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The Princess prologue

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's

Gave his broad lawns until the set of

Up to the people:  thither flocked at

His tenants, wife and child, and thither

The neighbouring borough with their

Of which he was the patron.  I was

From college, visiting the son,—the sonA 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

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,

Grew side by side; and on the pavement

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,

Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;

And on the tables every clime and

Jumbled together; celts and calumets,

Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava,

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,

The cursed Malayan crease, and

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

With all about him'—which he brought, and

Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and

Who laid about them at their wills and died;

And mixt with these, a lady, one that

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

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

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

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,

With happy faces and with holiday.

There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:

The patient leaders of their

Taught them with facts.  One reared a font of

And drew, from butts of water on the slope,

The fountain of the moment, playing, nowA twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,

Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded

Danced like a wisp:  and somewhat lower downA man with knobs and wires and vials firedA cannon:  Echo answered in her

From hollow fields:  and here were

For azure views; and there a group of

In circle waited, whom the electric

Dislinked with shrieks and laughter:  round the lakeA little clock-work steamer paddling

And shook the lilies:  perched about the knollsA dozen angry models jetted steam:

A petty railway ran:  a

Rose gem-like up before the dusky

And dropt a fairy parachute and past:

And there through twenty posts of

They flashed a saucy message to and

Between the mimic stations; so that

Went hand in hand with Science;

Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour

And stumped the wicket; babies rolled

Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and

Arranged a country dance, and flew through

And shadow, while the twangling

Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty

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

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

The park, the crowd, the house; but all

The sward was trim as any garden lawn:

And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,

And Lilia with the rest, and lady

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 woundA scarf of orange round the stony helm,

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk,

That made the old warrior from his ivied

Glow like a sunbeam:  near his tomb a

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,

And there we joined them:  then the maiden

Took this fair day for text, and from it

An universal culture for the crowd,

And all things great; but we, unworthier,

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

Discussed his tutor, rough to common men,

But honeying at the whisper of a lord;

And one the Master, as a rogue in

Veneered with sanctimonious theory.

But while they talked, above their heads I

The feudal warrior lady-clad; which

My book to mind:  and opening this I

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that

With tilt and tourney; then the tale of

That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls,

And much I praised her nobleness, and 'Where,'Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head (she

Beside him) 'lives there such a woman now?'Quick answered Lilia 'There are thousands

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

Some might poetess,

I would shame you then,

That love to keep us children!  O I

That I were some great princess,

I would

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

The hand that played the patron with her curls.

And one said smiling 'Pretty were the

If our old halls could change their sex, and

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

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

She tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot:'That's your light way; but I would make it

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

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

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

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

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

In wassail; often, like as many girls—Sick for the hollies and the yews of home—As many little trifling

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

Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest.

But these—what kind of tales did men tell men,

She wondered, by themselves?                            A

Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips:

And Walter nodded at me; '~He~ began,

The rest would follow, each in turn; and

We forged a sevenfold story.  Kind? what kind?

Chimeras, crotchets,

Christmas solecisms,

Seven-headed monsters only made to

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

To something so mock-solemn, that I

And Lilia woke with sudden-thrilling

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker,

Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt(A little sense of wrong had touched her

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

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

For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all—This ~were~ a medley! we should have him

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

To give us breathing-space.'                            So I began,

And the rest followed:  and the women

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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Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was a British poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victo…

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