THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND
SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon His tenants, wife and child, and thither half The neighboring borough with their Institute Of which he was the patron. I was there From college, visiting the son,-the son A Walter too,-with others of our set, Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place.
And me that morning Walter show'd the house, Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park. Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; And on the tables every clime and age Jumbled together: celts and calumets, Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fans Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls, Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.
And "this," he said, "was Hugh's at Agincourt; And that was old Sir 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 Who laid about them at their wills and died; And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.
"O miracle of women," said the book, "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 lostHer stature more than mortal in the burst Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fireBrake 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, 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, "To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth
And sister Lilia with the rest." (I kept the book and had my finger in it) Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me; For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown With happy faces and with holiday.
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads;
The patient leaders of their Institute
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone And drew from butts of water on the slope,
The fountain of the moment, playing now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down A man with knobs and wires and vials fired A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep 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 clock-work steamer paddling plied 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 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 Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd, And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light And shadow, while the twangling violin Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end.
Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house; but all within The sward was trim as any garden lawn: And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends From neighbor seats: and there was Ralph himself, A broken statue propt against the wall,
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, Half child, half woman as she was, had wound A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, And there we joined 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 Of College: he had climb'd across the spikes, And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs: and one Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, But honeying at the whisper of a lord; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 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 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 Beside him) "lives there such a woman now ?" Quick answer'd Lilia, "There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down: It is but bringing up; no more than that: You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children! O I wish That I were some great Princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man's, And I would teach them all that men are taught: We are twice as quick!" And here she shook aside The hand that play'd the patron with her curls.
And one said smiling, "Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths or Ralph Who shines so in the corner; yet fear,
If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it."
At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot: "That's your light way: but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us."
Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd; A rose-bud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she: But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss," And swore he long'd at College, only long'd, All else was well, for she-society. They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;
They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans; They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends, And caught the blossom of the flying terms, But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection.
"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, And takes a lady's finger with all care, And bites it for true heart and not for harm, So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd And wrung it. "Doubt my word again!" he said. "Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read, And there we took one tutor as to read: The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square Were out of season: never man, I think,
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, We did but talk you over, pledge you all In wassail: often, like as many girls- Sick for the hollies and the yews of home- As many little trifling Lilias-play'd Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,
And what's my thought and when and where and how, And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas."
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?
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips: And Walter nodded at me; "He began, The rest would follow, each in turn; and so We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, Seven-headed monsters only made to kill Time by the fire in winter."
The tyrant! kill him in the summer too," Said Lilia; "Why not now," the maiden Aunt. "Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? A tale for summer as befits the time, And something it should be to suit the place, 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 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; Heroic if you will, or what you will,
Or be yourself your hero if you will."
"Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, "And make her some great Princess, six feet high, Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you
"Then follow me, the Prince," 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,
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 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."
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.
A PRINOE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, Of temper amorous, as the first of May, With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, For on my cradle shone the Northern star.
There lived an ancient legend in our house. Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt Because he cast no shadow, had foretold, Dying, that none of all our blood should know
The shadow from the substance, and that one Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. For so, my mother said, the story ran. And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, An old and strange affection of the house.
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!"
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead In iron gauntlets: break the council up."
Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what: Roar'd the rough king, "you shall not; we ourself On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 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, And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd "catalepsy." 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; He cared not for the affection of the house; He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass For judgment.
Now it chanced that I had been, While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd To one, a neighboring Princess: she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf
At eight years old; and still from time to time Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, And of her brethren, youths of puissance; And still I wore her picture by my heart, And one dark tress; and all around them both Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their
But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, My father sent ambassadors with furs
But when the council broke, I rose and past Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out; Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees: What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth? Proud look'd the lips: but while I meditated A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks Of the wild woods together; and a Voice Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalt win."
Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield, I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread To hear my father's clamor at our backs With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; But all was quiet: from the bastion'd walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange, And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, And in the imperial palace found the king.
His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice,
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind
A present, a great labor of the loom;
And therewithal an answer vague as wind: Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts; He said there was a compact; that was true: But then she had a will; was he to blame? And maiden fancies; loved to live alone Among her women; certain, would not wed.
That morning in the presence-room I stood With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: The first, a gentleman of broken means (His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts Of revel; and the last, my other heart, And almost my half-self, for still we moved Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye.
Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet, Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware That he would send a hundred thousand men, And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chew'd The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen, Communing with his captains of the war.
At last I spoke. "My father, let me go. It cannot be but some gross error lies In this report, this answer of a king, Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable: Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, May rue the bargain made." And Florian said: "I have a sister at the foreign court, Who moves about the Princess; she, you know, Who wedded with a nobleman from thence: He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, The lady of three castles in that land: Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." And Cyril whisper'd: "Take me with you too."
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines; A little dry old man, without a star, Not like a king: three days he feasted us, And on the fourth I spake of why we came, And my betroth'd. "You do us, Prince," he said, Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, "All honor. We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass Long summers back, a kind of ceremony-
I think the year in which our olives fail'd.
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, With my full heart: but there were widows here, Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche; They fed her theories, in and out of place Maintaining that with equal husbandry The woman were an equal to the man. They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang; Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk; Nothing but this; my very ears were hot To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held, Was all in all; they had but been, she thought, As children; they must lose the child, assume The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, But all she is and does is awful; odes About this losing of the child; and rhymes And dismal lyrics, prophesying change Beyond all reason: these the women sang; And they that know such things-I sought but peace; No critic I-would call them masterpieces; They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon A certain summer-palace which I have Hard by your father's frontier: I said no, Yet being an easy man, gave it; and there, All wild to found an University
For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more We know not,-only this: they see no men, Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her As on a kind of paragon; and I
(Pardon me saying it) were much loath to breed
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur With garrulous ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets But chafing me on fire to find my bride) Went forth again with both my friends. We rode Many a long league back to the North. At last From hills, that look'd across a land of hope, We dropt with evening on a rustic town Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, Close at the boundary of the liberties; There enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host To council, plied him with his richest wines, And show'd the late-writ letters of the king.
He with a long low sibilation, stared As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd Averring it was clear against all rules For any man to go: but as his brain Began to mellow, "If the king," he said, "Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? The king would bear him out;" and at the last- The summer of the vine in all his veins-
"No doubt that we might make it worth his while. She once had past that way; he heard her speak; She scared him; life! he never saw the like; She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; He always made a point to post with mares; His daughter and his housemaid were the boys: The land he understood for miles about Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows, And all the dogs-"
A thought flash'd thro' me which I cloth'd' in act, Remembering how we three presented Maid Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, In masque or pageant at my father's court. We sent mine host to purchase female gear; He brought 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 To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, And boldly ventured on the liberties.
We follow'd up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley: then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four wing'd horses dark against the stars; And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow: further on we gain'd A little street half garden and half house; But scarce, could hear each other speak for noise Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down 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.
In laurel her we ask'd of that and this, And who were tutors. "Lady Blanche," she said, "And Lady Psyche." "Which was prettiest, Best-natured ?" "Lady Psyche." "Hers are we," One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, In such a hand as when a field of corn Bows all its ears before the roaring East:
"Three ladies of the Northern empire pray Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils."
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes:
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn: And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd To float about a glimmering night, and watch A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.
As thro' the 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.
For when we came where lies the child We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kiss'd again with tears.
Ar break of day the College Portress came: She brought us Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold; and now when these were on, And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know The Princess Ida waited: out we paced,
I first, and following thro' the porch that sang All round with laurel, issued in a court Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 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 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, 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 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, 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,"
There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and She answer'd, "then ye know the Prince ?" and he: Earth
With constellation and with continent, Above an entry: riding in, we call'd; A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench Came running at the call, and help'd us down. Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, Full blown, before us into rooms which gave Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost
"The climax of his age! as tho' there were One rose in all the world, your Highness that, He worships your ideal." She replied: "We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear This barren verbiage, current among men, Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem As arguing love of knowledge and of power;
Our statues!-not of those that men desire, Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she The foundress of the Babylonian wall, The Carian Artemisia strong in war, The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 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, Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd: 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. Leave us: you may go: To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue The fresh arrivals of the week before; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive."
She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal: back again we crost the court To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, A patient range of pupils; she herself Erect behind a desk of satin-wood,
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, And on the hither side, or so she look'd, Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, In shining draperies, headed like a star, Her maiden babe, a double April old, 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!" and she began.
"This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the man; Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate; As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here Among the lowest."
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; Glanced at the legendary Amazon 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, 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 To woman, superstition all awry: However then commenced the dawn: a beam Had slanted forward, falling in a land
Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert None lordlier than themselves but that which made Woman and man. She had founded; they must build. Here might they learn whatever men were taught: 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; He took advantage of his strength to be First 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 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 Elizabeth and others; arts of war
The peasant Joan and others; arts of grace Sappho and others vied with any man:
And, last not least, she who had left her place, And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow To use and power on this Oasis, lapt
In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight Of ancient influence and scorn."
She rose upon a wind of prophecy Dilating on the future; "everywhere Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss Of science, and the secrets of the mind: Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world."
She ended here, and beckon'd us: the rest Parted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she Began to address us, and was moving on In gratulation, till as when a boat
Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, "My brother!" "Well, my sister." "O," she said, "What do you here? and in this dress? and these? Why who are these? a wolf within the fold! A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me! A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all!" "No plot, no plot," he answer'd. How saw you not the inscription on the gate, LET NO MAN ENTER IN ON PAIN OF DEATH?" "And if I had," he answer'd, "who could think The softer Adams of your Academe,
O sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such
As chanted on the blanching bones of men ?" "But you will find it otherwise," she said. "You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow Binds me to speak, and O that iron will, That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, The Princess." "Well then, Psyche, take my life, And nail me like a weasel on a grange For warning: bury me beside the gate, And cut this epitaph above my bones; Here lies a brother by a sister slain, All for the common good of womankind."
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