But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection. 'True,' she said, 'We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.' She held it out; and as a parrot turns Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, And takes a lady's finger with all care, And bites it for true heart and not for harm, So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd And wrung it. 'Doubt my word again!' he said. 'Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read ; And there we took one tutor as to read : The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square Were out of season: never man, I think, So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet, And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, We did but talk you over, pledge you all In wassail; often, like as many girls Sick for the hollies and the yews of home— Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, And what's my thought and when and where and how, And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas.' She remember'd that: A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these what kind of tales did men tell men, She wonder'd, by themselves? A half-disdain Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : And Walter nodded at me; 'He began, The rest would follow, each in turn; and so We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, Seven-headed monsters only made to kill Time by the fire in winter.' 'Kill him now, The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,' Said Lilia; 'Why not now,' the maiden Aunt. 'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? A tale for summer as befits the time, And something it should be to suit the place, Heroic, for a hero lies beneath, Grave, solemn !' Walter warp'd his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt (A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face With colour) turn'd to me with 'As Heroic if you will, or what you will, Or be yourself your hero if you will.' you will ; 'Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clamour'd he, 'And make her some great Princess, six feet high, Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you The Prince to win her!' 'Then follow me, the Prince,' I answer'd, ' each be hero in his turn ! Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream.— Heroic seems our Princess as required— But something made to suit with Time and place, A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, A talk of college and of ladies' rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade, And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all This were a medley! we should have him back Who told the Winter's tale' to do it for us. No matter we will say whatever comes. And let the ladies sing us, if they will, From time to time, some ballad or a song |