No more; but woman-vested as I was Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left The weight of all the hopes of half the world, Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew My burthen from mine arms; they cried she lives ! ' They bore her back into the tent: but I, So much a kind of shame within me wrought, The garden portals. Two great statues, Art A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves Of open-work in which the hunter rued His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows A little space was left between the horns, Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, I paced the terrace, till the bear had wheel'd Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. Of lightest echo, then a loftier form A step Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, But it was Florian. 'Hist O hist,' he said, G They seek us out so late is out of rules. Moreover" seize the strangers" is the cry. How came you here?' I told him; 'I' said he 'Last of the train, a moral leper, I, To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, return'd. Arriving all confused among the rest With hooded brows I crept into the hall, And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath She, question'd if she knew us men, at first Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied: From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent For Psyche, but she was not there; she call'd For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face; And I slipt out but whither will you now? 'And yet,' I said, 'you wrong him more than I That struck him: this is proper to the clown, Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er He deal in frolic, as to-night-the song Might have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lips Beyond all pardon-as it is, I hold These flashes on the surface are not he. He has a solid base of temperament: But as the waterlily starts and slides Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.' Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names' He, standing still, was clutch'd; but I began And double in and out the boles, and race By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot : I heard the puff'd pursuer; at mine ear They haled us to the Princess where she sat Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each side Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair |