"Let me screw thee up a peg:
Let me loose thy tongue with wine:
Callest thou that thing a leg?
Which is thinnest ? thine or mine?
"Thou shalt not be saved by works:
Thou hast been a sinner too:
Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks,
Empty scarecrows, I and you!
"Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.
"We are men of ruin'd blood;
Therefore comes it we are wise.
Fish are we that love the mud,
Rising to no fancy-flies.
"Name and fame! to fly sublime
Through the courts, the camps, the schools,
Is to be the ball of Time,
Bandied in the hands of fools.
"Friendship!-to be two in one-
Let the canting liar pack!
Well I know, when I am gone,
How she mouths behind my back.
"Virtue-to be good and just-
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
"O! we two as well can look
Whited thought and cleanly life
As the priest, above his book
Leering at his neighbor's wife.
"Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.
"Drink, and let the parties rave:
They are fill'd with idle spleen;
Rising, falling, like a wave,
For they know not what they mean.
"He that roars for liberty
Faster binds a tyrant's power; And the tyrant's cruel glee Forces on the freer hour.
"Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.
"Greet her with applausive breath,
Freedom, gayly doth she tread;
In her right a civic wreath,
In her left a human head
"No, I love not what is new;
She is of an ancient house:
And I think we know the hue
Of that cap upon her brows.
"Let her go! her thirst she slakes
Where the bloody conduit runs.
Then her sweetest meal she makes
On the first-born of her sons.
"Drink to lofty hopes that cool-
Visions of a perfect State :
Drink we, last, the public fool,
Frantic love and frantic hate.
"Chant me row some wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise,
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The voice grew faint: there came a further change
Once more uprose the mystic mountain-range:
Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss.
Then some one spake: "Behoid: it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal biame."
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY
SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighboring borough with their Institute
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son,-the son
A Walter too,-with others of our set,
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place.
And me that morning Walter show'd the house,
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park.
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;
And on the tables every elime and age
Jumbled together: celts and calumets,
Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs
From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,
His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.
And "this," he said, "was Hugh's at Agincourt;
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle
With all about him,"-which he brought, and I
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.
"O miracle of women," said the book,
"O noble heart who, being strait-besieged
By this wild king to force her to his wish,
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death,
But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost-
Her stature more than mortal in the burst
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire-
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt,
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall,
And some were push'd with lances from the rock,
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook:
O miracle of noble womanhood!"
So sang the gallant glorious chronicle;
And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said,
"To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went
(I kept the book and had my finger in it)
Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me;
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown
With happy faces and with holiday.
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads;
The patient leaders of their Institute
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone
And drew from butts of water on the slope,
The fountain of the moment, playing now
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball
Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired
A cannon: Echo answer'd in her sleep
From hollow fields: and here were telescopes
For azure views; and there a group of girls
In circle waited, whom the electric shock
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lak
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied
And shook the lilies: perch'd about the knolls
A dozen angry models jetted steam:
A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere
Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd,
And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids
Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light
And shadow, while the twangling violin
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end.
Strange was the sight and smacking of the time:
And long we gazed, but satiated at length
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt,
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire,
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave
The park, the crowd, the house; but all within
The sward was trim as any garden lawn:
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends
From neighbor seats: and there was Ralph himself,
A broken statue propt against the wall,
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport,
Half child, half woman as she was, had wound
A scarf of orange round the stony helm,
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk,
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook
Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,
And there we joined them: then the maiden Aunt
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd
An universal culture for the crowd,
And all things great; but we, unworthier, told
Of College: he had climb'd across the spikes,
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,
And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs: and one
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men,
But honeying at the whisper of a lord;
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.
But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought My book to mind: and opening this I read Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, And much I praised her nobleness, and "Where," Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay Beside him) "lives there such a woman now ?" Quick answer'd Lilia, "There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down: It is but bringing up; no more than that: You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children! O I wish That I were some great Princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man's, And I would teach them all that men are taught: We are twice as quick!" And here she shook aside The hand that play'd the patron with her curls.
And one said smiling, "Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths or Ralph Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear, If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest, Some boy would spy it."
At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot: "That's your light way: but I would make it death For any male thing but to peep at us."
Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd;
A rose-bud set with little wilful thorns,
And sweet as English air could make her, she:
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her,
And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss,"
And swore he long'd at College, only long'd,
All else was well, for she-society.
They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;
They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;
They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,
And caught the blossom of the flying terms,
But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place,
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke,
Part banter, part affection.
"We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did."
She held it out; and as a parrot turns Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, And takes a lady's finger with all care, And bites it for true heart and not for harm, So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd And wrung it. "Doubt my word again!" he said. "Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read, And there we took one tutor as to read: The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square Were out of season: never man, I think,
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he:
For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet,
And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms,
We did but talk you over, pledge you all
In wassail: often, like as many girls-
Sick for the hollies and the yews of home-
As many little trifling Lilias-play'd
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,
And what's my thought and when and where and how
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth
As here at Christmas."
She remember'd that:
A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest.
But these-what kind of tales did men tell men,
She wonder'd, by themselves?
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The tyrant! kill him in the summer too."
Said Lilia; "Why not now," the maiden Aunt.
"Why not a summer's as a winter's tale?
A tale for summer as befits the time,
And something it should be to suit the place,
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath,
Grave, solemn !"
Walter warp'd his mouth at this
To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth
An echo like a ghostly woodpecker,
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt
(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face
With color) turn'd to me with "As you will;
Heroie if you will, or what you will,
Or be yourself your hero if you will.”
"Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, "And make her some great Princess, six feet high Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you
"Then follow me, the Prince," I answer'd," each be hero in his turn! Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream.— Heroic seems our Princess as required.But something made to suit with Time and place, A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all-
This were a medley! we should have him back
Who told the Winter's tale' to do it for us.
No matter: we will say whatever comes.
And let the ladies sing us, if they will,
From time to time, some ballad or a song
To give us breathing-space."
So I began,
And the rest follow'd: and the women sang
Between the rougher voices of the men,
Like linuets in the pauses of the wind:
And here I give the story and the songs.
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
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