Your battle kiss her, take her hand, she weeps.
'Sdeath! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.
(The PRINCESS is still abstracted.)

GAMA. I've heard that there is iron in the blood, And I believe it. Not one word? Not one? Whence drew you this steel temper? Not from me, Not from your mother, now a saint with saints.

She said you had a heart I heard her say

'Our Ida has a heart," — just ere she died

"But see that some one with authority

Be near her still," and I—I sought for one
All people said she had authority-

The Lady Blanche: much profit!

it

KING.
O you,
Woman, whom we thought woman even now,
And were half fooled to let you tend our son,
Because he might have wished it - but we see
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven,

And think that you might mix his draught with death,

When your skies change again: the rougher hand

Is safer for the Prince; back to the tents! (Turns as if

to go.)

PRINCESS. Come hither, Psyche, and embrace me, come Quick, while I melt; make reconcilement sure

With one that cannot keep her mind an hour:
Come to the hollow heart they slander so!
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid!
I seem no more: I want forgiveness too :

I should have had to do with none but maids,
That have no links with men. Ah false but dear,
Dear traitor, too much loved! why?-why? Yet see,
Before these kings we embrace you yet once more

With all forgiveness, all oblivion,

And trust, not love, you less. (They embrace.)
(To the KING.) And now, O sire,

Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him,
This night-mare weight of gratitude, taunt me not.
Help, father, brother, help! speak to the king.
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that
Which kills me with myself, and drags me down
From my fixed height to mob me up with all
The soft and milky rabble of womankind,
Poor weakling even as they are. (Weeps.)

CYRIL (to PSYCHE). Your brother, Lady - Florian, -ask

for him

Of your great Head

for he is wounded too

That you may tend him with the Prince.

PRINCESS.

Our laws are broken, let him enter too.

Ay so,

MELISSA (kneeling to PRINCESS). Let me too wait with her on Florian.

CYRIL. And Violet, whose tearful song made such Sweet prelude to my rougher music, has

A cousin tumbled on the plain. For him

We urge the same petition. (He kneels to the PRINCESS.)

I stagger in the stream; I cannot keep
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour.
We break our laws with ease, but let it be.

[Exit CYRIL.

BLANCHE. Ay so? Amazed indeed am I to hear
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with ease
The law your Highness did not make; 'twas I.

I had been wedded wife; I knew mankind,
And blocked them out; but these men came to woo
Your Highness - verily, I think to win.

PRINCESS. Fling our doors wide! All, all, not one, but all. Not only he, but, by my mother's soul,

Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe,

Shall enter, if he will.

Let our girls flit

Till the storm die! She fain would sting us too,

But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes.

We brook no further insult.

(Flourish. Enter HERALD, CYRIL, FLORIAN, and the PRINCE.)

HERALD. The Prince! the Prince! not wounded, but

alive

And whole; for stunned and fallen in a swoon

He lay among his enemies, despoiled

And left for dead, but waked among his friends,

And found that real which he thought a dream.

CYRIL. No more to fight with shadows and to fall,

He comes to claim henceforth the substance.

THE KING. And so you have our son, most gracious Queen,

As you desired.

GAMA. And you, our daughter, Prince,

By right of pre-contract, or as you like.

PRINCESS. Thus all my labor is but as a block

Left in the quarry; fruitless my war

Against the sons of men and barbarous laws,

Waged less for truth in knowledge than for power :
And I have failed in sweet humility - failed in all.
Ah fool, that made myself a Queen of Farce!
When comes another such? never, I think,
Till the sun drop dead from the signs.

PRINCE.

(The PRINCESS bows her head upon her hands.)

blame

Blame not thyself too much, O Queen! nor

Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws;
These were the rough ways of the world till now.
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or frèe :
For woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;

He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in household care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;
Till at the last she set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ;

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;

Then springs the crowning race of humankind.

May these things be!

(The PRINCESS rising, is handed down by the PRINCE; CYRIL joining PSYCHE, and MELISSA joined by FLORIAN.)

PRINCE.

Oh, we will walk this world,

Yoked in all exercise of noble end!

And so through those dark gates across the wild

That no man knows.

FINALE.

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond! when have I answered thee? Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:

Yet, O my friend! I will not have thee die.
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ;
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed:
I strove against the stream, and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.

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