We hold them slight: they mind us of the time

When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men,

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness,

And dress the victim to the offering up.
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise,
And play the slave to gain the tyranny.
Poor soul! I had a maid of honour once;

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one,

A

rogue of canzonets and serenades.

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead.

So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song Used to great ends: ourself have often tried Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd The passion of the prophetess; for song

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth.

Of spirit than to junketing and love.

Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats,

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,

Not vassals to be beat, nor petty babes

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough! But now to leaven play with profit, you,

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, That gives the manners of your countrywomen?"

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head

with eyes

Of shining expectation fixt on mine.

Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had

wrought,

Or master'd by the sense of sport, began

To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch

Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him,
I frowning; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook;
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows;
"Forbear" the Princess cried; "Forbear, Sir" I;
And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love,
I smote him on the breast; he started up;
There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd;

Melissa clamour'd "Flee the death;" "To horse"
Said Ida; "home! to horse!" and fled, as flies
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk,
When some one batters at the dovecote-doors,

Disorderly the women.

Alone I stood

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart,
In the pavilion: there like parting hopes

I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof,
And every hoof a knell to my desires,

Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek, "The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!" For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom: There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd

branch

Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave,

No more; but woman-vested as I was

Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her;

then

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left

The weight of all the hopes of half the world,
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught,
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore.

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew

My burthen from mine arms; they cried "she

lives:"

They bore her back into the tent: but I,

So much a kind of shame within me wrought,
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes,
Nor found my friends; but push'd alone on foot
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine)
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up

A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves
Of open-work in which the hunter rued
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates.

A little space was left between the horns, Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks,

And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to

hue,

Now poring on the glowworm, now the star,
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd

Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns.

Of lightest echo, then a loftier form

A step

Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom,

Disturb'd me with the doubt" if this were she"

But it was Florian.

"Hist O Hist," he said,

"They seek us out so late is out of rules.

Moreover 'seize the strangers' is the cry.

How came you here?" I told him: "I" said he, "Last of the train, a moral leper, I,

To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, return'd.,

Arriving all confused among the rest

With hooded brows I crept into the hall,
And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw.
Girl after girl was call'd to trial: each
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us : last of all,
Melissa trust me, Sir, I pitied her.

She, question'd if she knew us men, at first