at--

"_Light_
As flies the _shadow_ of a bird she fled."

Events move on. The prince reasons as a man in a colloquy with the
princess, and speaks of the delights of maternal affections, and she
replies--

"We are not talk'd to thus:
Yet will we say for children, would they grew
Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well:
But children die; and let me tell you, girl,
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die:
They with the sun and moon renew their light
Forever, blessing those that look on them:
Children--that men may pluck them from our hearts,
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves--
O--children--there is nothing upon earth
More miserable than she that has a son
And sees him err:"

A song on "The days that are no more," seems to us to be too laboured,
nor is the other lyric introduced, "The Swallow," much more to our
satisfaction. It is a mixture of prettinesses: the first four triplets
run thus, ending in a poetic beauty--

"O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee.

"O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And _dark_ and true and tender is the North.

"O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And _cheep and twitter twenty million loves_.

"O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me on her bosom, _and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died_."

The prince saves the princess from being drowned, when the secret
explodes like a roll of gun cotton, and a grand turmoil ensues. The
rival kings approach to confines in battle array, and the princess
resumes the declaration of war:--

"A tide of fierce
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips,
As waits a river level with the dam
Ready to burst and flood the world with foam:
And so she would have spoken, but there rose
A hubbub in the court of half the maids
Gather'd together; from the illumin'd hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, same pale,