To hear my father's clamour at our backs With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; But all was quiet from the bastion'd walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice, But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind On glassy water drove his cheek in lines; A little dry old man, without a star, Not like a king: three days he feasted us, And on the fourth I spake of why we came, And my betroth'd. You do us, Prince,' he said, Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 'All honour. We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche; WT GREEN Se. Maintaining that with equal husbandry The woman were an equal to the man. They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang; To hear them knowledge, so my daughter held, But all she is and does is awful; odes About this losing of the child; and rhymes And dismal lyrics, prophesying change Beyond all reason: these the women sang; And they that know such things-I sought but peace; No critic I would call them masterpieces: They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon A certain summer-palace which I have Hard by your father's frontier: I said no, Yet being an easy man, gave it; and there, All wild to found an University For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 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 (Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance Thus the king; And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 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, He with a long low sibilation, stared As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd For any man to go: but as his brain 'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? The king would bear him out;' and at the lastThe summer of the vine in all his veins 'No doubt that we might make it worth his while. Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows, But while he jested thus, E |