<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341762" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Princess (part 7)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">So was their sanctuary violated, <br>So their fair college turned to hospital; <br>At first with all confusion: by and by <br>Sweet order lived again with other laws: <br>A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere <br>Low voices with the ministering hand <br>Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they talked, <br>They sang, they read: till she not fair began <br>To gather light, and she that was, became <br>Her former beauty treble; and to and fro <br>With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, <br>Like creatures native unto gracious act, <br>And in their own clear element, they moved. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, <br>And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. <br>Old studies failed; seldom she spoke: but oft <br>Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours <br>On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men <br>Darkening her female field: void was her use, <br>And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze <br>O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud <br>Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, <br>Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, <br>And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, <br>And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn <br>Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; <br>So blackened all her world in secret, blank <br>And waste it seemed and vain; till down she came, <br>And found fair peace once more among the sick. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And twilight dawned; and morn by morn the lark <br>Shot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but I <br>Lay silent in the muffled cage of life: <br>And twilight gloomed; and broader-grown the bowers <br>Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, <br>Star after Star, arose and fell; but I, <br>Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay <br>Quite sundered from the moving Universe, <br>Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand <br>That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft, <br>Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left <br>Her child among us, willing she should keep <br>Court-favour: here and there the small bright head, <br>A light of healing, glanced about the couch, <br>Or through the parted silks the tender face <br>Peeped, shining in upon the wounded man <br>With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves <br>To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw <br>The sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soon <br>He rose up whole, and those fair charities <br>Joined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hears <br>So gentle, so employed, should close in love, <br>Than when two dewdrops on the petals shake <br>To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, <br>And slip at once all-fragrant into one. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Less prosperously the second suit obtained <br>At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn <br>That after that dark night among the fields <br>She needs must wed him for her own good name; <br>Not though he built upon the babe restored; <br>Nor though she liked him, yielded she, but feared <br>To incense the Head once more; till on a day <br>When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind <br>Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung <br>A moment, and she heard, at which her face <br>A little flushed, and she past on; but each <br>Assumed from thence a half-consent involved <br>In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls <br>Held carnival at will, and flying struck <br>With showers of random sweet on maid and man. <br>Nor did her father cease to press my claim, <br>Nor did mine own, now reconciled; nor yet <br>Did those twin-brothers, risen again and whole; <br>Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: <br>Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch <br>Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, <br>And fling it like a viper off, and shriek <br>'You are not Ida;' clasp it once again, <br>And call her Ida, though I knew her not, <br>And call her sweet, as if in irony, <br>And call her hard and cold which seemed a truth: <br>And still she feared that I should lose my mind, <br>And often she believed that I should die: <br>Till out of long frustration of her care, <br>And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, <br>And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks <br>Throbbed thunder through the palace floors, or called <br>On flying Time from all their silver tongues-- <br>And out of memories of her kindlier days, <br>And sidelong glances at my father's grief, <br>And at the happy lovers heart in heart-- <br>And out of hauntings of my spoken love, <br>And lonely listenings to my muttered dream, <br>And often feeling of the helpless hands, <br>And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek-- <br>From all a closer interest flourished up, <br>Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, <br>Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears <br>By some cold morning glacier; frail at first <br>And feeble, all unconscious of itself, <br>But such as gathered colour day by day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death <br>For weakness: it was evening: silent light <br>Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought <br>Two grand designs; for on one side arose <br>The women up in wild revolt, and stormed <br>At the Oppian Law. Titanic shapes, they crammed <br>The forum, and half-crushed among the rest <br>A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side <br>Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, <br>A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, <br>With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, <br>And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, <br>The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused <br>Hortensia pleading: angry was her face. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: <br>They did but look like hollow shows; nor more <br>Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew <br>Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape <br>And rounder seemed: I moved: I sighed: a touch <br>Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand: <br>Then all for languor and self-pity ran <br>Mine down my face, and with what life I had, <br>And like a flower that cannot all unfold, <br>So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun, <br>Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her <br>Fixt my faint eyes, and uttered whisperingly: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, <br>I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: <br>But if you be that Ida whom I knew, <br>I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, <br>Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die tonight. <br>Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I could no more, but lay like one in trance, <br>That hears his burial talked of by his friends, <br>And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, <br>But lies and dreads his doom. She turned; she paused; <br>She stooped; and out of languor leapt a cry; <br>Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death; <br>And I believed that in the living world <br>My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips; <br>Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose <br>Glowing all over noble shame; and all <br>Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, <br>And left her woman, lovelier in her mood <br>Than in her mould that other, when she came <br>From barren deeps to conquer all with love; <br>And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she <br>Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, <br>Naked, a double light in air and wave, <br>To meet her Graces, where they decked her out <br>For worship without end; nor end of mine, <br>Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, <br>Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, <br>Filled through and through with Love, a happy sleep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held <br>A volume of the Poets of her land: <br>There to herself, all in low tones, she read. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> 'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; <br>Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; <br>Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: <br>The fire-fly wakens: wake thou with me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, <br>And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, <br>And all thy heart lies open unto me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Now lies the silent meteor on, and leaves <br>A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, <br>And slips into the bosom of the lake: <br>So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip <br>Into my bosom and be lost in me.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I heard her turn the page; she found a small <br>Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> 'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: <br>What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) <br>In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? <br>But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease <br>To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, <br>To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; <br>And come, for love is of the valley, come, <br>For love is of the valley, come thou down <br>And find him; by the happy threshold, he, <br>Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, <br>Or red with spirted purple of the vats, <br>Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk <br>With Death and Morning on the silver horns, <br>Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, <br>Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, <br>That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls <br>To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: <br>But follow; let the torrent dance thee down <br>To find him in the valley; let the wild <br>Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave <br>The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill <br>Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, <br>That like a broken purpose waste in air: <br>So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales <br>Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth <br>Arise to thee; the children call, and I <br>Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, <br>Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; <br>Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, <br>The moan of doves in immemorial elms, <br>And murmuring of innumerable bees.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay <br>Listening; then looked. Pale was the perfect face; <br>The bosom with long sighs laboured; and meek <br>Seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, <br>And the voice trembled and the hand. She said <br>Brokenly, that she knew it, she had failed <br>In sweet humility; had failed in all; <br>That all her labour was but as a block <br>Left in the quarry; but she still were loth, <br>She still were loth to yield herself to one <br>That wholly scorned to help their equal rights <br>Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. <br>She prayed me not to judge their cause from her <br>That wronged it, sought far less for truth than power <br>In knowledge: something wild within her breast, <br>A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. <br>And she had nursed me there from week to week: <br>Much had she learnt in little time. In part <br>It was ill counsel had misled the girl <br>To vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl-- <br>'Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! <br>When comes another such? never, I think, <br>Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.' <br> Her voice <br>choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, <br>And her great heart through all the faultful Past <br>Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break; <br>Till notice of a change in the dark world <br>Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, <br>That early woke to feed her little ones, <br>Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light: <br>She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blame <br>Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws; <br>These were the rough ways of the world till now. <br>Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know <br>The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink <br>Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free: <br>For she that out of Lethe scales with man <br>The shining steps of Nature, shares with man <br>His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, <br>Stays all the fair young planet in her hands-- <br>If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, <br>How shall men grow? but work no more alone! <br>Our place is much: as far as in us lies <br>We two will serve them both in aiding her-- <br>Will clear away the parasitic forms <br>That seem to keep her up but drag her down-- <br>Will leave her space to burgeon out of all <br>Within her--let her make herself her own <br>To give or keep, to live and learn and be <br>All that not harms distinctive womanhood. <br>For woman is not undevelopt man, <br>But diverse: could we make her as the man, <br>Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this, <br>Not like to like, but like in difference. <br>Yet in the long years liker must they grow; <br>The man be more of woman, she of man; <br>He gain in sweetness and in moral height, <br>Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; <br>She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, <br>Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; <br>Till at the last she set herself to man, <br>Like perfect music unto noble words; <br>And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, <br>Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers, <br>Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, <br>Self-reverent each and reverencing each, <br>Distinct in individualities, <br>But like each other even as those who love. <br>Then comes the statelier Eden back to men: <br>Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: <br>Then springs the crowning race of humankind. <br>May these things be!' <br> Sighing she spoke 'I fear <br>They will not.' <br> 'Dear, but let us type them now <br>In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest <br>Of equal; seeing either sex alone <br>Is half itself, and in true marriage lies <br>Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils <br>Defect in each, and always thought in thought, <br>Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, <br>The single pure and perfect animal, <br>The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke, <br>Life.' <br> And again sighing she spoke: 'A dream <br>That once was mind! what woman taught you this?' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Alone,' I said, 'from earlier than I know, <br>Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, <br>I loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives <br>A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, <br>Or pines in sad experience worse than death, <br>Or keeps his winged affections clipt with crime: <br>Yet was there one through whom I loved her, one <br>Not learnèd, save in gracious household ways, <br>Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, <br>No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt <br>In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, <br>Interpreter between the Gods and men, <br>Who looked all native to her place, and yet <br>On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere <br>Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce <br>Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved, <br>And girdled her with music. Happy he <br>With such a mother! faith in womankind <br>Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high <br>Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall <br>He shall not blind his soul with clay.' <br> 'But I,' <br>Said Ida, tremulously, 'so all unlike-- <br>It seems you love to cheat yourself with words: <br>This mother is your model. I have heard <br>of your strange doubts: they well might be: I seem <br>A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince; <br>You cannot love me.' <br> 'Nay but thee' I said <br>'From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, <br>Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw <br>Thee woman through the crust of iron moods <br>That masked thee from men's reverence up, and forced <br>Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now, <br>Given back to life, to life indeed, through thee, <br>Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light <br>Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults <br>Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead, <br>My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change, <br>This truthful change in thee has killed it. Dear, <br>Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, <br>Like yonder morning on the blind half-world; <br>Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows; <br>In that fine air I tremble, all the past <br>Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this <br>Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come <br>Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels <br>Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, <br>I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride, <br>My wife, my life. O we will walk this world, <br>Yoked in all exercise of noble end, <br>And so through those dark gates across the wild <br>That no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come, <br>Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one: <br>Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; <br>Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alfred+Lord+Tennyson">Alfred Lord Tennyson</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341762" data-title="The Princess (part 7) de Alfred Lord Tennyson" data-description="So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turned to hospital; At first with all confusion: by and by Sweet order lived again with other laws: A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere Low voices with the ministering hand Hung..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black