Prologue
Sir Walter Vivian all a summer’s dayGave his broad lawns until the set of sunUp to the people: thither flocked at noonHis tenants, wife and child, and thither halfThe neighbouring borough with their InstituteOf which he was the patron. I was thereFrom 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 hallFlowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,Grew side by side; and on the pavement layCarved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;And on the tables every clime and ageJumbled together; celts and calumets,Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fansOf sandal, amber, ancient rosaries,Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubsFrom 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 chronicleWith all about him’—which he brought, and IDived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kingsWho laid about them at their wills and died;And mixt with these, a lady, one that armedHer 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-besiegedBy 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 burstOf 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 ElizabethAnd 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, sownWith happy faces and with holiday.There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:The patient leaders of their InstituteTaught them with facts. One reared a font of stoneAnd 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 ballDanced like a wisp: and somewhat lower downA man with knobs and wires and vials firedA cannon: Echo answered in her sleepFrom hollow fields: and here were telescopesFor azure views; and there a group of girlsIn circle waited, whom the electric shockDislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lakeA little clock-work steamer paddling pliedAnd shook the lilies: perched about the knollsA dozen angry models jetted steam:A petty railway ran: a fire-balloonRose gem-like up before the dusky grovesAnd dropt a fairy parachute and past:And there through twenty posts of telegraphThey flashed a saucy message to and froBetween the mimic stations; so that sportWent hand in hand with Science; otherwherePure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowledAnd stumped the wicket; babies rolled aboutLike tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maidsArranged a country dance, and flew through lightAnd shadow, while the twangling violinStruck up with Soldier-laddie, and overheadThe broad ambrosial aisles of lofty limeMade 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 lengthCame to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-claspt,Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire,Through one wide chasm of time and frost they gaveThe park, the crowd, the house; but all withinThe sward was trim as any garden lawn:And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,And Lilia with the rest, and lady friendsFrom 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 nookGlow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feastShone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,And there we joined them: then the maiden AuntTook this fair day for text, and from it preachedAn universal culture for the crowd,And all things great; but we, unworthier, toldOf college: he had climbed across the spikes,And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,And he had breathed the Proctor’s dogs; and oneDiscussed his tutor, rough to common men,But honeying at the whisper of a lord;And one the Master, as a rogue in grainVeneered with sanctimonious theory.But while they talked, above their heads I sawThe feudal warrior lady-clad; which broughtMy book to mind: and opening this I readOf old Sir Ralph a page or two that rangWith tilt and tourney; then the tale of herThat drove her foes with slaughter from her walls,And much I praised her nobleness, and ‘Where,’Asked Walter, patting Lilia’s head (she layBeside him) ‘lives there such a woman now?’
Quick answered Lilia ‘There are thousands nowSuch 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 wereSome might poetess, I would shame you then,That love to keep us children! O I wishThat I were some great princess, I would buildFar 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 asideThe hand that played the patron with her curls.
And one said smiling ‘Pretty were the sightIf our old halls could change their sex, and flauntWith 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 RalphWho 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 swardShe tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot:‘That’s your light way; but I would make it deathFor 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 talkedAt 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 turnsUp 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 shriekedAnd 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 squareWere 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 allIn wassail; often, like as many girls—Sick for the hollies and the yews of home—As many little trifling Lilias—playedCharades 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 moreThan magic music, forfeits, all the rest.But these—what kind of tales did men tell men,She wondered, by themselves?A half-disdainPerched on the pouted blossom of her lips:And Walter nodded at me; ‘He began,The rest would follow, each in turn; and soWe forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind?Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,Seven-headed monsters only made to killTime 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 thisTo something so mock-solemn, that I laughedAnd Lilia woke with sudden-thrilling mirthAn echo like a ghostly woodpecker,Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt(A little sense of wrong had touched her faceWith 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 youThe 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 experimentsFor which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all—This were a medley! we should have him backWho 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 songTo give us breathing-space.’So I began,And the rest followed: and the women sangBetween the rougher voices of the men,Like linnets in the pauses of the wind:And here I give the story and the songs.