Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made.

'O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each,
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time,
Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips,
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice
Rang false: but smiling, 'Not for thee,' she said,

Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid,

Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake

Grate her harsh kindred in the grass and this
A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend,
We prize them slight they mind us of the time
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men,
That lute and flute fantastic tenderness,

And dress the victim to the offering up,

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise,

And play the slave to gain the tyranny.

Love is it? I would this same mock-love, and this
Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats,

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered
Whole in ourselves and due to none. Enough!
But now to leaven play with profit, you,

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil,
That gives the manners of your countrywomen?'

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with eyes

Of shining expectation fixt on mine.

Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song,

Did Cyril with whom the bell-mouth'd flask had wrought,
Or master'd by the sense of sport, begin
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him,

I frowning; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook;
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows;

'Forbear,' the Princess cried; Forbear, Sir,' I; And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love,

I smote him on the breast; he started up;

There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd;

Melissa clamour'd, 'Flee the death;' 'To horse,'
Said Lady Ida; and fled at once, as flies

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk,
When some one batters at the dovecote-doors,
Disorderly the women. Alone I stood

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart,

In the pavilion: there like parting hopes

I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof,
And every hoof a knell to my desires,

Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek,
'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!'
For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom:
There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch
Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave,

No more; but woman-vested as I was,

Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left

The weight of all the hopes of half the world,
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree

Was half-disrooted from its place, and stoop'd
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught,
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore.

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd

In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew

My burthen from mine arms, and crying 'she lives,'
They bore her back into the tent: but I,

So much a kind of shame within me wrought,
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes,
Nor found my friends; but push'd alone on foot
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine)
Across the thicket, and less from Indian craft
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length
The gates of the garden. Two great statues, Art
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up

A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves

Of

open

metal in which the old hunter rued

His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows

Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates.

A little space was left between the horns, Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks,