Canto III

Morn in the white wake of the morning star

Came furrowing all the orient into gold.

We rose, and each by other drest with care

Descended to the court that lay three parts

In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd

Above the darkness from their native East.

And while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd

Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd

Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep,

Or sorrow, and glowing round her dewy eyes

The circled Iris of a night of tears;

'And fly' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may!

'My mother knows:' and we demanding 'how'

'My fault' she wept 'my fault! and yet not mine;

Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me.

My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night

To rail at Lady Psyche and her side.

She says the Princess should have been the Head,

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms;

And so it was agreed when first they came;

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now,

And she the left, or not, or seldom used;

Hers more than half the students, all the love.

And go last night she fell to canvass you:

Her countrywomen! she did not envy her.

"Who ever saw such wild barbarians?

"Girls?—more like men!" and at these words the snake,

My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast;

And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek

Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye

To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd:

"O marvellously modest maiden, you!

Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men,

And in their fulsome fashion woo'd you, child,

You need not take so deep a rouge: like men—

And so they are,—very like men indeed—

And closeted with her for hours. Aha!"

Then came these dreadful words out one by one,

"Why—these—are—men:" I shudder'd: "and you know it."

"O ask me nothing," I said: "And she knows too,

And she conceals it." So my mother clutch'd

The truth at once, but with no word from me;

And now thus early risen she goes to inform

The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crush'd;

But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly:

But heal me with your pardon ere you go.'

      'What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?'

Said Cyril; 'Pale one, blush again: than wear

Those lilies, better blush our lives away.

Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven'

He added, 'lest some classic Angel speak

In scorn of us, "they mounted, Ganymedes,

To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn."

But I will melt this marble into wax

To yield us farther furlough:' and he went.

      Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought

He scarce would prosper. 'Tell us,' Florian ask'd,

'How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.'

'O long ago,' she said, 'betwixt these two

Division smoulders hidden: 'tis my mother,

Too jealous, often fretful as the wind

Pent in a crevice: much I bear with her:

I never knew my father, but she says

(God pardon her) she was wedded to a fool;

And still she rail'd against the state of things.

She had the care of Lady Ida's youth,

And from the Queen's decease she brought her up.

But when your sister came she won the love

Of the Princess: they were still together, grew

(For so they said themselves) inosculated;

Consonant chords that shiver to one note;

One mind in all things: only Lady Blanche

Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories,

And angled with them for the Royal heart:

She calls her plagiarist; I know not what:

But I must go: I dare not tarry' and light

As flies the shadow of a bird she fled.

      Then murmur'd Florian gazing after her.

'An open-hearted maiden, true and pure,

If I could love, why this were she: how pretty

Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again,

As if to close with Cyril's random wish:

Not like your Princess eramm'd with erring pride,

Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.'

      'The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane,

The dove may murmur of the dove, but I

An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere.

My princess, O my princess! true she errs;

For being, and wise in knowing that she is,

Three times more noble than threescore of men,

She sees herself in every woman else,

And so she wears her error like a crown

To blind the truth and me: for her, and her,

They are Hebes meet to hand ambrosia, mix

The nectar; but—ah she—whene'er she moves

The Samian Herè rises and she speaks

A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.'

      So saying from out the court we paced, and gain'd

The terrace ranged along the Northern front,

And leaning there on those balusters, high

Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale

That blown about the foliage underneath,

And sated with the innumerable rose,

Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came

Cyril, and yawning 'O hard task,' he cried,

'Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump

A league of street in summer solstice down,

Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman.

I knock'd and bidden went in: I found her there

At point to sally, and settled in her eyes

The green malignant light of coming storm.

Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd,

As man could be; yet maiden-meek I pray'd

Concealment: she demanded who we were,

And why we came? I minted nothing false,

But, your example pilot, told her all.

Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye.

But when I dwelt upon your old affiance,

She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray.

I urged the fierce inscription on the gate,

And our three lives. She said we had limed ourselves

With open eyes, and we must take the chance.

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm

The woman's cause. "Not more than now," she said,

"So puddled as it is with favouritism."

I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall

Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew:

Her answer was "Leave me to deal with that."

I spoke of war to come and many deaths,

And she replied, her duty was to speak,

And duty duty, clear of consequences.

I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew

No rock so hard but that a little wave

May beat admission in a thousand years,

I recommenced; "Decide not ere you pause.

I find you here but in the second place

Some say the third—the authentic foundress you.

I offer boldly: we will seat you highest:

Wink at our advent: help my prince to gain

His rightful bride, and here I promise you

A palace in our own land, where you shall reign

The head and heart of all our fair she-world,

And your great name flow on with broadening time

For ever." Well, she balanced this a little,

And told me she would answer us to-day,

Meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I gain'd.'

      He ceasing, came a message from the Head.

'In the afternoon the Princess rode to take

The dip of certain strata to the North.

Would we go with her? we should find the land

Worth seeing; and the river made a fall

Out yonder: 'then she pointed on to where

A double hill ran up his dark-blue forks

Beyond the full-leaved platans of the vale.

      Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all

Its range of duties to the appointed hour.

Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood

Among her maidens, higher by the head,

Her back against a pillar, her foot on one

Of those tame leopards, Kittenlike he roll'd

And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near:

My heart beat thick with passion and with awe,

And from my breast the involuntary sigh

Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes

That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook

My pulses, till to horse we clomb, and so

Went forth in long retinue following up

The river as it narrow'd to the hills.

      I rode beside her and to me she said:

'O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not

Too harsh to your companion yestermorn;

Unwillingly we spake.' 'No—not to her,'

I answer'd, 'but to one of whom we spake

Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say.'

'Again?' she cried 'are you ambassadresses

From him to me? we give you, being strange,

A license: speak, and let the topic die.'

      I stammer'd that I knew him—could have wish'd—

'Our king expects—was there no precontract—

There is no truer-hearted—ah, you seem

All he prefigured, and he could not see

The bird of passage flying south but long'd

To follow: surely, if your Highness keep

Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death,

Or baser courses, children of despair.'

      'Poor boy' she said 'can he not read—no books?

Quoit, tennis, ball—no games? nor deals in that

Which men delight in, martial exercises?

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,

Methinks he seems no better than a girl;

As girls were once, as we ourselves have been:

We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them:

We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,

Being other—since we learnt our meaning here,

To uplift the woman's fall'n divinity

Upon an even pedestal with man.'

      She paused and added with a haughtier smile

'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend,

At no man's beck, but know ourselves and thee,

O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon'd out

She kept her state, and left the drunken king

To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.'

      'Alas your Highness breathes full East,' I said,

'On that which leans to you, I know the Prince,

I prize his truth: and then how vast a work

To assail this gray prëeminence of man!

You grant me license; might I use it? think,

Ere half be done perchance your life may fail;

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,

And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains

May only make that footprint upon sand

Which old-recurring waves of prejudice

Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you,

With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds

For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss,

Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due,

Love, children, happiness?'

And she exclaim'd,

'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild!

What! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's,

Have we not made ourselves the sacrifice?

You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus:

Yet will we say for children, would they grew

Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well:

But children die; and let me tell you girl

Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die:

They with the sun and moon renew their light

For over, blessing those that look on them:

Children—that men may pluck them from our hearts,

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves—

O—children—there is nothing upon earth

More miserable than she that has a son

And sees him err: nor would we work for fame;

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great,

Who learns the one pou sto whence after-hands

May move the world, though she herself effect

But little: wherefore up and act, nor shrink

For fear our solid aim be dissipated

Of frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been,

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race

Of giants living, each, a thousand years,

That we might see our own work out, and watch

The sandy footprint harden into stone.'

      I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself

If that strange maiden could at all be won.

And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

      'No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you:

We are used to that; for women, up till this

Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo,

Dwarfs of the gynecæum, fail so far

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess

How much their welfare is a passion to us.

If we could give them surer, quicker proof—

Oh if our end were less achievable

By slow approaches, than by single act

Of immolation, any phase of death,

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes,

Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it,

To compass our dear sister's liberties.'

      She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear;

And up we came to where the river sloped

To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks

A breadth of thunder, 0'er it shook the woods,

And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out

The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd

Before man was. She gazed awhile and said,

'As these rude bones to us, are we to her

That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd,

'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work,

That practice betters?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love

The metaphysics! read and earn our prize,

A golden broach: beneath an emerald plane

Sits Diotima, teaching him that died

Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life;

She rapt upon her subject, he on her:

For there are schools for all,' 'And yet' I said

'Methinks I have not found among them all

One anatomic.' 'Nay we thought of that,'

She answer'd, 'but it pleased us not: in truth

We shudder but to dream our maids should ape

Those monstrous males that carve the living hound,

And cram him with the fragments of the grave,

Or in the dark dissolving human heart,

And holy secrets of this microcosm,

Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest,

Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs:

Howbeit ourselves, foreseeing casualty,

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt,

For many weary moons before we came,

This craft of healing, Were you sick, ourselves

Would tend upon you. To your question now,

Which touches on the workman and his work.

Let there be light and there was light; 'tis so:

For was, and is, and will be, are but is;

And all creation is one act at once,

The birth of light: but we that are not all,

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that,

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make

One act a phantom of succession: thus

Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time;

But in the shadow will we work, and mould

The woman to the fuller day.'

She spake

With kindled eyes: we rode a little higher

To cross the flood by a narrow bridge, and came

On flowery levels underneath the crag,

Full of all beauty; and 'O how sweet' I said

(For I was half-oblivious of my mask)

'To linger here with one that loved us' 'Yea'

She answer'd 'or with fair philosophies

That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields

Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns,

Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw

The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers

Built to the Sun:' then, turning to her maids,

'Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward;

Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised

A tent of satin, elaborately wrought

With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood,

Engirt with many a florid maiden-check,

The woman-conqueror; woman-conquer'd there

The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns,

And all the men mourn'd at his side: but we

Set forth to climb; then, climbing, Cyril kept

With Psyche, Florian with the other, and I

With mine affianced. Many a little hand

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set

In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we wound

About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,

Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff,

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun

Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all

The rosy heights came out above the lawns.