Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all Its range of duties to the appointed hour. Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood Among her maidens, higher by the head, Her back against a pillar, her foot on one Of those tame leopards. Kitten-like he roll'd And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near; I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came Upon me, the weird vision of our house. The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, Her college and her maidens empty masks, And I myself the shadow of a dream, For all things were and were not.

Yet I felt

My heart beat thick with passion and with awe;
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh

Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so
Went forth in long retinue following up
The river as it narrow'd to the hills.

I rode beside her and to me she said: 'O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not Too harsh to your companion yestermorn; Unwillingly we spake.' 'No- not to her,' I answer'd, but to one of whom we spake Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say.'

'Again?' she cried, are you ambassadresses From him to me? we give you, being strange, A license; speak, and let the topic die.'

I stammer'd that I knew him could have

wish'd

Our king expects

was there no precontract?

There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem

All he prefigured, and he could not see
The bird of passage flying south but long'd

To follow. Surely, if your Highness keep

Your purport, you will shock him even to death,
Or baser courses, children of despair.'

'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read

books?

Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? nor deals in that
Which men delight in, martial exercise?
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,

Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been.
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them.
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,
Being other since we learnt our meaning here,

✓✓ To lift the woman's fallen divinity

Upon an even pedestal with man.'

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, And as to precontracts, we move, my friend,

At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee,
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon's out
She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.'

'Alas, your Highness breathes full East,' I said,
'On that which leans to you! I know the Prince,
I prize his truth. And then how vast a work
To assail this grey preeminence of man!

You grant me license; might I use it? think;
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail;
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains
May only make that footprint upon sand
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice
Resmooth to nothing. Might I dread that you,
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss
Meanwhile what every woman counts her due,
Love, children, happiness?'

And she exclaim'd,

'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild!
What! tho' your Prince's love were like a god's,
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice?

You are bold indeed; we are not talk'd to thus.
Yet will we say for children, would they grew
Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well :
But children die; and let me tell you, girl,
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die;

They with the sun and moon renew their light
For ever, blessing those that look on them.

Children

- that men may pluck them from our hearts,

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves —

O children there is nothing upon earth

More miserable than she that has a son

And sees him err.
Tho' she perhaps
Great,

Nor would we work for fame;

might reap the applause of

Who learns the one POU STO whence after-hands
May move the world, tho' she herself effect
But little; wherefore up and act, nor shrink
For fear our solid aim be dissipated

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been,
In lieu of many mortal flies, a race

Of giants living each a thousand years,

That we might see our own work out, and watch The sandy footprint harden into stone.'

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself If that strange poet-princess with her grand Imaginations might at all be won.

And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; We are used to that; for women, up till this Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, Dwarfs of the gynæceum, fail so far

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess
How much their welfare is a passion to us.
If we could give them surer, quicker proof-
O, if our end were less achievable

By slow approaches than by single act
Of immolation, any phase of death,

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes,

Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it,
To compass our dear sisters' liberties.'

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear;

And up we came to where the river sloped
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks
A breadth of thunder.

O'er it shook the woods,

And danced the color, and, below, stuck out

The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd

Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 'As these rude bones to us, are we to her

That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd, 'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters?' How,' she cried, 'you

love

The metaphysics! read and earn our prize,
A golden brooch. Beneath an emerald plane
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died

Of hemlock-our device, wrought to the life—
She rapt upon her subject, he on her;

For there are schools for all.' And yet,' I said, 'Methinks I have not found among them all