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 Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 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 Above an archway: riding in, we call'd; 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; 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 Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 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, 'We give you welcome: not without redound 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 that so, The tricks, which make us toys of men, 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: |