The princess. With illustr. from drawings by D. Maclise

She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd

Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that look'd A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff,

When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom

Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said:

You have done well and like a gentleman,
And like a prince you have our thanks for all:
And you look well too in your woman's dress:
Well have you done and like a gentleman.
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks:
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood-
Then men had said-but now- -What hinders me
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ?—
Yet since our father-Wasps in our good hive,
You would-be quenchers of the light to be,
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears-
O would I had his sceptre for one hour!

You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd
Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us-
I wed with thee! I bound by precontract

Your bride, your bondslave! not tho' all the gold

That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown,

And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir,

Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:

I trample on your offers and on you:

Begone: we will not look upon you more.

Here, push them out at gates.'

In wrath she spake.

Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough
Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause,

But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands,

The weight of destiny: so from her face

They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court,

And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.

We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty mound
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt:
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts;
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard,

The jest and earnest working side by side,

A strangey as it came, and on my spirits
Mested a gentile cloud of melancholy;

Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts
And wadden ghostly shadowings I was one

To whom the touch of all mischance but came

As night to him that sitting on a LII

Hees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun

Het into sunrise; then we moved away.

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands:

Thy face across his fancy comes,

And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possess'd, She struck such warbling fury thro' the words; And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd