Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down A man with knobs and wires and vials fired A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep From hollow fields: and here were telescopes For azure views; and there a group of girls In circle waited, whom the electric shock And shook the lilies: perch'd about the knolls A dozen angry models jetted steam: Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light And shadow, while the twangling violin The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; And long we gazed, but satiated at length Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house; but all within And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends From neighbour seats: and there was Ralph himself, A broken statue propt against the wall, As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, Half child half woman as she was, had wound A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt And all things great; but we, unworthier, told But honeying at the whisper of a lord; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought My book to mind: and opening this I read Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, And much I praised her nobleness, and Where,' ♦ Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay Beside him) 'lives there such a woman now?' Quick answer'd Lilia There are thousands now That I were some great Princess, I would build And I would teach them all that men are taught; And one said smiling' Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it.' At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot: 'That's your light way; but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us.' Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she : |