I think no more of deadly lurks therein,
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth

To scare the fowl from fruit; if more there be,
If more and acted on, what follows? War;
Your own work marr'd; for this your Academe,
Whichever side be victor, in the halloo
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass
With all fair theories only made to gild

A stormless summer. (Enter MELISSA unobserved.)
LADY PSYCHE. Let the Princess judge

Of that: farewell, sir to you all, farewell.
I shudder at the sequel, but I go.

she that is

PRINCE. Are you that Lady Psyche,
The fifth in line from that old Florian?
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall
(The gaunt old baron with his beetle brow
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights)
As he bestrode my grandsire, when he fell
And all else fled; we point to it, and we say,
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold,
But branches current yet in kindred veins !

FLORIAN. Are you that sister Psyche, she with whom
I sang and played about the morning hills,
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly,
And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow,
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read
My sickness down to happy dreams? Are you
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one?
You were that Psyche, but what are you now?

CYRIL. You are that lovely Psyche, she for whom I would be that forever which I seem,

Woman, if I might sit beside your feet,

And glean your scattered sapience.

PRINCE.

Are you

That Psyche, who, upon her bridal morn,
Before she parted from us, when the king
Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills;
That, were there any of our people there
In want or peril, there was one to hear

And help them? look! for such are these and I.
FLORIAN. Are you that sister Psyche, she to whom
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn
Came flying while you sat beside the well?
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap,

And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood
Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept.

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept.

You were that Psyche, but what are you now?

LADY PSYCHE. Out upon it! and why should I not play

The Spartan mother with emotion, be

The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind?

Him you call great: and I, shall I, on whom

The secular emancipation turns

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save

A prince, a brother? a little will I yield.

Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.
Oh hard, when love and duty clash! I fear
My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet -
Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise
You perish) as you came to slip away,

To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said,

These women were too barbarous, would not learn ;
They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.

PRINCE. What can we else? We promise, each and all. LADY PSYCHE (to FLORIAN). I knew you at the first; though you have grown,

You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad

To see you, Florian. I give thee to death,
My brother! it was duty spake, not I.
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.
Our mother, is she well?

MELISSA (coming forward toward LADY PSYCHE). I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.

LADY PSYCHE. Ah-Melissa-you! You heard us? MELISSA. O pardon me !

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish :

But, dearest lady, pray you fear me not,
Nor think I bear that heart within my breast,

To give three gallant gentlemen to death.

LADY PSYCHE. I trust you, dear Melissa, for we two
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine :
But yet your mother's jealous temperament

Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove
The Danäid of a leaky vase, for fear

This whole foundation ruin, and I lose

My honor, and these gentlemen their lives.

MELISSA. Ah, fear me not! trust me, I would not tell,

No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness,

No, not to answer, madam, all those hard things

That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.

LADY PSYCHE. Be it so that we may lead the new light up,

And Solomon may come to Sheba yet.

CYRIL. But, madam, he the wisest man of men

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls
Of Lebanonian cedar; nor should you

Less welcome find among us, if you came

Among us, debtors for our lives to you,

Myself a debtor, too, for something more.

LADY PSYCHE. Thanks, go; already we have been too

long

Together: keep your hoods about your face;

They do so that affect abstraction here.

Speak little; all, I trust, may yet be well.

[Exeunt LADY PSYCHE and MELISSA.

PRINCE (surveying the room). Why, sirs, they do all this as well as we.

CYRIL. They hunt old trails, it may be, very well; But when did woman ever yet invent?

FLORIAN. Ungracious! can it be that you have learnt

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talked
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?
CYRIL. O trash, indeed, but with a kernel in it.
Should I not call her wise who made me wise?
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash,
Than if my brain-pan were an empty hull,
And every Muse tumbled a science in.

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls,
And round these halls a thousand baby loves
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts,
Whence follows many a vacant pang.

PRINCE.

It seems

With you, sir, entered in the bigger boy,
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm,
The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too;
And cleft you through the stomacher.

CYRIL.

The doctors! O to hear the doctors!

And then

To watch the thirsty plants imbibing dews
Of knowledge!

O

FLORIAN. Yet you were as meek as any.
CYRIL. Ha! my zone unmanned me.

Once or twice

I thought to roar and shake my mane; but thou,
Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry!
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat;
Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows;
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek,
Where they like swallows coming out of time

Will wonder why they came: but hark, the bell (bell rings) For vespers: let us go.

[Exeunt.