We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind?

Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, Seven-headed monsters only made to kill

Time by the fire in winter.'

'Kill him now, The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,' Said Lilia; 'Why not now?' the maiden Aunt.

'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale?
A tale for summer as befits the time,
And something it should be to suit the
place

Heroic, for a hero lies beneath,
Grave, solemn !'

Walter warp'd his mouth at this

To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd

And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker,
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt

(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face

With colour) turn'd to me with 'As you

will;

Heroic if you will, or what you will, Or be yourself your hero if you will.'

'Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clam

our'd he,

And make her some great Princess, six

feet high,

Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you
The Prince to win her !'

'Then follow me, the Prince,'

I answer'd, each be hero in his turn!

Seven and yet one, like shadows in a

dream.

Heroic seems our Princess as required

But something made to suit with Time and place,

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experi-

ments

For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all

This were a medley! we should have him back

Who told the Winter's tale' to do it for

us.

No matter we will say whatever comes. And let the ladies sing us, if they will, From time to time, some ballad or a song To give us breathing-space.'

So I began,

And the rest follow'd: and the women

sang

Between the rougher voices of the men, Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : And here I give the story and the songs.

I.

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

Of temper amorous, as the first of May, With lengths of yellow ringlets, like a girl, For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house.

Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt

Because he cast no shadow, had foretold, Dying, that none of all our blood should

know

The shadow from the substance, and that

one

Should come to fight with shadows and

to fall.

We know not,-only this: 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 ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet, not less (all

frets

But chafing me on fire to find my bride) Went forth again with both my friends.

We rode

Many a long league back to the North. At last

From hills, that look'd across a land of

hope,

We dropt with evening on a rustic town Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, Close at the boundary of the liberties; There, enter'd an old 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.

She once had past that way; he heard her speak;

She scared him; life! he never saw the

like;

She look'd as grand as doomsday and as

grave:

And he, 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;

He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake

The midriff of despair with laughter, holp To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes We rustled him we gave a costly bri be To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds,

And boldly ventured on the liberties.

We follow'd up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight when the college lights

Began to glitter firefly-like in copse

And linden alley: then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four wing'd horses dark against the stars;

And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow : further on we gain'd A little street half garden and half house; But scarce could 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,