Straight to the doors: to them the doors gave way Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd

The virgin marble under iron heels:

And they moved on and gain'd the hall, and there
Rested: but great the crush was, and each base,
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd
In silken fluctuation and the swarm

Of female whisperers: at the further end
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats
Close by her, like supporters on a shield
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the centre stood

The common men with rolling eyes; amazed
They glared upon the women, and aghast
The women stared at these, all silent, save
When armour clash'd or jingled, while the day,
Descending, struck athwart the hall and shot

A flying splendour out of brass and steel,
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head,

Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm,

Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame,

And now and then an echo started up,

And shuddering fled from room to room,

Of fright in far apartments.

and died

Then the voice

Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance :

And me they bore up the broad stairs and thro'
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors

To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due
To languid limbs and sickness; left me in it;
And others otherwhere they laid; and all

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof

And chariot, many a maiden passing home

Till happier times; but some were left of those

Held sagest, and the great lords out and in,

From those two hosts that lay beside the walls,

Walk'd at their will, and everything was changed.

10

VII.

So was their sanctuary violated,
So their fair college turn'd to hospital;
At first with all confusion: by and bye
Sweet order lived again with other laws :

A kindlier influence reign'd: and everywhere

Low voices with the ministering hand

Hung round the sick the maidens came, they talk'd,

They sang, they read: till she not fair, began

To gather light, and she that was, became

Her former beauty treble; and to and fro

With books, with flowers, with Angel offices,
Like creatures native unto gracious act,

And in their own clear element, they moved.

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell,

And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame.
Old studies fail'd: seldom she spoke; but oft
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men
Darkening her female field: void was her use;
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze

O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night,
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore,
And suck the blinding splendour from the sand,
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn
Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there;
So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank

And waste it seem'd and vain; till down she came
And found fair peace once more among the sick.

And twilight dawn'd; and morn by morn the lark Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I

Lay silent in the muffled cage of life :

And twilight gloom'd; and broader grown the bowers

Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven

Star after star arose and fell, but I

Lay sunder'd from the moving Universe,

Nor knew what eye was on me nor the hand

That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep.

But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left Her child among us, willing she should keep Court-favour: here and there the small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or thro' the parted silks the tender face

Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man

With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves

To wile the length from languorous hours and draw

The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities

Join'd at her side: nor stranger seem'd that hearts

So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love,

Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake