We did but talk you over, pledge you all Sick for the hollies and the yews of home- Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, And what's my thought and when and where and how, And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas.' 'I remember that: A pleasant game,' she said; I liked it more Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these what kind of tales do men tell men, The rest would follow; so we tost the ball: What kind of tales? why, such as served to kill Time by the fire in winter.' 'Kill him now! Tell one,' she said: 'kill him in summer too.' 'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? A tale for summer, as befits the time; And something it should be to suit the place, Grave, moral, solemn, like the mouldering walls About us.' Walter warp'd his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd, An echo, like an April woodpecker, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden aunt (A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face With color) turn'd to me: 'Well as you will Just as you will,' she said; 'be, if you will, Yourself your hero.' 'Look then,' added he, 'Since Lilia would be princess, that you stoop No lower than a prince.' To which I said, 'Take care then that my tale be follow'd out By all the lieges in my royal vein : But one that really suited time and place Were such a medley, we should have him back Who told the Winter's Tale to do it for us : A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house, A talk of college and of ladies' rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade, And there with shrieks and strange experiments, For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all, The nineteenth century gambols on the grass. No matter we will say whatever comes: Here are we seven if each man take his turn We make a sevenfold story:' then began. I. A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, Now it chanced that I had been, While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old; and still from time to time Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, And of her brethren, knights of puissance; queen. But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, My father sent ambassadors with furs And jewels, gifts, to fetch her these brought back A present, a great labor of the loom; And therewithal an answer vague as wind: That morning in the presence room I stood With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: The first, a gentleman of broken means |