The Princess Part 6

Lily of the vale! half opened 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 needs bear the yoke, I wish it Gentle as freedom'--here she kissed it: then-- 'All good go with thee! take it Sir,' and so Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, Who turned 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 hugged and never hugged it close enough, And in her hunger mouthed and mumbled it, And hid her bosom with it; after that Put on more calm and added suppliantly:

'We two were friends: I go to mine own land For ever: find some other: as for me I scarce am fit for your great plans: yet speak to me, Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.'

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child.

Then Arac. 'Ida--'sdeath! you blame the man; You wrong yourselves--the woman is so hard Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me!

I am your warrior: I and mine have fought Your battle: kiss her; take her hand, she weeps: 'Sdeath! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.'

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, And reddening in the furrows of his chin, And moved beyond his custom, Gama said:

'I've heard that there is iron in the blood, And I believe it. Not one word? not one?

Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, Not from your mother, now a saint with saints.

She said you had a heart--I heard her say it-- "Our Ida has a heart"--just ere she died-- "But see that some on with authority Be near her still" and I--I sought for one-- All people said she had authority-- The Lady Blanche: much profit! Not one word; No! though your father sues: see how you stand Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maimed, I trust that there is no one hurt to death, For our wild whim: and was it then for this, Was it for this we gave our palace up, Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind?

Speak to her I say: is this not she of whom, When first she came, all flushed you said to me Now had you got a friend of your own age, Now could you share your thought; now should men see Two women faster welded in one love Than pairs of wedlock; she you walked with, she You talked with, whole nights long, up in the tower, Of sine and arc, spherod and azimuth, And right ascension, Heaven knows what; and now A word, but one, one little kindly word, Not one to spare her: out upon you, flint!

You love nor her, nor me, nor any; nay, You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one?

You will not? well--no heart have you, or such As fancies like the vermin in a nut Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.'

So said the small king moved beyond his wont.

But Ida stood nor spoke, drained of her force By many a varying influence and so long.

Down through her limbs a drooping languor wept: Her head a little bent; and on her mouth A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon In a still water: then brake out my sire, Lifted his grim head from my wounds. 'O you, Woman, whom we thought woman even now, And were half fooled to let you tend our son, Because he might have wished it--but we see, The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, And think that you might mix his draught with death, When your skies change again: the rougher hand Is safer: on to the tents: take up the Prince.'

He rose, and while each ear was p.r.i.c.ked to attend A tempest, through the cloud that dimmed her broke A genial warmth and light once more, and shone Through 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 hear they slander so!

Kiss 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?--why?--Yet see, Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 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, This nightmare weight of grat.i.tude, I know it; Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall have Free adit; we will scatter all our maids Till happier times each to her proper hearth: What use to keep them here--now? grant my prayer.

Help, father, brother, help; speak to the king: Thaw this male nature to some touch of that Which kills me with myself, and drags me down From my fixt height to mob me up with all The soft and milky rabble of womankind, Poor weakling even as they are.'

Pa.s.sionate tears Followed: the king replied not: Cyril said: 'Your brother, Lady,--Florian,--ask for him Of your great head--for he is wounded too-- That you may tend upon him with the prince.'

'Ay so,' said Ida with a bitter smile, 'Our laws are broken: let him enter too.'

Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, Pet.i.tioned too for him. 'Ay so,' she said, '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?' said Blanche: 'Amazed am I to her Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with ease The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I.

I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, And blocked them out; but these men came to woo Your Highness--verily I think to win.'

So she, and turned askance a wintry eye: But Ida with a voice, that like a bell Tolled by an earthquake in a trembling tower, Rang ruin, answered full of grief and scorn.

'Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all, Not only he, but by my mother's soul, Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, Till the storm die! but had you stood by us, The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, But shall not. Pa.s.s, and mingle with your likes.

We brook no further insult but are gone.'

She turned; the very nape of her white neck Was rosed with indignation: but the Prince Her brother came; the king her father charmed Her 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 shrieked The virgin marble under iron heels: And on they moved and gained the hall, and there Rested: but great the crush was, and each base, To left and right, of those tall columns drowned In silken fluctuation and the swarm Of female whisperers: at the further end Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats Close by her, like supporters on a shield, Bow-backed with fear: but in the centre stood The common men with rolling eyes; amazed They glared upon the women, and aghast The women stared at these, all silent, save When armour clashed or jingled, while the day, Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot A flying splendour out of bra.s.s and steel, 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 Of fright in far apartments.

Then the voice Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance: And me they bore up the broad stairs, and through The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 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 pa.s.sing home Till happier times; but some were left of those Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, Walked at their will, and everything was changed.

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee?

Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give?

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed: 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.

VII

So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turned to hospital; At first with all confusion: by and by Sweet order lived again with other laws: A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere Low voices with the ministering hand Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they talked, 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 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.

Old studies failed; 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 O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, Blot out the slope of sea from verge to sh.o.r.e, And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; So blackened all her world in secret, blank And waste it seemed and vain; till down she came, And found fair peace once more among the sick.

And twilight dawned; and morn by morn the lark Shot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but I Lay silent in the m.u.f.fled cage of life: And twilight gloomed; and broader-grown the bowers Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, Star after Star, arose and fell; but I, Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay Quite sundered 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, Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left Her child among us, willing she should keep Court-favour: here and there the small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or through the parted silks the tender face Peeped, 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 seemed it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities Joined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hears So gentle, so employed, should close in love, Than when two dewdrops on the petals shake To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, And slip at once all-fragrant into one.

Less prosperously the second suit obtained At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn That after that dark night among the fields She needs must wed him for her own good name; Not though he built upon the babe restored; Nor though she liked him, yielded she, but feared To incense the Head once more; till on a day When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung A moment, and she heard, at which her face A little flushed, and she past on; but each a.s.sumed 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 With showers of random sweet on maid and man.

Nor did her father cease to press my claim, Nor did mine own, now reconciled; nor yet Did those twin-brothers, risen again and whole; Nor Arac, satiate with his victory.

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch 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, And call her Ida, though I knew her not, And call her sweet, as if in irony, And call her hard and cold which seemed a truth: And still she feared that I should lose my mind, And often she believed that I should die: Till out of long frustration of her care, And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks Throbbed thunder through the palace floors, or called On flying Time from all their silver tongues-- 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 muttered dream, And often feeling of the helpless hands, And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek-- From all a closer interest flourished up, Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gathered colour day by day.

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death For weakness: it was evening: silent light Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought Two grand designs; for on one side arose The women up in wild revolt, and stormed At the Oppian Law. t.i.tanic shapes, they crammed The forum, and half-crushed among the rest A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused Hortensia pleading: angry was her face.

I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: They did but look like hollow shows; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder seemed: I moved: I sighed: a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand: Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine down my face, and with what life I had, And like a flower that cannot all unfold, So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her Fixt my faint eyes, and uttered whisperingly:

'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil 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 tonight.

Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, That hears his burial talked of by his friends, And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, But lies and dreads his doom. She turned; she paused; She stooped; and out of languor leapt a cry; Leapt fiery Pa.s.sion 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 n.o.ble shame; and all Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, And left her woman, lovelier in her mood Than in her mould that other, when she came From barren deeps to conquer all with love; And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, Naked, a double light in air and wave, To meet her Graces, where they decked her out For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Filled through and through 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.

'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: wake thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peac.o.c.k like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now lies the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

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.'