And nail me like a weasel on a grange
For warning: bury me beside the gate,
And cut this epitaph above my bones;
Here lies a brother by a sister slain,

All for the common good of womankind.'
'Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having seen
And heard the Lady Psyche.'

I struck in: 'Albeit so mask'd, Madam, I love the truth;

Receive it; and in me behold the Prince
Your countryman, affianced years ago
To the Lady Ida: here, for here she was,
And thus (what other way was left) I
came.'

O Sir, O Prince, I have no country;

none;

If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe

Within this vestal limit, and how should I, Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt

Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak ; it falls.'

'Yet pause,' I said: for that inscription

there,

I think no more of deadly lurks therein, Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be,

If more and acted on, what follows? war; Your own work marr'd: for this your Academe,

Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass With all fair theories only made to gild A stormless summer.' 'Let the Princess judge

Of that" she said: 'farewell, Sir—and to

you.

I shudder at the sequel, but I go.

Are you that Psyche,' Florian ask'd, 'to whom,

In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn Came flying while you sat beside the well? The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood

Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept.

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept.

O by the bright head of my little niece, You were that Psyche, and what are you now?'

'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, The mother of the sweetest little maid, That ever crow'd for kisses.'

You perish) as you came, to slip away
To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said,
These women were too barbarous, would

not learn ;

They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.'

What could we else, we promised each; and she,

Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced

A to-and-fro, so pacin g till she paused By Florian; holding out her lily arms Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said:

'I knew you at the first : tho' you have

grown

You scarce have alter'd: I am sad and

glad

To see you, Florian. I give thee to death My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well?'

With that she kiss'd His forehead, then, a moment after, clung About him, and betwixt them blossom'd

up

From out a common vein of memory Sweet household talk, and phrases of the

hearth,

And far allusion, till the gracious dews Began to glisten and to fall : and while They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,

I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.'

Back started she, and turning round we

saw

The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock,
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 tempera

ment-

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.' 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.

And then we stroll'd

For half the day thro' stately theatres Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat,

we heard

The grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands With flawless demonstration: follow'd

then

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment,
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? do I chase
The substance or the shadow? will it hold?
I have no sorcerer's malison on me,
No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I
Flatter myself that always everywhere
I know the substance when I see it.

Well,

Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she

The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not, 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;

Abate the stride, which speaks of man,

and loose

A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of

time

Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell

For dinner, let us go!'

And in we stream'd Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to

end

With beauties every shade of brown and

fair

In colours gayer than the morning mist, The long hall glitter'd like a bed of

flowers.

P