Bows all its ears before the roaring East; 'Three ladies of the Northern empire pray

Your Highness would enroll them with your own,

As Lady Psyche's pupils.'

This I seal'd: The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes:

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn; And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd

To float about a glimmering night, and watch

A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight,

'We give you welcome: not without redound

Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, And that full voice which circles round the grave,

Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. What are the ladies of your land so tall?'

'We of the court,' said Cyril. 'From the court,'

She answer'd,' then ye know the Prince?' and he:

'The climax of his age! as tho' there were One rose in all the world, your Highness

that,

He worships your ideal: ' she replied: 'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear

This barren verbiage, current among men, Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem

As arguing love of knowledge and of power;

Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall!

Our statues!-not of those that men desire,

Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she

That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she

The foundress of the Babylonian wall,
The Carian Artemisia strong in war,
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid,
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman
brows

Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose

Convention, since to look on noble forms Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism That which is higher. O lift your natures

up:

Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls,

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd:

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite And slander, die. Better not be at all Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go:

To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue The fresh arrivals of the week before; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive.'

She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal: back again we crost the court To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves

That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch,

A patient range of pupils; she herself
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood,
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon
eyed,

And on the hither side, or so she look'd,
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child,
In shining draperies, headed like a star,
Her maiden babe, a double April old,
Aglaïa slept. We sat: the Lady glanced :
Then Florian, but no livelier than the
dame

That whisper'd' Asses' ears' among the sedge,

'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all that's fair,'

Said Cyril. O hush, hush!' and she began.

'This world was once a fluid haze of

light,

Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the

man;

Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, Raw from the prime, and crushing down

his mate;

As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here Among the lowest.'

Thereupon she took A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past;

Glanced at the legendary Amazon
As emblematic of a nobler age;

How saw you not the inscription on the gate,

LET NO

MAN ENTER IN ON PAIN OF DEATH?'

'And if I had,' he answer'd, 'who could think

The softer Adams of your Academe,
O sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such
As chanted on the blanching bones of
men?'

But you will find it otherwise,' she said. 'You jest i jesting with edge-tools! my vow

Binds me to speak, and O that iron will, That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, The Princess.' Well then, Psyche, take

my life,

And nail me like a weasel on a grange
For warning: bury me beside the gate,
And cut this epitaph above my bones;
Here lies a brother by a sister slain,
All for the common good of womankind.'
'Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having

war;

king

Kiss'd 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.'

'Are you that Psyche,' Florian ask'd, '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 sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood

Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept.

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

O by the bright head of my little niece, You were that Psyche, and what are you now?'

'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, 'The mother of the sweetest little maid, That ever crow'd for kisses.'

'Out upon it!' She answer'd, 'peace! and why should I not play

The Spartan Mother with emotion, be The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? Him you call great: he for the common weal,

The fading politics of mortal Rome,

As I might slay this child, if good need

were,

Slew both his sons: 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.

O 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.'

What could we else, we promised each; and she,

Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced

A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused By Florian; holding out her lily arms Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said:

'I knew you at the first: tho' you have grown

You scarce have alter'd: I am sad and glad

To see you, Florian. I give thee to death

My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well?'

With that she kiss'd His forehead, then, a moment after, clung

About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up

From out a common vein of memory Sweet household talk, and phrases of

the hearth,

And far allusion, till the gracious dews Began to glisten and to fall and while They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,

'I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.'

Back started she, and turning round we

saw

The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, That clad her like an April daffodilly (Her mother's colour) with her lips apart,

And all her thoughts as fair within her

eyes,

As bottom agates seen to wave and float In crystal currents of clear morning seas.

So stood that same fair creature at the

door.

Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah - Melissa -you!