gain’d the garden rails, 80
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, 85
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 95
To follow : a shout rose again, and made
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve
78. go-cart, a framework on wheels for Supporting children while
learning to walk.
87. pine, pineapples.
90. Quarter-session, a court for the trying of minor offenses, held
four times a year. -
94, closed, included. Cf. Locksley Hall, 14:
“When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed.”
97. rookery, the rooks, an English bird very like the American crow.
TEIE PRINCESS 147
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer
From slope to slope thro’ distant ferns, and rang
Beyond the bourn of sunset ; O, 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 P So thrice they cried,
I likewise, and in groups they stream’d away. 105
But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on,
So much the gathering darkness charm'd : We sat
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie,
Perchance upon the future man : the walls
Blacken’d about us, bats wheel’d, and owls whoop’d,
And gradually the powers of the night, 111
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. 115
Last little Lilia, rising quietly,
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went.
98. branches, antlers. Cf. IV, 187.
100. bourn, limit. Cf. Hamlet, III. i.
“The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns.”
112 the region of the wind, the atmosphere of the earth.
113. broke them up, divided the darkness.
118. rich silks. Cf. Prologue, 100–3.
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2 Iºlº ENGIEI PUBLIGATIONS
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Anecdotes Nouvelles, Lectures faciles et
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This book is designed for students in high schools and
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purpose is to train them in the principles of French
IFRIENOEI 12 UBLICATIONS 3.
Grammar, and to accustom them to speak French by oral
instruction. The rules are stated in clear, correct, and
concise language. The exercises are short, lively, and
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This work is the most complete text-book of French
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A KEY TO THE ENGLISH ExFRCISES IN THE ANALYTICAL
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IV. A Collegiate Course in the French Language:
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PART FIRST.—A Treatise on French Pronunciation ;
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PART SEconD.—Syntax; a Collection of Idioms; Exer
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This work, as its title indicates, is designed for colleges
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A KEY TO THE ENGLISH EXERCISES IN THE Col-
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V. An Analytical French Reader : with English
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in Speaking ; Questions on Grammar, with References to
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couplets. 25 cents.
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