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 neighbouring 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,

5

Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place.

And me that morning Walter show'd the house,

10

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 clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs

9. Added in 1850.

PROLOGUE

15

20

21. Crease, a Malay dagger or poignard, from kris.

Skeat quotes Sir

Thomas Herbert's Travels, p. 68, edit. 1665: "Four hundred young men

who were privately armed with cryzes."

From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,
His own forefathers' arms and armour 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,

25

30

35

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,

40

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!"

45

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.

35-48 inclusive. Added in 1853.

50

55

40. So Virgil of the shade of Creusa (Æneid, ii. 773): “Visa mihi ante oculos, et notâ major imago."

56. This description of a popular holiday was suggested by what Tennyson himself witnessed on 6th July 1842, at a festival of the Maidstone Mechanics' Institute, held in the park of the Lushingtons (Life, i. 203).

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,

60

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

65

Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake 70
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 clamour 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

75

80

85

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,

90

Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave
The park, the crowd, the house; but all within

63. Steep-up. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnets, vii. 5, "the steep-up heavenly hill," and Passionate Pilgrim, iii. 4, "Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill." Tennyson again uses it in Queen Mary, III. iv.: "The steep-up tracts of the pure faith," 80. 1847-51. With Science hand in hand went.

The sward was trim as any garden lawn :

95

And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,

And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends

From neighbour seats: and there was Ralph himself,

A broken statue propt against the wall,

As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport,

100

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,

105

And there we join'd 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,

110

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;

115

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

120

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?”

125

Quick answer'd Lilia "There are thousands now
Such women, but convention beats them down:
It is but bringing up; no more than that:

97. 1847-48. This runs as follows:

112. 1847-50.

And Lilia with the rest, and Ralph himself,
A broken statue, etc.

squeez'd.

113. 1847-58, "breathed"; 1860, "breath'd," till 1885, when "breathed" reappears.

125. 1847-48. Aşk'd Walter, "lives there such a woman now?"

all!

You men have done it: how I hate you
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:

130

135

140

145

"That's your light way; but I would make it death 150 For any male thing but to peep at us."

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd;

A rosebud 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.

155

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,

131-38 1847-48 :—

were I some great Princess, I would build Far off from men a college of my own,

And I would teach them all things: you should see."

This concludes the stanza.

144. 1847-48. emperor moths.

160