Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,

Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,

Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; clime and age

And on the tables

every

Jumbled together; celts and calumets,

Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,

The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs

From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,

His own forefathers' arms and armour hung.

And this,' he said, 'was Hugh's at Agincourt;

And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon:

A good knight he! we keep a chronicle

With all about him'

which he brought, and I

Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said, 'To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth And sister Lilia with the rest.' We went

(I kept the book and had my finger in it)

Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me ;

For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown

With happy faces and with holiday.

There moved the multitude, a thousand heads :

The patient leaders of their Institute

Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone

And drew, from butts of water on the slope,

The fountain of the moment, playing now
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball

Danced like a wisp and somewhat lower down

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired

A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep

From hollow fields: and here were telescopes

For azure views; and there a group of girls

In circle waited, from the electric shock

Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake A little clock-work steamer paddling plied

And shook the lilies perch'd about the knolls

A dozen angry models jetted steam:

A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon

Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph

They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
With Science hand in hand went; otherwhere
Pure sport a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd
And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about

Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light
And shadow, while the twangling violin

Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end.

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time;

And long we gazed, but satiated at length
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt,
Of finest Gothic, lighter than a fire,

Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave
The park, the crowd, the house; but all within

The sward was trim as any garden lawn:

And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,

And Lilia with the rest, and Ralph himself,

A broken statue propt against the wall,

As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport,

Half child, half woman as she was, had wound

A scarf of orange round the stony helm,

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk,

That made the old warrior from his ivied nook

Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,

And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd An universal culture for the crowd,

And all things great; but we, unworthier, told

Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes, And he had squeez'd himself betwixt the bars, And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs; and one Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men

But honeying at the whisper of a lord;

And one the Master, as a rogue in grain

Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought My book to mind; and opening this, I read Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her