One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote,

In such a hand as when a field of corn

Bows all its ears before the roaring East;

Three ladies of the Northern empire pray

Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils.'

This I seal'd

(A Cupid reading) 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.

II.

AT break of day the College Portress came :

She brought us Academic silks, in hue

The lilac, with a silken hood to each,

And zoned with gold; and now when these were on,

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons,

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know

The Princess Ida waited: out we paced,

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang
All round with laurel, issued in a court

Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths
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 fame and profit unto 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?'

She answer'd, then ye know the Prince?' and he:

The climax of his age: as tho' there were

One rose in all the world, your Highness that,

He worships your ideal :' and she replied:
'We did not think in our own hall to hear
This barren verbiage, current among men,
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.
We think not of him when we set our hand
To this great work, we purposed with ourselves
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,

You may with those self-styled our lords ally

Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves, Perused the matting; then an officer

Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these:

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

'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall!

Our statues!-not of those that men desire,

Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode,

Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she

The foundress of the Babylonian wall,

The Carian Artemisia strong in war,

The Rhodope that built the pyramid,

Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows
Of Agrippina. 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.'