So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turned to hospital;At first with all confusion: by and by Sweet order lived again with other laws:
A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere Low voices with the ministering hand Hung round the sick: the maidens came, they talked, They sang, they read: till she not fair began To gather light, and she that was, became Her former beauty treble; and to and fro With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, Like creatures native unto gracious act, And in their own clear element, they moved.
But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame.
Old studies failed; seldom she spoke: but oft Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men Darkening her female field: void was her use, And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there;So blackened all her world in secret, blank And waste it seemed and vain; till down she came, And found fair peace once more among the sick.
And twilight dawned; and morn by morn the lark Shot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but ILay silent in the muffled cage of life:
And twilight gloomed; and broader-grown the bowers Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, Star after Star, arose and fell; but I, Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay Quite sundered from the moving Universe, Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep.
But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft, Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left Her child among us, willing she should keep Court-favour: here and there the small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or through the parted silks the tender face Peeped, shining in upon the wounded man With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw The sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities Joined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hears So gentle, so employed, should close in love, Than when two dewdrops on the petals shake To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, And slip at once all-fragrant into one.
Less prosperously the second suit obtained At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn That after that dark night among the fields She needs must wed him for her own good name;Not though he built upon the babe restored;Nor though she liked him, yielded she, but feared To incense the Head once more; till on a day When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung A moment, and she heard, at which her face A little flushed, and she past on; but each Assumed from thence a half-consent involved In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace.
Nor only these: Love in the sacred halls Held carnival at will, and flying struck With showers of random sweet on maid and man.
Nor did her father cease to press my claim, Nor did mine own, now reconciled; nor yet Did those twin-brothers, risen again and whole;Nor Arac, satiate with his victory.
But I lay still, and with me oft she sat:
Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 'You are not Ida;' clasp it once again, And call her Ida, though I knew her not, And call her sweet, as if in irony, And call her hard and cold which seemed a truth:
And still she feared that I should lose my mind, And often she believed that I should die:
Till out of long frustration of her care, And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks Throbbed thunder through the palace floors, or called On flying Time from all their silver tongues--And out of memories of her kindlier days, And sidelong glances at my father's grief, And at the happy lovers heart in heart--And out of hauntings of my spoken love, And lonely listenings to my muttered dream, And often feeling of the helpless hands, And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek--From all a closer interest flourished up, Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gathered colour day by day.
Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death For weakness: it was evening: silent light Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought Two grand designs; for on one side arose The women up in wild revolt, and stormed At the Oppian Law. Titanic shapes, they crammed The forum, and half-crushed among the rest A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused Hortensia pleading: angry was her face.
I saw the forms: I knew not where I was:
They did but look like hollow shows; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder seemed: I moved: I sighed: a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand:
Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine down my face, and with what life I had, And like a flower that cannot all unfold, So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her Fixt my faint eyes, and uttered whisperingly:
'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself:
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die tonight.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'
