His name was Gama; cracked and small his voice, But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind On glassy water drove his cheek in lines;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 bethrothed. 'You do us, Prince,' he said, Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 'All honour. We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth: there did a compact pass Long summers back, a kind of ceremony--I think the year in which our olives failed.
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, With my full heart: but there were widows here, Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;They fed her theories, in and out of place Maintaining that with equal husbandry The woman were an equal to the man.
They harped on this; with this our banquets rang;Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk;Nothing but this; my very ears were hot To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held, Was all in all: they had but been, she thought, As children; they must lose the child, assume The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, But all she is and does is awful; odes About this losing of the child; and rhymes And dismal lyrics, prophesying change Beyond all reason: these the women sang;And they that know such things--I sought but peace;No critic I--would call them masterpieces:
They mastered ~me~. At last she begged a boon, A certain summer-palace which I have Hard by your father's frontier: I said no, Yet being an easy man, gave it: and there, All wild to found an University For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more We know not,--only this: they see no men, Not even her brother Arac, nor the twins Her brethren, though they love her, look upon her As on a kind of paragon; and I(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but since (And I confess with right) you think me bound In some sort, I can give you letters to her;And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance Almost at naked nothing.'
Thus the king;
And I, though nettled that he seemed to slur With garrulous ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets But chafing me on fire to find my bride)Went forth again with both my friends. We rode Many a long league back to the North. At last From hills, that looked across a land of hope, We dropt with evening on a rustic town Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, Close at the boundary of the liberties;There, entered an old hostel, called mine host To council, plied him with his richest wines, And showed the late-writ letters of the king.
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The king would bear him out;' and at the last--The summer of the vine in all his veins--'No doubt that we might make it worth his while.
She once had past that way; he heard her speak;She scared him; life! he never saw the like;She looked as grand as doomsday and as grave:
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there;He always made a point to post with mares;His daughter and his housemaid were the boys:
The land, he understood, for miles about Was tilled by women; all the swine were sows, And all the dogs'--But while he jested thus, A thought flashed through me which I clothed in act, Remembering how we three presented Maid Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, In masque or pageant at my father's court.
We sent mine host to purchase female gear;He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake The midriff of despair with laughter, holp To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes We rustled: him we gave a costly bribe To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, And boldly ventured on the liberties.
We followed up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse And linden alley: then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four winged horses dark against the stars;And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow: further on we gained A little street half garden and half house;But scarce could hear each other speak for noise Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down In meshes of the jasmine and the rose:
And all about us pealed the nightingale, Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare.
There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth With constellation and with continent, Above an entry: riding in, we called;A plump-armed Ostleress and a stable wench Came running at the call, and helped us down.
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed, Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost In laurel: her we asked of that and this, And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche' she said, 'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest, Best-natured?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we,'
One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote, In such a hand as when a field of corn 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 sealed:
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 seemed To float about a glimmering night, and watch A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell On some dark shore just seen that it was rich.
As through the land at eve we went, And plucked the ripened ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kissed again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kissed again with tears.
