To hear them knowledge, so my daughter held, Beyond all reason: these the women sang; And they that know such things-I sought but peace; No critic I would call them masterpieces : They master'd me. At last she begg❜d a boon A certain summer-palace which I have Hard by your father's frontier: I said no, Yet being an easy man, gave it; and there, For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her (Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but since (And I confess with right) you think me bound Thus the king; And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur With garrulous ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet not less all frets Close at the boundary of the liberties; There enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host He, with a long low sibilation, stared As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd Averring it was clear against all rules For any man to go: but as his brain Began to mellow, 'If the king,' he said, 'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? The king would bear him out;' and at the last— The summer of the vine in all his veins 'No doubt that we might make it worth his while. She once had past that he heard her speak; way; She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave; And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; He always made a point to post with mares ; His daughter and his housemaid were the boys. Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows, But while he jested thus, A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, Remembering how we three presented Maid Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, We rode till midnight when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley; then we past an arch, From four wing'd horses dark against the stars; And some inscription ran along the front, On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose: And all about us peal'd the nightingale, Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth Above an entry riding in, we call'd; Came running at the call, and help'd us down. In laurel her we ask'd of that and this, Best natured? 'Lady Psyche.' Hers are we,' One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, |