The Princess Part 2

Make liquid treble of that ba.s.soon, my throat; Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell For dinner, let us go!'

And in we streamed Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to end With beauties every shade of brown and fair In colours gayer than the morning mist, The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers.

How might a man not wander from his wits Pierced through with eyes, but that I kept mine own Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, The second-sight of some Astraean age, Sat compa.s.sed with professors: they, the while, Discussed a doubt and tost it to and fro: A clamour thickened, mixt with inmost terms Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat In act to spring.

At last a solemn grace Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there One walked reciting by herself, and one In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peac.o.c.k down with that: Some to a low song oared a shallop by, Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadowed from the heat: some hid and sought In the orange thickets: others tost a ball Above the fountain-jets, and back again With laughter: others lay about the lawns, Of the older sort, and murmured that their May Was pa.s.sing: what was learning unto them?

They wished to marry; they could rule a house; Men hated learned women: but we three Sat m.u.f.fled like the Fates; and often came Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts Of gentle satire, kin to charity, That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bells Called 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, Groaning for power, and rolling through 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 labours for the world.

Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; 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.

III

Morn in the 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 touched Above the darkness from their native East.

There while we stood beside the fount, and watched Or seemed to watch the dancing bubble, approached Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes The circled Iris of a night of tears; 'And fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may!

My mother knows:' and when I asked her 'how,'

'My fault' she wept 'my fault! and yet not mine; Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me.

My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night To rail at Lady Psyche and her side.

She says the Princess should have been the Head, Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms; And so it was agreed when first they came; But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, And the left, or not, or seldom used; Hers more than half the students, all the love.

And so last night she fell to canva.s.s you: _Her_ countrywomen! she did not envy her.

"Who ever saw such wild barbarians?

Girls?--more like men!" and at these words the snake, My secret, seemed to stir within my breast; And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed: "O marvellously 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 That I must needs repeat for my excuse What looks so little graceful: "men" (for still My mother went revolving on the word) "And so they are,--very like men indeed-- And with that woman closeted for hours!"

Then came these dreadful words out one by one, "Why--these--_are_--men:" I shuddered: "and you know it."

"O ask me nothing," I said: "And she knows too, And she conceals it." So my mother clutched The truth at once, but with no word from me; And now thus early risen she goes to inform The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crushed; 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?'

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 cla.s.sic Angel speak In scorn of us, "They mounted, Ganymedes, To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn."

But I will melt this marble into wax To yield us farther furlough:' and he went.

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought He scarce would prosper. 'Tell us,' Florian asked, '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 (G.o.d help her) she was wedded to a fool; And still she railed 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 murmured 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 blushed again, As if to close with Cyril's random wish: Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.'

'The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, The dove may murmur of the dove, but I An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere.

My princess, O my princess! true she errs, But in her own grand way: being herself Three times more n.o.ble than three score of men, She sees herself in every woman else, And so she wears her error like a crown To blind the truth and me: for her, and her, Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix The nectar; but--ah she--whene'er she moves The Samian Here rises and she speaks A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.'

So saying from the court we paced, and gained The terrace ranged along the Northern front, And leaning there on those bal.u.s.ters, high Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale That blown about the foliage underneath, And sated with the innumerable rose, Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came Cyril, and yawning 'O hard task,' he cried; 'No fighting shadows here! I forced a way Through opposition crabbed and gnarled.

Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump A league of street in summer solstice down, Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman.

I knocked and, bidden, entered; found her there At point to move, and settled in her eyes The green malignant light of coming storm.

Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oiled, As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I prayed Concealment: she demanded who we were, And why we came? I fabled nothing fair, But, your example pilot, told her all.

Up went the hushed amaze of hand and eye.

But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, She answered sharply that I talked astray.

I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, And our three lives. True--we had limed ourselves With open eyes, and we must take the chance.

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm The woman's cause. "Not more than now," she said, "So puddled as it is with favouritism."

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, 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.

I find you here but in the second place, Some say the third--the authentic foundress you.

I offer boldly: we will seat you highest: Wink at our advent: help my prince to gain His rightful bride, and here I promise you Some palace in our land, where you shall reign The head and heart of all our fair she-world, And your great name flow on with broadening time For ever." Well, she balanced this a little, And told me she would answer us today, meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I gained.'

He ceasing, came a message from the Head.

'That afternoon the Princess rode to take The dip of certain strata to the North.

Would we go with her? we should find the land Worth seeing; and the river made a fall Out yonder:' then she pointed on to where A double hill ran up his furrowy forks Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale.

Agreed to, this, the day fled on through all Its range of duties to the appointed hour.

Then summoned 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 rolled And pawed 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 seemed a hollow show, Her gay-furred 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 pa.s.sion 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 narrowed to the hills.

I rode beside her and to me she said: 'O friend, we trust that you esteemed us not Too harsh to your companion yestermorn; Unwillingly we spake.' 'No--not to her,'

I answered, 'but to one of whom we spake Your Highness might have seemed the thing you say.'

'Again?' she cried, 'are you amba.s.sadresses From him to me? we give you, being strange, A license: speak, and let the topic die.'

I stammered that I knew him--could have wished-- 'Our king expects--was there no precontract?

There is no truer-hearted--ah, you seem All he prefigured, and he could not see The bird of pa.s.sage flying south but longed To follow: surely, if your Highness keep Your purport, you will shock him even to death, Or baser courses, children of despair.'

'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read--no books?

Quoit, tennis, ball--no games? nor deals in that Which men delight in, martial exercise?

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, Methinks he seems no better than a girl; As girls were once, as we ourself have been: We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them: We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, Being other--since we learnt our meaning here, To lift the woman's fallen divinity Upon an even pedestal with man.'

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile 'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, O Vashti, n.o.ble Vashti! Summoned 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, 'On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, I prize his truth: and then how vast a work To a.s.sail this gray preeminence of man!

You grant me license; might I use it? think; Ere half be done perchance your life may fail; 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, 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?'

And she exclaimed, 'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild!

What! though your Prince's love were like a G.o.d's, Have we not made ourself the sacrifice?

You are bold indeed: we are not talked to thus: Yet will we say for children, would they grew Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well: But children die; and let me tell you, girl, Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die; They with the sun and moon renew their light For ever, blessing those that look on them.

Children--that men may pluck them from our hearts, Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves-- 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; Though she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, Who earns the one POU STO whence after-hands May move the world, though 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, 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 answered nothing, doubtful in myself If that strange Poet-princess with her grand Imaginations might at all be won.

And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

'No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; We are used to that: for women, up till this Cramped under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, Dwarfs of the gynaeceum, fail so far In high desire, they know not, cannot guess How much their welfare is a pa.s.sion 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, To compa.s.s our dear sisters' liberties.'

She bowed as if to veil a n.o.ble tear; And up we came to where the river sloped To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 'As these rude bones to us, are we to her That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I asked, 'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, A golden brooch: beneath an emerald plane Sits Diotima, teaching him that died Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life; She rapt upon her subject, he on her: For there are schools for all.' 'And yet' I said 'Methinks I have not found among them all One anatomic.' 'Nay, we thought of that,'

She answered, 'but it pleased us not: in truth We shudder but to dream our maids should ape Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, And cram him with the fragments of the grave, Or in the dark dissolving human heart, And holy secrets of this microcosm, Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs: Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, For many weary moons before we came, This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself Would tend upon you. To your question now, Which touches on the workman and his work.