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 warp'd his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt (A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face With colour) turn'd to me with 'As you will; Heroic if you will, or what you will, Or be yourself your hero if you will.' 'Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clamour'd 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,' 6 I answer'd, 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, To give us breathing-space.' So I began, And the rest follow'd: and the women sang Between the rougher voices of the men, I. A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, There lived an ancient legend in our house. Dying, that none of all our blood should know And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, An old and strange affection of the house. Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what : On a sudden in the midst of men and day, And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, To lash offence, and with long arms and hands Now it chanced that I had been, While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd To one, a neighbouring Princess: she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old; and still from time to time |