'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.'

They hunt old trails' said Cyril 'very well

But when did woman ever yet invent?'

6

;

learnt

• Ungracious!' answer'd Florian, 'have you
No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?'
O trash' he said but with a kernel in it.
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise?
And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash,

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull,

And

every Muse tumbled a science in.

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls,
And round these halls a thousand baby loves
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts,
Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O
With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy,
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm,
The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too;
He cleft me thro' the stomacher; and now
What think you of it, Florian? will it hold?

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat?

For dear are those three castles to my wants,
And dear is sister Psyche to my heart,

And two dear things are one of double worth,
And much I might have said, but that my zone
Unmann'd me: then the Doctors! O to hear

The Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants
Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar,

To break my chain, to shake my mane: but come,
Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry!

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, 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 stream'd

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 glitter'd like a bed of flowers.

How might a man not wander from his wits

Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own
Intent upon
the Princess, where she sat

Among her grave Professors, scattering gems
Of Art and Science: only Lady Blanche,
A double-rouged and treble-wrinkled Dame,
With all her faded Autumns 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 walk'd reciting by herself, and one

In this hand held a volume as to read,

And smoothed a petted peacock down with that: Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by,

Or under arches of the marble bridge

Hung, shadow'd 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 murmur'd that their May
Was passing what was learning unto them?
They wish'd to marry; they could rule a house;
Men hated learned women: and to us came
Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts

Of gentle satire, kin to charity,

That harm'd not so we sat; and now when day
Droop'd, and the chapel tinkled, 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 thro' 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.

III.

MORN in the white 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 touch'd
Above the darkness from their native East.

And while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd
Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep,

6

Or sorrow, 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 we demanding 'how'

'My fault' she wept my fault! and yet not mine;

Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me.