Morn in the wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the orient into gold.
We rose, and each by other drest with care Descended to the court that lay three parts In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touched Above the darkness from their native East.
There while we stood beside the fount, and watched Or seemed to watch the dancing bubble, approached Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes The circled Iris of a night of tears;'And fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may!
My mother knows:' and when I asked her 'how,'
'My fault' she wept 'my fault! and yet not mine;Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me.
My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night To rail at Lady Psyche and her side.
She says the Princess should have been the Head, Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms;And so it was agreed when first they came;But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, And the left, or not, or seldom used;Hers more than half the students, all the love.
And so last night she fell to canvass you:
~Her~ countrywomen! she did not envy her.
"Who ever saw such wild barbarians?
Girls?--more like men!" and at these words the snake, My secret, seemed to stir within my breast;And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed:
"O marvellously modest maiden, you!
Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus For wholesale comment." Pardon, I am shamed That I must needs repeat for my excuse What looks so little graceful: "men" (for still My mother went revolving on the word)"And so they are,--very like men indeed--And with that woman closeted for hours!"
Then came these dreadful words out one by one, "Why--these--~are~--men:" I shuddered: "and you know it.""O ask me nothing," I said: "And she knows too, And she conceals it." So my mother clutched The truth at once, but with no word from me;And now thus early risen she goes to inform The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crushed;But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly;But heal me with your pardon ere you go.'
'What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?'
Said Cyril: 'Pale one, blush again: than wear Those lilies, better blush our lives away.
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven'
He added, 'lest some classic Angel speak In scorn of us, "They mounted, Ganymedes, To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn."But I will melt this marble into wax To yield us farther furlough:' and he went.
Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought He scarce would prosper. 'Tell us,' Florian asked, 'How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.'
'O long ago,' she said, 'betwixt these two Division smoulders hidden; 'tis my mother, Too jealous, often fretful as the wind Pent in a crevice: much I bear with her:
I never knew my father, but she says (God help her) she was wedded to a fool;And still she railed against the state of things.
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, And from the Queen's decease she brought her up.
But when your sister came she won the heart Of Ida: they were still together, grew (For so they said themselves) inosculated;Consonant chords that shiver to one note;One mind in all things: yet my mother still Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, And angled with them for her pupil's love:
She calls her plagiarist; I know not what:
But I must go: I dare not tarry,' and light, As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled.
Then murmured Florian gazing after her, 'An open-hearted maiden, true and pure.
If I could love, why this were she: how pretty Her blushing was, and how she blushed again, As if to close with Cyril's random wish:
Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.'
'The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, The dove may murmur of the dove, but IAn eagle clang an eagle to the sphere.
My princess, O my princess! true she errs, But in her own grand way: being herself Three times more noble than three score of men, She sees herself in every woman else, And so she wears her error like a crown To blind the truth and me: for her, and her, Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix The nectar; but--ah she--whene'er she moves The Samian Her?rises and she speaks A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.'
So saying from the court we paced, and gained The terrace ranged along the Northern front, And leaning there on those balusters, high Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale That blown about the foliage underneath, And sated with the innumerable rose, Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came Cyril, and yawning 'O hard task,' he cried;'No fighting shadows here! I forced a way Through opposition crabbed and gnarled.
Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump A league of street in summer solstice down, Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman.
I knocked and, bidden, entered; found her there At point to move, and settled in her eyes The green malignant light of coming storm.
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oiled, As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I prayed Concealment: she demanded who we were, And why we came? I fabled nothing fair, But, your example pilot, told her all.
Up went the hushed amaze of hand and eye.
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, She answered sharply that I talked astray.
I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, And our three lives. True--we had limed ourselves With open eyes, and we must take the chance.
But such extremes, I told her, well might harm The woman's cause. "Not more than now," she said, "So puddled as it is with favouritism."I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew:
Her answer was "Leave me to deal with that."I spoke of war to come and many deaths, And she replied, her duty was to speak, And duty duty, clear of consequences.
I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission in a thousand years, I recommenced; "Decide not ere you pause.
