Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read My sickness down to happy dreams? are you You were that Psyche, but what are you now?" A woman, if I might sit beside your feet, Then once more, "Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, And help them look! for such are these and I." "Are you that Psyche," Florian asked, " to whom, In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn Came flying while you sat beside the well? And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood O by the bright head of my little niece, You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" "You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, "The mother of the sweetest little maid That ever crowed for kisses." "Out upon it!" She answered, "peace! and why should I not play The Spartan Mother with emotion, be The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? Him you call great he for the common weal, The fading politics of mortal Rome, As I might slay this child, if good need were, Of half this world, be swerved from right to save O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet You perish) as you came to slip away, To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said, These women were too barbarous, would not learn; They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.” What could we else, we promised each; and she, Like some wild creature, newly-caged, commenced A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused By Florian; holding out her lily arms, Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said: With that she kissed His forehead, then, a moment after, clung Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown So stood that same fair creature at the door. I trust you," said the other, "for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother's jealous temperament Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, c. prove The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose My honor, these their lives." Ah, fear me not," Replied Melissa, "no - I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things "Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead Among us, debtors for our lives to you, Myself for something more." He said not what, They do so that affect abstraction here. We turned to go, but Cyril took the child, And then we strolled |