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— 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, 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: You are grown, and yet I knew you at the first. I am very glad, and I am very vext 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 His forehead, and 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 Began to glisten and to fall and while They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown So stood that same fair creature at the door. Then Lady Psyche Ah-Melissa-you! You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O pardon me! This whole foundation ruin, and I lose Replied Melissa 'no-I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 'Be it so the other that we may live to lead The new light up, and culminate in peace, For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.' Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls (Tho' madam you should answer, we would ask) Myself for something more.' He said not what, 6 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 We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child And then we stroll'd From room to room: in each we sat, we heard The grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands With flawless demonstration: follow'd then A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That treats of whatsoever is, the state, The total chronicles of man, the mind, The morals, something of the frame, the rock, 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, |