But one that really suited time and place
Were such a medley, we should have him back
Who told the Winter's Tale to do it for us:
A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And there with shrieks and strange experiments,
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all,
The nineteenth century gambols on the grass.
No matter we will say, whatever comes:
Here are we seven: if each man take his turn,
We make a sevenfold story:" then began.
A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.
My mother was as mild as any saint,
And nearly canonized by all she knew,
So gracious was her tact and tenderness:
But my good father thought a king a king;
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands
Reached out and picked offenders from the mass
For judgment.
Now it chanced that I had been, While life was yet in bud and blade, betrothed To one, a neighboring Princess: she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old; and still from time to time Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, And of her brethren, knights of puissance; And still I wore her picture by my heart,
And one dark tress; and all around them both
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their
But when the days drew nigh that I should wed,
My father sent ambassadors with furs
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back
A present, a great labor of the loom;
And therewithal an answer vague as wind:
Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts;
He said there was a compact; that was true:
But then she had a will; was he to blame?
And maiden fancies; loved to live alone
Among her women: certain would not wed.
That morning in the presence-room I stood
With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends:
The first, a gentleman of broken means,
(His father's fault,) but given to starts and bursts
Of revel; and the last, my other heart,
My shadow, my half-self, for still we moved.
Together, kin as horse's ear and eye.
Now while they spake I saw my father's face Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet,
Tore the king's letter, snowed it down, and rent
The wonder of the loom through warp and woof
From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware
That he would send a hundred thousand men,
And bring her in a whirlwind; then he chewed
The thrice-turned cud of wrath, and cooked his spleen,
Communing with his captains of the war.
At last I spoke. "My father, let me go.
It cannot be but some gross error lies
In this report, this answer of a king,
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable:
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen,
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame,
May rue the bargain made." And Florian said:
"I have a sister at the foreign court,
Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence :
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,
The lady of three castles in that land.
Through her this matter might be sifted clean."
Then whispered Cyril: "Take me with you too.
Trust me, I'll serve you better in a strait;
I grate on rusty hinges here:" but "No!"
Replied the king, "you shall not; I myself
Will crush these pretty maiden fancies dead
In iron gauntlets: break the council up."
But when the council broke, I rose and passed Through the wild woods that hung about the town ; Found a still place, and plucked her likeness out; Laid it on flowers, and watched it lying bathed In the green gleam of dewy-tasselled trees: What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth Proud looked the lips but while I meditated, A wind arose, and rushed upon the South, And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks Of the wild woods together; and a Voice Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalt win."
Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became a golden shield, I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. Down from the bastioned walls we dropt by night, And flying reached the frontier: then we crost To a livelier land; and so, by town and thorpe, And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness, We gained the mother-city thick with towers, And in the imperial palace found the king. His name was Gama; cracked and small his voice;
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