The Princess; a medley/Canto 4
IV.'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'Said Ida; 'let us down and rest:' and weDown from the lean and wrinkled precipices,By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft,Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where belowNo bigger than a glow-worm shone the tentLamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me,Descending; once or twice she lent her hand,And blissful palpitations in the blood,Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell.
But when we planted level feet, and diptBeneath the satin dome and enter'd in,There leaning deep in broider'd down we sankOur elbows: on a tripod in the midst A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'dFruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold.
Then she ‘Let some one sing to us: lightlier moveThe minutes fledged with music:’ and a maid,Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang.
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,Tears from the depth of some divine despairRise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,And thinking of the days that are no more.
"Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,That brings our friends up from the underworld,Sad as the last which reddens over oneThat sinks with all we love below the verge;So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
“Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The easement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
"Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more."
She ended with such passion that the tear, She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain Answer'd the Princess 'If indeed there haunt About the moulder'd lodges of the Past So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men,Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatch'd In silken-folded idleness; nor is it Wiser to weep a true occasion gone,But trim our sails, and let the old proverb serveWhile down the streams that buoy each separate craftTo the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice,Throne after throne, and molten on the wasteBecomes a cloud: for all things serve their timeToward that great year of equal mights and rights,Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the endFound golden: let the past be past; let beTheir cancell'd Babels; tho' the rough kex breakThe starr'd mosaic, and the wild goat hangUpon the pillar, and the wild figtree splitTheir monstrous idols, care not while we hearA trumpet in the distance pealing newsOf better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burnsAbove the unrisen morrow:' and then to me;'Know you no song of your own land,' she said,'Not such as moans about the retrospect,But deals with the other distance and the huesOf promise; not a death's-head at the wine,'
Then I remember’d one myself had madeWhat time I watch’d the swallow winging southFrom mine own land, part made long since, and partNow while I sang, and maidenlike as farAs I could ape their treble, did I sing.
‘O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee,
'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,And dark and true and tender is the North.
'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and lightUpon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
'O were I thou that she might take me in,And lay me on her bosom, and her heartWould rock the snowy cradle till I died.
'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the wooda are green?
'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the SouthBut in the North long since my nest is made.
'O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.
'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'
I ceased and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false; but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, 'O Bulbul, any rose of GulistanShall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crakeGrate her harsh kindred in the grass: and thisA mere love-poem! O for such, my friend,We prize 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.Love is it? I 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 pretty babesTo be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and due 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 eyesOf shining expectation fixt on mine.Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song,Did Cyril with whom the bell-mouth'd flask had wrought,Or master'd by the sense of sport, beginTo troll a careless, careless tavern-catchOf Moll and Meg, and strange experiencesUnmeet 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' & 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 Lady Ida; and fled at once, as fliesA troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk,When some one batters at the dovecote-doors,Disorderly the women. Alone I stoodWith Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, In the pavilion: there like parting hopesI 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'dTn the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom:There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branchRapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave,No more; but woman-vested as I wasPlunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; thenOaring one arm, and bearing in my leftThe weight of all the hopes of half the world,Strove to buffet to land in vain. A treeWas half-disrooted from his place and stoop'dTo drench his dark locks in the gurgling waveMid-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, and crying '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 thicket, and less from Indian craft Then beelike instinct hiveward, found at length The gates of the garden. Two great statues, Art And Science, Caryatids, lifted upA weight of emblem, and betwixt were valvesOf open metal in which the old hunter ruedHis rash intrusion, manlike, but his browsHad sprouted, and the branches thereuponSpread 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 glow-worm, now the star, I paced the terrace, till the bear had wheel'd Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns.
A step Of lightest echo, and then a loftier form 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. I found the key in the doors: how came you here? 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 allMelissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her.She, question'd if she knew us men, at first Was silent; closer prest, denied it not:And then, demanded if her mother knew,Or Lady Psyche, affirm'd not, or denied:From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, Easily gather'd either guilt. She sentFor Psyche, but she was not there; she call'd For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face; And I slipt out: but whither will you now? And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled. What, if together? that were not so well. Would rather we had never come! I dreadHis wildness, and the chances of the dark.'
And yet,' I said, 'you wrong him more than I That struck him: this is proper to the clown, Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shameThat which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'erHe deal in frolic, as to-night—the songMight have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lipsBeyond all pardon—as it is, I holdThese flashes on the surface are not he.He has a solid base of temperament:But as the waterlily starts and slidesUpon the level in little puffs of wind,Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.'
Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names' He, standing still, was clutch'd; but I began To thrid thro' all the musky mazes, wind And double in and out the boles, and race By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot:Before me shower'd the rose in flakes; behind I heard the puff'd pursuer; at mine ear Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, And secret laughter tickled all my soul.At last I took my anele in a vine,That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne,And falling on my face was caught and known.
They haled us to the Princess where she satHigh in the hall: above her droop’d a lamp,And made the single jewel on her browBurn like the mystic fire on a mast-head,Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each sideBow’d toward her, combing out her long black hairDamp from the river; and close behind her stoodEight daughters of the plough, stronger than men,Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rainAnd labour. Each was like a Druid rock;Or like a spire of land that stands apartCleft from the main, and clang'd about with mews.
Then, as we came, the crowd dividing cloveAn advent to the throne; and therebeside, Half-naked as if caught at once from bed,And tumbled on the purple footcloth, layThe lily-shining child; and on the left,Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erectStood up and spake, an affluent orator.
'It was not thus, O Princess, in the old days: You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: I led you then to all the Castalies; I fed you with the milk of every Muse; I loved you like this kneeler, and you me Your second mother: those were gracious times. Then came your new friend: you began to change—I saw it and grieved—to slacken and to cool; Till taken with her seeming openness You turn'd your warmer currents all to her, You froze to me: this was my meed for all.Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, And partly conscious of my own deserts, And partly that you were my civil head, And chiefly you were born for something great In which I might your fellow-worker be, When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme Grew up from seed we two long since had sown; In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, Up in one night and due to sudden sun: We took this palace; but even from the first You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. What student came but that you planed her path To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, I your old friend and tried, she new in all? But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean;Yet I bore up in hope she would be known: Then came these wolves: they knew her: they endured, Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, To tell her what they were, and she to hear: And me none told: not less to an eye like mine, A lidless watcher of the public weal,Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot Was to you: but I thought again: I fear'dTo meet a cold 'We thank you, we shall hear of it From Lady Psyche:' you had gone to her,She told, perforce; and winning easy grace,No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among usIn our young nursery still unknown, the stem Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat Were all miscounted as malignant hasteTo push my rival out of place and power.But public use required she should be known; And since my oath was ta'en for public use,I broke the letter of it to keep the sense.I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well, Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done;And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) I judged it best to speak; but you had gone, Ridden to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought, That surely she will tell you; if not, then I. Did she? these monsters blazon'd what they were According to the coarseness of their kind,For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) And full of cowardice and guilty shame,I grant in her the merit of shame, she flies; And I remain on whom to wreak your rage,I, that have lent my life to build up yours,I that have wasted here health wealth and time And talents, I—you know it—I will not boast: Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, Divorced from my experience, will be chaff For every gust of chance, and men will sayWe did not know the real light, but chasedThe wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.'
She ceased: the Princess answer'd coldly 'Good: Your oath is brokon: we dismiss you: go.For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child)Our mind is changed: we assume it to ourselves.'
Thereat the Lady stretch'd a vulture throat And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile.'The plan was mine. I built the nest' she said 'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!' and stoop'd to updrag Melissa: she, half on her mother propt, Half-drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, A Niobëan daughter, one arm out, Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and whileWe gazed upon her came a little stir About the doors, and on a sudden ran in Among us, all out of breath, as pursued, A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head Took half-amazed and in her lion's mood Tore open, silent we with blind surmise Regarding, while she read, till over brow And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom As of some fire against a stormy cloud,When the wild peasant rights himself, and the rick Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens; For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, Beaten with some great passion at her heart, Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heardIn the dead hush the papers that she held Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feetSent out a bitter bleating for its dam;The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire; she crush'd The scrolls together, made a sudden turnAs if to speak, but, utterance failing her,She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say'Read' and I read—two letters—one her sire's.
'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way We know not your ungracious laws, which learnt, We, conscious of what temper you are built,Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell Into his father's hands, who has this night, You lying close upon his territory, Slipt round and in the dark invested you,And here he keeps me hostage for his son.'
The second was my father's running thus: 'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head: Deliver him up unscathed: give him your hand: Cleave to your contract: tho' indeed we hear You hold the woman is the better man; A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against their Lords Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve That we this night should pluck your palace down; And we will do it, unless you send us backOur son, on the instant, whole.'
So far I read;And then stood up and spoke impetuously.
'O not to pry and peer on your reserve But led by golden wishes and a hope The child of regal compact, did I break Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex But venerator, and willing it should be All that it might be: hear me, for I bear, Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, From the flaxon curl to the gray lock a life Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd to me From all high places, lived in all fair lights, Came in long breezes rapt from the inmost south And blown to the inmost north; at eye and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods;The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, Because I would have reach'd you, tho' you had been Sphered up with Cassiopëia, or the enthróned Persephone in Hades, now at length, Those winters of abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but, indeed, Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait On you, their centre: let me say but this, That many a famous man and woman, town And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detailMade them worth knowing; but in you I found Mine old ideal involved and dazzled down And master'd, while that after-beauty makes Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, Within me, that except you slay me here, According to your bitter statute-book, I cannot cease to follow you as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do,The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health—yours, yours, not mine—but halfWithout you, with you, whole; and of those halvesYou worthiest; and howe'er you block and barYour heart with system out from mine, I holdThat it becomes no man to nurse despair,But in the teeth of clench'd antagonismsTo follow up the worthiest till he die:Yet that I came not all unauthorizedBehold your father's letter.'On one kneeKneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'dUnopen'd on the marble: a tide of fierceInvective seem'd to wait behind her lips,As waits a river level with the damReady to burst and flood the world with foam:And so she would have spoken, but there roseA hubbub in the court of half the maidsGather'd together; from the illumin'd hallLong lanes of splendour slanted o'er a pressOf snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes,And gold and golden heads; they to and froFluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale,All open-mouth’d, all gazing to the light,Some crying there was an army in the land,And some that men were in the very walls,And some they cared not; till a clamour grewAs of a new-world Babel, woman-built,And worse-confounded: high above them stoodThe placid marble Muses, looking peace.
Not peace, she look’d, the Head: but rising upRobed in the long night of her deep hair, soTo the open window moved, remaining thereFixt like a beacon-tower above the wavesOf tempest, when the crimson-rolling eyeGlares ruin, and the wild sea-birds on the lightDash themselves dead. She stretch’d her arms and call’dAcross the tumult and the tumult fell.
'What fear ye brawlers? am not I your Head? On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: I dare All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? Peace! there are those to avenge us and they come: If not,—myself were like enough, O girls,To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights,And clad in iron burst the ranks of war,Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause,Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear;Six thousand years of fear have made ye that From which I would redeem ye: but for those That stir this hubbub—you and you—I know Your faces there in the crowd—to-morrow morn We meet to elect new tutors; then shall they That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown,The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time,Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour,For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.'
She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that look'd A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloomOf thunder-shower, she floated to us and said.
'You have done well and like a gentleman, And like a prince: you have our thanks for all: And you look well too in your woman's dress: Well have you done and like a gentleman.You have saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks: Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood—Then men had said—but now—What hinders me To take such bloody vengeance on you both?—Yet since our father—Wasps in the wholesome hive,You would-be quenchers of the light to be, Barbarians, grosser than your native bears—O would I had his sceptre for one hour!You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd Our tutors, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us—I wed with thee! I bound by precontractYour bride, your bondslave! not tho' all the gold That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown, And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, Your falsehood and your face are loathsome to us: I trample on your offers and on you:Begone; we will not look upon you more.Here, push them out at gates.'
In wrath she spake.Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause, But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, The weight of destiny: so from her face They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.
We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty moundBeyond it, whence we saw the lights and heardThe voices murmuring; till upon my spiritsSettled a gentle cloud of melancholy,Which I shook off, for I was young, and oneTo whom the shadow of all mischance but cameAs night to him that sitting on a hillSees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun,Set into sunrise: then we moved away.