In such a hand as when a field of corn

Bows all its ears before the roaring East;

Three ladies of the Northern empire pray Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils.'

This I seal'd:

The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll,

And over him Uranian Venus hung,

And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes:

I gave
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd
To float about a glimmering night, and watch
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell
On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.

the letter to be sent with dawn ;

II.

AT break of day the College Portress came:

She brought us Academic silks, in hue

The lilac, with a silken hood to each,

And zoned with gold; and now when these were on,

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons,

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know

The Princess Ida waited out we paced,

:

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang
All round with laurel, issued in a court

Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay

Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.
The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes,
Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst;

And here and there on lattice edges lay

Or book or lute; but hastily we past,

There at a board by tome and paper sat,

With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne, All beauty compass'd in a female form,

The Princess; liker to the inhabitant

Of some clear planet close upon the Sun,

Than our man's earth

such eyes were in her head,

power, breathing down

From over her arch'd brows, with every turn

Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands,

And to her feet. She rose her height, and said:

'We give you welcome: not without redound

Of use and glory to yourselves ye come,

The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,

And that full voice which circles round the grave,

Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.

What are the ladies of your land so tall?

'We of the court' said Cyril.

From the court'

She answer'd, then ye know the Prince?' and he :

The climax of his age! as tho' there were

One rose in all the world, your Highness that,

He worships your ideal:' she replied:

'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear

This barren verbiage, current among men,
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.

Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem
As arguing love of knowledge and of power;

Your language proves you still the child. For us,
We dream not of him: when we set our hand
To this great work, we purposed with ourselves
Never to wed. You likewise will do well,

Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling

The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so,

Some future time, if so indeed you will,

You may with those self-styled our lords ally

Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'