Into his father's hands, who has this night, Slipt round and in the dark invested you, And here he keeps me hostage for his son.' The second was my father's, running thus: 'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head : Deliver him up unscathed: give him your hand: Cleave to your contract: tho' indeed we hear You hold the woman is the better man; A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against their Lords Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve That we this night should pluck your palace down; And we will do it, unless you send us back Our son, on the instant, whole.' So far I read; And then stood up and spoke impetuously: 'O not to pry and peer on your reserve, But led by golden wishes and a hope The child of regal compact, did I break All that it might be hear me, for I bear, Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd to me From all high places, lived in all fair lights, Came in long breezes rapt from the inmost south, And blown to the inmost north; at eve and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods; The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, Because I would have reach'd you, tho' you had been Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned Persephone in Hades, now at length, Those winters of abeyance all worn out, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait On you, their centre let me say but this, That many a famous man and woman, town And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing; but in you I found Mine old ideal involved and dazzled down And master'd, while that after-beauty makes I cannot cease to follow you as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health-yours, yours, not mine—but half Without you, with you, whole; and of those halves You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar Your heart with system out from mine, I hold That it becomes no man to nurse despair, To follow up the worthiest till he die : Yet that I came not all unauthorized, Behold your father's letter.' On one knee Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, As waits a river level with the dam Ready to burst and flood the world with foam : And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, And some they cared not; till a clamour grew And worse-confounded: high above them stood Not peace, she look'd, the Head: but rising up Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild sea-birds on the light Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and call'd Across the tumult, and the tumult fell: 'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head? |