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Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Princess (prologue)Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Princess (prologue)
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Sir Walter Vivian all a summer`s day Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun Up to the people:  thither flocked 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, Five others:  we were seven at Vivian-place. And me that morning Walter showed 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 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 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 armed Her own fair head, and sallying through 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 shunned a soldier`s death, But now when all was lost or seemed 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 whelmed with missiles of the wall, And some were pushed with lances from the rock, And part were drowned 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 through the park:  strange was the sight to me; For all the sloping pasture murmured, 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 reared 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 answered 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 Dislinked with shrieks and laughter:  round the lake A little clock-work steamer paddling plied And shook the lilies:  perched 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 through twenty posts of telegraph They flashed 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 bowled And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew through 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-arched and ivy-claspt, Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Through 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 neighbour 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 preached An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told Of college:  he had climbed across the spikes, And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, And he had breathed the Proctor`s dogs; and one Discussed his tutor, rough to common men, But honeying at the whisper of a lord; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain Veneered with sanctimonious theory. But while they talked, 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,` Asked Walter, patting Lilia`s head (she lay Beside him) `lives there such a woman now?` Quick answered 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 might 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 played 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-sandaled 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 laughed; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she: But Walter hailed a score of names upon her, And `petty Ogress`, and `ungrateful Puss`, And swore he longed at college, only longed, All else was well, for she-society. They boated and they cricketed; they talked 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 missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower Lilia.  Thus he spoke, Part banter, part affection.                            `True,` she said, `We doubt not that.  O yes, you missed us much. I`ll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.` She held it out; and as a parrot turns Up through 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 shrieked And wrung it.  `Doubt my word again!` he said. `Come, listen! here is proof that you were missed: We seven stayed at Christmas up to read; And there we took one tutor as to read: The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square Were out of season:  never man, I think, So mouldered in a sinecure as he: For while our cloisters echoed 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—played Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, And ~what`s my thought~ and ~when~ and ~where~ and ~how~, As here at Christmas.`                      She remembered 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 wondered, by themselves?                            A half-disdain Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips: And Walter nodded at me; `~He~ began, The rest would follow, each in turn; and so We forged a sevenfold story.  Kind? what kind? Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, Seven-headed monsters only made to kill Time by the fire in winter.`                            `Kill him now, 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 warped his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed And Lilia woke with sudden-thrilling mirth An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt (A little sense of wrong had touched her face With colour) turned to me with `As you will; Heroic if you will, or what you will, Or be yourself you hero if you will.` `Take Lilia, then, for heroine` clamoured he, `And make her some great Princess, six feet high, Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you The Prince to win her!`                       `Then follow me, the Prince,` I answered, `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 followed:  and the women sang Between the rougher voices of the men, Like linnets in the pauses of the wind: And here I give the story and the songs.
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