Or book or lute; but hastily we past, And up a flight of stairs into the hall 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, : And so much grace and 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, Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem Your language proves you still the child. For us, To this great work, we purposed with ourselves 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.' At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves, Perused the matting; then an officer Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these: Not for three years to correspond with home; We enter'd on the boards: and Now' she cried 'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall! Our statues!-not of those that men desire, Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she The foundress of the Babylonian wall, The Carian Artemisia strong in war, The Rhodope that built the pyramid, Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism That which is higher. Leave us: you may go: To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue The fresh arrivals of the week before; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive.' She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal back again we crost the court To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves A patient range of pupils; she herself Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame That whisper'd Asses' ears' among the sedge, Said Cyril. O hush, hush!' and she began. This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the man ; Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate; As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here Among the lowest.' Thereupon she took A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past; Glanced at the legendary Amazon As emblematic of a nobler age; Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo; |