Canto I

A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,

With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,

For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

My mother was as mild as any saint,

And nearly canonized by all she knew,

So gracious was her tact and tenderness;

But my good father thought a king a king;

He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand

To lash offence, and with long arms and hands

Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass

For judgment.

Now it chanced that I had been,

While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd

To one, a neighbouring Princess; she to me

Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf

At eight years old; and still from time to time

Came murmurs of her beauty from the South,

And of her brethren, knights of puissance;

And still I wore her picture by my heart,

And one dark tress; and all around them both

Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen.

      But when the days drew nigh that I should wed,

My father sent ambassadors with furs

And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back

A present, a great labour of the loom;

And therewithal an answer vague as wind:

Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts;

He said there was a compact; that was true:

But then she had a will; was he to blame?

And maiden fancies; loved to live alone

Among her women; certain, would not wed.

      That morning in the presence room I stood

With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends:

The first, a gentleman of broken means

(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts

Of revel; and the last, my other heart,

My shadow, my half-self, for still we moved

Together, kin as horse's ear and eye.

      Now while they spake I saw my father's face

Grow long and troubled like a rising moon,

Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet,

Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent

The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof

From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware

That he would send a hundred thousand men,

And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chew'd

The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen

Communing with his captains of the war.

      At last I spoke. 'My father, let me go.

It cannot be but some gross error lies

In this report, this answer of a king,

Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable:

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen,

Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame,

May rue the bargain made.' And Florian said:

'I have a sister at the foreign court,

Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,

Who wedded with a nobleman from thence:

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,

The lady of three castles in that land.

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.'

Then whisper'd Cyril: 'Take me with you too.

Trust me, I'll serve you better in a strait;

I grate on rusty hinges here;' but 'No!'

Replied the king, 'you shall not; I myself

Will crush these pretty maiden fancies dead

In iron gauntlets: break the council up.'

      But when the council broke, I rose and past

Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town;

Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out;

Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed

In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees:

What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth?

Proud look'd the lips: but while I meditated

A wind arose and rush'd upon the South,

And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks

Of the wild woods together; and a Voice

Went with it 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win.'

      Then, ere the silver sickle of that month

Became her golden shield, I stole from court

With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived.

Down from the bastion'd walls we dropt by night,

And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost

To a livelier land; and so by town and thorpe,

And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness,

We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers,

And in the imperial palace found the king.

His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice;

A little dry old man, without a star,

Not like a king; three days he feasted us,

And on the fourth I spake of why we came,

And my betroth'd. 'You do us, Prince' he said,

Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,

'All honour. We remember love ourselves

In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass

Long summers back, a kind of ceremony—

I think the year in which our olives fail'd.

I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart,

With my full heart: but there were widows here,

Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;

They fed her theories, in and out of place

Maintaining that with equal husbandry

The woman were an equal to the man.

They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang;

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk;

Nothing but this; my very ears were hot

To hear them. Last, my daughter begg'd a boon

A certain summer-palace which I have

Hard by your father's frontier: I said no,

Yet being an easy man, gave it; and there,

All wild to found an University

For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more

We know not,—have not been; they see no men,

Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her

As on a kind of paragon; and I

(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed

Dispute betwixt myself and mine; but since

{And I confess with right) you think me bound

In some sort, I can give you letters to her;

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance

Almost at naked nothing.'

Thus the king;

And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur

With garrulous case and oily courtesies

Our formal compact, yet not less all frets

But chafing me on fire to find my bride,

Set out once more with those two gallant boys;

Then pushing onward under sun and stars

Many a long league back to the North, we came,

When the first forn-owl whirr'd about the copse,

Upon a little town within a wood

Close at the boundary of the liberties;

There entering in an hostel call'd mine host

To council, plied him with his richest wines,

And show'd the late-writ letters of the king.

      He, with a long low sibilation, stared

As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd

Averring it was clear against all rules

For any man to go: but as his brain

Began to mellow, 'If the king,' he said,

'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak?

The king would bear him out;' and at the last—

The summer of the vine in all his veins—

'No doubt that we might make it worth his while.

For him, he reverenced his liege-lady there;

He always made a point to post with mares;

His daughter and his housemaid were the boys.

The land he understood for miles about

Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows,

And all the dogs'—

But while he jested thus,

A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act,

Remembering how we three presented Maid

Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast,

In masque or pageant at my father's court.

We sent mine host to purchase female gear;

Which brought and clapt upon us, we tweezer'd out

What slender blossom lived on lip or cheek

Of manhood, gave mine host a costly bribe

To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds,

And boldly ventured on the liberties.

      We rode till midnight when the college lights

Began to glitter firefly-like in copse

And linden alley; and then we past an arch

Inscribed too dark for legible, and gain'd

A little street half garden and half house;

But could not hear each other speak for noise

Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling

On silver anvils, and the splash and stir

Of fountains spouted up and showering down

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:

And all about us peal'd the nightingale,

Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.

      There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign,

By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth

With constellation and with continent,

Above an archway: riding in, we call'd;

A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench

Came running at the call, and help'd us down,

Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd

Full-blown before us into rooms which gave

Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost

In laurel: her we ask'd of that and this,

And who were tutors, 'Lady Blanche' she said,

'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest

Best natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Her pupils we,'

One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote,

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.'

As Lady Psyche's pupils.'This I seal'd

(A Cupid reading) to be sent with dawn;

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.