We gazed upon her came a little stir Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head Took half-amazed and in her lion's mood Tore open, silent we with blind surmise And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire; she crush'd She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say • Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way Into his father's hands, who has this night, Slipt round and in the dark invested you, And here he keeps me hostage for his son.' The second was my father's running thus: You hold the woman is the better man ; A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against their Lords Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve Our son, on the instant, whole.' So far I read ; And then stood up and spoke impetuously. "O not to pry and peer on your reserve All that it might be: hear me, for I bear, From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd to me From all high places, lived in all fair lights, Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods; The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, Because I would have reach'd you, had you been Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned Persephone in Hades, now at length, Those winters of abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but, indeed, And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing; but in you I found My boyish dream involved and dazzled down I cannot cease to follow you, as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health-yours, yours, not mine—but half That it becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die : Yet that I came not all unauthorized Behold your father's letter.' On one knee |