The Princess; a medley/Canto 7
VII.
So was their sanctuary violated,So their fair college turn'd to hospital;At first with all confusion: by and byeSweet order lived again with other laws;A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhereLow voices with the ministering handHung round the sick: the maidens came, they talk'd,They sang, they read: till she not fair, beganTo gather light, and she that was, becameHer former beauty treble; and to and froWith books, with flowers, with Angel offices,Like creatures native unto gracious act,And in their own clear element, they moved.
But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame.Old studies fail’d: seldom she spoke; but oftClomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hoursOn that disastrous leaguer, swarms of menDarkening her female field: void was her use;And she as one that climbs a peak to gazeO’er land and main, and sees a great black cloudDrag inward from the deeps, a wall of night,Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore,And suck the blinding splendour from the sand,And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarnExpunge the world; so fared she gazing there;So blacken’d all her world in secret, blankAnd waste it seem’d and vain; till down she cameAnd found fair peace once more among the sick.
And twilight dawn’d; and morn by morn the larkShot up and shrill’d in flickering gyres, but ILay silent in the muffled cage of life:And twilight gloom’d; and broader grown the bowers Drew the great night into themselves, and HeavenStar after star arose and fell, but ILay sunder'd from the moving Universe,Nor knew what eye was on me nor the handThat pursed me, more than infants in their sleep.
But Psyche tended Florian: with her oftMelissa came; for Blanche had gone, but leftHer child among us, willing she should keepCourt-favour: here and there the small bright head,A light of healing, glanced about the couch,Or thro' the parted silks the tender facePeep'd, shining in upon the wounded manWith blush and smile, a medicine in themselvesTo wile the length from languorous hours and drawThe sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange that soonHe rose up whole, and those fair charitiesJoin'd at her side: nor stranger seem'd that heartsSo gentle, so employ'd, should close in love,Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake To the same sweet air and tremble deeper down,And slip at once all-fragrant into one.
Less prosperously the second suit obtain'dAt first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had swornThat after that dark night among the fields,She needs must wed him for her own good name;Not though he built on what she said of the child;Nor tho' she liked him, would she yield, but fear'dTo incense the Head once more; till on a dayWhen Cyril pleaded, Ida came behindSeen but of Psyche. On her foot she hungA moment and she heard, at which her faceA little flush'd and she past on; but eachAssumed from thence a half-consent involvedIn stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace.
Nor only these; Love in the sacred hallsHeld carnival at will, and flying struckWith showers of random sweet on maid and man. Nor did her father cease to press my claim,Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yetDid those twin brothers, risen again and whole;Nor Arac, satiate with his victory.
But I lay still, and with me oft she sat:Then came a change; for sometimes I would catchHer hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard,And fling it like a viper off, and shriek'You are not Ida;' clasp it once againAnd call her Ida, tho' I knew her not,And call her sweet, as if in irony,And call her hard and cold which seem'd a truth:And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind,And often she believed that I should die:Till out of long frustration of her care,And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons,And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocksThrobb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'dOn flying Time from all their silver tongues— And out of memories of her kindlier days,And sidelong glances at my father's grief,And at the happy lovers heart in heart—And out of hauntings of my spoken love,And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream,And often feeling of the helpless hands,And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek—From all a closer interest flourish'd upTenderness touch by touch, and last, to these,Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tearsBy some cold morning glacier; frail at firstAnd feeble, all unconscious of itself,But such as gather'd colour day by day.
Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to deathFor weakness; it was evening: silent lightSlept on the painted walls, wherein were wroughtTwo grand designs; for on one side aroseThe women up in wild revolt, and storm'dAt the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd The forum, and half-crush'd among the restA little Cato cower'd. On the other sideHortensia spoke against the tax; behind,A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat,With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls,And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins,The fierce triumvirs; and before them pausedHortensia, pleading: angry was her face.
I saw the forms: I knew not where I was:Sad phantoms conjured out of circumstance,Ghosts of the fading brain, they seem'd; nor moreSweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dewDwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shapeAnd rounder show'd; I moved: I sigh'd: a touchCame round my wrist, and tears upon my hand:Then all for languor and self-pity ranMine down my face, and with what life I had,And like a flower that cannot all unfold,So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on herFixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly:
'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream,T would but ask you to fulfil yourself:But if you be that Ida whom I knew,I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night.Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'
I could no more, but lay like one in trance,That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends,And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign,But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she paused;She stoop'd; and with a great shock of the heartOur mouths met: out of languor leapt a cry,Crown'd Passion from the brinks of death, and upAlong the shuddering senses struck the soul,And closed on fire with Ida's at the lips;Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose Glowing all over noble shame; and allHer falser self slipt from her like a robe,And left her woman, lovelier in her moodThan in her mould that other, when she cameFrom barren deeps to conquer all with love,And down the streaming crystal dropt, and sheFar-fleeted by the purple island-sides,Naked, a double light in air and wave,To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her outFor worship without end; nor end of mine,Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth,Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept,Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep.
Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, heldA volume of the Poets of her land:There to herself, all in low tones, she read.
'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:The fire-fly wakens; waken thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leavesA shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slipInto my bosom and be lost in me.'
I heard her turn the page; she found a smallSweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:
'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?But cease to move so near the Heavens, and ceaseTo glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;And come, for Love is of the valley, come,For Love is of the valley, come thou downAnd find him; by the happy threshold, he,Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,Or red with spirted purple of the vats,Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walkWith Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,That huddling slant in furrow-cloven fallsTo roll the torrent out of dusky doors:But follow; let the torrent dance thee downTo find him in the valley; let the wildLean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leaveThe monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,That like a broken purpose waste in air:So waste not thou; but come; for all the valesAwait thee; azure pillars of the hearthArise to thee; the children call, and IThy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,The moan of doves in immemorial elms,And murmuring of innumerable bees.'
So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I layListening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face;The bosom with long sighs labour'd; and meekSeem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes,And the voice trembled and the hand. She saidBrokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'dIn sweet humility; had fail'd in all;That all her labour was but as a blockLeft in the quarry; but she still were loth, She still were loth to yield herself to one,That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rightsAgainst the sons of men, and barbarous laws.She pray'd me not to judge their cause from herThat wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than powerIn knowledge: something wild within her breast,A greater than all knowledge, beat her down.And she had nursed me there from week to week:Much had she learnt in little time. In partIt was ill counsel had misled the girlTo vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl—'Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce!When comes another such? never, I thinkTill the Sun drop dead from the signs.'
Her voiceChoked, and her forehead sank upon her hands,And her great heart thro' all the faultful PastWent sorrowing in a pause I dared not break;Till notice of a change in the dark world Was lispt about the acacias, and a birdThat early woke to feed her little onesSent from a dewy breast a cry for light:She moved, and at her feet the volume fell.
'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blameToo much the sons of men and barbarous laws;These were the rough ways of the world till now.Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that knowThe woman's cause is man's: they rise or sinkTogether, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free:For she that out of Lethe scales with manThe shining steps of Nature, shares with manHis nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,Stays all the fair young planet in her hands—If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,How shall men grow? We two will serve them bothIn aiding her, strip off, as in us lies,(Our place is much) the parasitic formsThat seem to keep her up but drag her down— Will leave her field to burgeon and to bloomFrom all within her, make herself her ownTo give or keep, to live and learn and beAll that not harms distinctive womanhood.For woman is not undevelopt man⟨But⟩ diverse: could we make her as the man,Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is thisNot like to like, but like in difference:Yet in the long years liker must they grow;The man be more of woman, she of man;He gain in sweetness and in moral height,Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care:More as the double-natured Poet each:Till at the last she set herself to man,Like perfect music unto noble words;And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities,But like each other ev'n as those who love.Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:Then springs the crowning race of humankind.May these things be!'Sighing she spoke 'I fearThey will not.''Dear, but let us type them nowIn our own lives, and this proud watchword restOf equal; seeing either sex aloneIs half itself, and in true marriage liesNor equal, nor unequal: each fulfilsDefect in each, and always thought in thought,Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,The single pure and perfect animal,The two-cell'd heart beating with one full strokeLife,'And again sighing she spoke: 'A dreamThat once was mine! what woman taught you this?'
'Alone' I said 'from earlier than I know,Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the worldI loved the woman: he, that doth not, livesA drowning life, besotted in sweet self,Or pines in sad experience worse than death,Or keeps his wing'd affections clipt with crime:Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, oneNot learned, save in gracious household ways,Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,Yo Angel, but a dearer being, all diptIn Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,Interpreter between the Gods and men,Who look'd all native to her place, and yetOn tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphereToo gross to tread, and all male minds perforceSway'd to her from their orbits as they movedAnd girdled her with music. Happy heWith such a mother! faith in womankindBeats with his blood, and trust in all things highComes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall He shall not blind his soul with clay.''But I,'Said Ida, 'so unlike, so all unlike—Tt seems you love to cheat yourself with words:This mother is your model. Never, Prince;You cannot love me.''Nay but thee' I said'From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes,Or some mysterious or magnetic touch,Ere T loved, and loved thee seen, and sawThee woman thro' the crust of iron moodsThat mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forcedSweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: nowGiv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' theeIndeed I love: the new day comes, the lightDearer for night, as dearer thou for faultsLived over: lift thine eyes; doubt me no more;Look up and let thy nature strike on mineLike yonder morning on the blind half-world;Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows; In that fine air I tremble, all the pastMelts mist-like into this bright hour, and thisI scarce believe, and all the rich to comeReels, as the golden Autumn woodland reelsAthwart the smoke of burning flowers. Forgive me,I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,Yoked in all exercise of noble end,And so thro' those dark gates across the wildThat no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come,Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one:Accomplish thou my manhood and thyselfLay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.'