I

A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
Of temper amorous, as the first of May,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, 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.

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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,

2. Amorous, as the first of May, cf. Locksley Hall, 20

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"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." 4. I was born in the North.

7. Because he cast no shadow, considered a proof of complicity with the Evil One.

13. affection, disease.

14 weird, supernatural.

19. Galen of Pergamus (130-209), the greatest physician of ancient times. His name is used as a synonym for medical authority. So we have "

a perfect Samson," etc.

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 scepter like a pedant's wand

To lash offense, 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

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Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen.

But when the days grew nigh that I should wed, 40 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:

23. Half-canonized, regarded almost as a saint.
27. pedant, here used in its old sense of schoolmaster.

33. Proxy-wedded with a bootless calf. In the ceremony of proxymarriage, which was common during the Middle Ages, the representative of the bridegroom removed his boot and placed his leg, bare to the knee, in the bridal bed. Anne of Brittany and Maximilian of Austria were so married in 1489.

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.

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That morning in the presence-room I stood

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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.

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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,

50. presence-room, audience-chamber.

66

64. chewed the thrice-turned cud of wrath, meditated upon the insult.

65. cooked his spleen, let his heart brood over his anger. The ancients believed that the spleen was the seat of wrath, as the heart was that of love.

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,

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Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,

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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."

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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, '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;

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Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bath'd

In the green gleam of dewy-tassel'd trees :

What were those fancies? Wherefore break her troth ? Proud look'd the lips but while I meditated

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A wind arose and rush'd upon the South,

93. dewy-tassel'd, hung with catkins like tassels.
96-100. Cf. Shelley: Prometheus Unbound, II. i.—
"A wind arose among the pines; it shook
The clinging music from their boughs, and then
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard: 'Oh follow, follow, follow me!'

And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks
Of the wild woods together; and a Voice
Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalt win."

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month
Became her golden shield, I stole from court
With Cyril and with Florian unperceived,
Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread
To hear my father's clamor at our backs

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With Ho from some bay-window shake the night;
But all was quiet from the bastion'd walls
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt,
And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost
To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange,
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness,
We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers,
And in the imperial palace found the king.

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His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice, But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind

On glassy water drove his cheek in lines;

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A little dry old man, without a star,

Not like a king three days he feasted us,

:

And on the fourth I spake of why we came,

And my betroth'd. "You do us, Prince," he said,
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,

"All honor. We remember love ourselves

In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass

100-101. Before the crescent moon became full.

106. Bastion'd, fortified with ramparts.

109. tilth, tilled land. grange, farmhouse.

110. bosk, a bush, a shrub.

111. mother-city, capital city.

116. without a star, with no decorations or orders of nobility.

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