To the same sweet air and tremble deeper down, And slip at once all-fragrant into one. Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn She needs must wed him for her own good name; Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls Held carnival at will, and flying struck With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 1 Nor did her father cease to press my claim, Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yet Did 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 catch Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 'You are not Ida;' clasp it once again And 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 out of memories of her kindlier days, And out of hauntings of my spoken love, And often feeling of the helpless hands, And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gather'd colour day by day. Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death For weakness: it was evening: silent light Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought Two grand designs; for on one side arose The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest A dwarflike Cato cower'd. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: Strange phantoms conjured out of circumstance, Ghosts of the fading brain, they seem'd; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder show'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine 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 her Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: But if you be that Ida whom I knew, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 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, She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death; Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, |