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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 ;fand 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.'

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.

II.

Ar break of day the College Portress came:

She brought us Academic silks, in hue

The lilac, with a silken hood to each,

And zoned with gold; and now when these were on,

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons,

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know

The Princess Ida waited: out we paced,

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang
All round with laurel, issued in a court

Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers.
The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes,

Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst ;

And here and there on lattice edges lay

Or book or lute; but hastily we past,

And

up a flight of stairs into the hall.

There at a board by tome and paper sat,

With two tame leopards crouch'd beside her throne,

All beauty compass'd in a female form,

The Princess; liker to the inhabitant

Of some clear planet close upon the Sun,

Than our man's earth: such eyes were in her head,
And so much grace and power, breathing down
From over her arch'd brows, with every turn
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands,
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said:

'We give you welcome: not without redound
Of fame and profit unto yourselves ye come,
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,
And that full voice which circles round the
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.
What are the ladies of your land so tall?'

grave,

'We of the court,' said Cyril.

From the court,'

She answer'd, 'then ye know the Prince?' and he:

'The climax of his age: as tho' there were
One rose in all the world, your Highness that,
He worships your ideal:' and she replied:
'We did not think in our own hall to hear
This barren verbiage, current among men,
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.
We think not of him: when we set our hand
To this great work, we purposed with ourselves
Never to wed. You likewise will do well,
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling

that so,

The tricks, which make us toys of men,
Some future time, if so indeed you will,

You may with those self-styled our lords ally Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves, Perused the matting; then an officer

Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these:

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