Or be yourself your hero if you will." "Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he,

"And make her some great Princess, six feet

high,

Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you

The Prince to win her!

"Then follow me, the Prince," I answer'd, "each be hero in his turn! Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. Heroic seems our Princess as required But something made to suit with Time and place,

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,

And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all

This were a medley! we should have him back

Who told the Winter's tale' to do it for us. No matter we will say whatever comes. And let the ladies sing us, if they will, From time to time, some ballad or a song To give us breathing-space."

So I began, And the rest follow'd: and the women sang Between the rougher voices of the men, Like linnets in the pauses of the wind: And here I give the story and the songs.

I.

PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair
in face,

Of temper amorous, as the first of
May,

With lengths of yellow ringlets, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house. Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,

Dying, that none of all our blood should know The shadow from the substance, and that one Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. For so, my mother said, the story ran.

And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less,
An old and strange affection of the house.
Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows
what:

On a sudden in the midst of men and day.
And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore,
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts,
And feel myself the shadow of a dream.
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head

cane,

And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd "catalepsy."
My mother pitying made a thousand prayers;
My mother was as mild as any saint,
Half-canonized by all that look'd on her,

So gracious was her tact and tenderness :
But my good father thought a king a king ;
He cared not for the affection of the house;
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands
Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass
For judgment.

Now it chanced that I had been,
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd
To one, a neighboring 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, youths of puissance;
And still I wore her picture by my heart,
And one dark tress; and all around them both
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about
their 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: Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts; He said there was a compact; that was true: But then she had a will; was he to blame? And maiden fancies; loved to live alone Among her women; certain, would not wed.

That morning in the presence room I stood With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : The first, a gentleman of broken means (His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts

Of revel; and the last, my other heart,
And almost my half-self, for still we moved
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye.

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face

Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, Inflamed with wrath; he started on his feet, Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware That he would send a hundred thousand men, And bring her in a whirlwind; then he chew'd The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen,

Communing with his captains of the war.

At last I spoke. "My father, let me go. It cannot be but some gross error lies In this report, this answer of a king, Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable : Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, May rue the bargain made." And Florian

said:

“I have a sister at the foreign court,

Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,

Who wedded with a nobleman from thence :
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,

The lady of three castles in that land:
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean."
And Cyril whisper'd: "Take me with you
too."

Then laughing "what, if these weird seizures

come

Upon you in those lands, and no one near To point you out the shadow from the truth! Take me: I 'll serve you better in a strait; I grate on rusty hinges here" but "No!" Roar'd the rough king, 66 you shall not; we

ourself

Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead
In iron gauntlets: break the council up."

But when the council broke, I rose and past Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town;

Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out;

Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees : What were those fancies? wherefore break her

troth?

Proud look'd the lips: but while I meditated A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks