Among the columns, pacing staid and still With beauties every shade of brown and fair, Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own Among her grave Professors, scattering gems One walk'd reciting by herself, and one In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peacock down with that: Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadow'd from the heat: some hid and sought In the orange thickets: others tost a ball Above the fountain-jets, and back again With laughter: others lay about the lawns, Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May They wish'd to marry; they could rule a house; Of gentle satire, kin to charity, That harm'd not so we sat; and now when day A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven A blessing on her labours for the world. III. MORN in the white wake of the morning star We rose, and each by other drest with care In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd And while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 'And fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may! My mother, 't is her wont from night to night To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. She says the Princess should have been the Head, And so it was agreed when first they came; And so last night she fell to canvass you: Her countrywomen! she did not envy her. "Who ever saw such wild barbarians? Girls?-more like men!" and at these words the snake, My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast; And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd: Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men, You need not take so deep a rouge: like men— And closeted with her for hours. Aha!" Then came these dreadful words out one by one, And she conceals it." So my mother clutch'd 'What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?' Said Cyril Pale one, blush again: than wear Those lilies, better blush our lives away. Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven,' |