THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. PROLOGUE. SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day A Walter too, with others of our set, Five others we were seven at Vivian-place. And me that morning Walter show'd the house, B Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; And on the tables every clime and age Jumbled together; celts and calumets, Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefathers' arms and armour hung. And 'this' he said 'was Hugh's at Agincourt ; And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon : With all about him'-which he brought, and I Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 'O miracle of women,' said the book, 'O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish, Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost Her stature more than mortal in the burst Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, And part were drown'd within the whirling brook : So sang the gallant glorious chronicle; And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said, 'To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth And sister Lilia with the rest.' We went (I kept the book and had my finger in it) Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me; For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown With happy faces and with holiday. There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : The patient leaders of their Institute Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone And drew, from butts of water on the slope, The fountain of the moment, playing now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep |