I seem no more: I want forgiveness too:
I should have had to do with none but maids,
That have no links with men.
Dear traitor, too much loved, why?—why?—Yet see, 275
Before these kings we embrace you yet once more
With all forgiveness, all oblivion,
And trust, not love, you less.
And now, O Sire,
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him,
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him,
This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it;
Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall have
Free adit; we will scatter all our maids
Till happier times each to her proper hearth:
What use to keep them here now? grant my prayer. 285
Help, father, brother, help; speak to the king:
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that
Which kills me with myself, and drags me down
From my fixt height to mob me up with all
The soft and milky rabble of womankind,
Poor weakling ev'n as they are."
Follow'd: the king replied not: Cyril said:
"Your brother, Lady,-Florian,—ask for him
Of your great head-for he is wounded too-
That you may tend upon him with the Prince."
'Ay so," said Ida with a bitter smile,
"Our laws are broken: let him enter too."
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song,
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain,
Petition'd too for him. "Ay so," she said,
"I stagger in the stream: I cannot keep
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour:
We break our laws with ease, but let it be."
"Ay so?" said Blanche: "Amazed am I to hear
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with ease 305
275. The comma after "traitor" first inserted in 1853, likewise both commas in 279 infra.
283. Generally used as a mining term, as a passage for the conveyance of water under ground; here in its strict Latin sense, entrance (aditus).
290. No comma in 1847.
298. No comma after "song" till 1853.
304. 1847-48. I am all amaze to hear.
The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I.
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind,
And block'd them out; but these men came to woo
Your Highness-verily I think to win."
So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye :
But Ida with a voice, that like a bell
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower,
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn.
"Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all,
Not only he, but by my mother's soul,
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe,
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit,
Till the storm die! but had you stood by us,
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base
Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too,
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes.
We brook no further insult but are gone."
After 313 in 1847-48 came this passage, afterwards excised :-
What! in our time of glory, when the cause
Now stands up, first, a trophied pillar-now
So clipt, so stinted in our triumph-barr'd
Ev'n from our free heart-thanks, and every way
Thwarted and vext, and lastly catechised
By our own creature! one that made our laws!
Our great she-Solon! her that built the nest
To hatch the cuckoo! whom we call'd our friend!
But we will crush the lie that glances at us
As cloaking in the larger charities
Some baby predilection: all amazed!
We must amaze this legislator more.
Fling our doors, etc.
319. Pharos was properly the island in the Bay of Alexandria on which Ptolemy Philadelphus built the famous lighthouse; afterwards the word became a synonym for a lighthouse, as more than once in the Greek Anthology,
Between lines 321 and 322 comes this passage in 1847-48, afterwards excised :Go, help the half-brain'd dwarf, Society,
To find low motives unto noble deeds,
To fix all doubt upon the darker side;
Go, fitter thou for narrowest neighbourhoods,
Old talker, haunt where gossip breeds and seethes
And festers in provincial sloth: and, you,
That think we sought to practise on a life
Risk'd for our own, and trusted to our hands,
What say you, Sir? you hear us: deem ye not
'Tis all too like that even now we scheme,
In one broad death confounding friend and foe,
To drug them all? revolve it: you are man,
And therefore no doubt wise; but after this, etc.
She turn'd; the
Was rosed with indignation: but the Prince
Her brother came; the king her father charm'd
Her wounded soul with words: nor did mine own
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand.
very nape of her white neck
Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare
Straight to the doors: to them the doors gave way
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd
The virgin marble under iron heels:
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there
Rested: but great the crush was, and each base,
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd
In silken fluctuation and the swarm
Of female whisperers: at the further end
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats
Close by her, like supporters on a shield,
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the centre stood
The common men with rolling eyes; amazed
They glared upon the women, and aghast
The women stared at these, all silent, save
When armour clash'd or jingled, while the day,
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot
A flying splendour out of brass and steel,
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head,
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm,
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame,
And now and then an echo started up,
And shuddering fled from room to room, and died
Of fright in far apartments.
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance:
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro’
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due
To languid limbs and sickness; left me in it;
And others otherwhere they laid; and all
332. 1847-48. And they moved on.
340. The second edition (1848) has "amaze," evidently a misprint.
347, 348. The symbolism in " angry Pallas" and "wrathful Dian," as before in the "groaning" doors and in the " shrieking" of the "virgin marble," is obvious and happy.
That afternoon a sound arose of hoof
And chariot, many a maiden passing home
Till happier times; but some were left of those
Held sagest, and the great lords out and in,
From those two hosts that lay beside the walls,
Walk'd at their will, and everything was changed.
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain :
Let the great river take me to the main :
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
The song added in 1850, no variants since.
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