Many a long league back to the North, we came, When the first fern-owl whirr'd about the copse, Upon a little town within a wood Close at the boundary of the liberties; There entering in an hostel call'd mine host To council, plied him with his richest wines, He, with a long low sibilation, stared 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 last 'No doubt that we might make it worth his while. The land he understoood for miles about Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows, And all the dogs' But while he jested thus, A thought flash'd thro' me which I cloth'd in act, Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; What slender blossom lived on lip or cheek Of manhood, gave mine host a costly bribe To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, We rode till midnight, when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley; and then we past an arch Inscribed too dark for legible, and gain'd A little street half garden and half house; But could not hear each other speak for noise Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose: Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth Above an archway: riding in, we call'd; In laurel her we ask'd of that and this, And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche,' she said, 'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest, Best natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Her pupils we,' One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, In such a hand as when a field of corn Bows all its ears before the roaring East; 'Three ladies of the Northern empire pray Your Highness would enroll them with your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils.' This I seal'd (A Cupid reading) to be sent with dawn; II. AT break of day the College Portress came: She brought us Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold; and now when these were on, And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know The Princess Ida waited out we paced, I first, and following thro' the porch that sang Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst; And here and there on lattice edges lay |