A rosy blonde, and in a college gown
That clad her like an April daffodilly

(Her mother's colour) with her lips apart,
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes,

As bottom agates seen to wave and float

In crystal currents of clear morning seas.

So stood that same fair creature at the door. Then Lady Psyche 'Ah-Melissa-you!

You heard us?' and Melissa, O pardon me!

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish :
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not,
Nor think I bear that heart within my breast,
To give three gallant gentlemen to death."
'I trust you' said the other for we two
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine:
But yet your mother's jealous temperament—
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove
The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear

This whole foundation ruin, and I lose

My honour, these their lives.' 'Ah, fear me not'

Replied Melissa 'no-I would not tell,

No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness,

No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things

That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.'

'Be it so' the other 'that we still may lead

The new light up, and culminate in peace,

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.'

6

Said Cyril Madam, he the wisest man

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls

Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you (Tho' madam

you

should answer, we would ask)

Less welcome find among us, if you came

Among us, debtors for our lives to you,

Myself for something more.' He said not what,

But ‘Thanks,' she answer'd 'go: we have been too long

Together keep your hoods about the face ;

They do so that affect abstraction here.

Speak little; mix not with the rest; and hold

Your promise all, I trust, may yet be well.'

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child,

And held her round the knees against his waist,
And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter,

While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ;

And thus our conference closed.

With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle for ever: then we dipt in all
That treats of whatsoever is, the state,
The total chronicles of man, the mind,

The morals, something of the frame, the rock,

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower,

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest,

And whatsoever can be taught and known;
Till like three horses that have broken fence,
And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn,

We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke :

Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.'

They hunt old trails' said Cyril 'very well;

But when did woman ever yet invent?'

'Ungracious!' answer'd Florian, have you learnt

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd

The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?'

O trash' he said but with a kernel in it.

Should I not call her wise, who made me wise?
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash,

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull,
And every Muse tumbled a science in.

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls,

And round these halls a thousand baby loves

Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts,
Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O
With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy,
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm,
The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too;
He cleft me thro' the stomacher; and now
What think you of it, Florian? will it hold?
Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat?
For dear are those three castles to my wants,
And dear is sister Psyche to my heart,

And two dear things are one of double worth,
And much I might have said, but that my zone
Unmann'd me: then the Doctors! O to hear

The Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants
Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar,

To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou,
Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry!

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat;

Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet

Star-sisters answering under crescent brows;