Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield, I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, Cat-footed through the town and half in dread To hear my father's clamour at our backs With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; But all was quiet: from the bastioned walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, And flying reached the frontier: then we crost To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange, And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, We gained the mother city thick with towers, And in the imperial palace found the king.
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.