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

As many little trifling Lilias-play'd

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,

6

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 an April 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 you will;

Heroic if you will, or what you will,

Or be yourself your hero if 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,'

6

I answer'd, each be hero in his turn!

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—
Were such 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

To give us breathing-space.'

So I began,

And the rest follow'd: and the women sang

Between the rougher voices of the men,
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind:
And here I give the story and the songs.

I.

A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
Of temper amorous, as the first of May,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.
My mother was as mild as any saint,
Half-canonized by all that look'd on her,
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
Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass
For judgment.

Now it chanced that I had been,

While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd

To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf