The prince and his companions are defeated; and he, wounded almost to
the death, is consigned at her own request to be nursed by the
princess:--

"So was their sanctuary violated,
So their fair college turn'd to hospital;
At first with all confusion; by and by
Sweet order lived again with other laws;
A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere
Low voices with the ministering hand
Hung round the sick."

The result may be foreseen--

"From all a closer interest flourish'd 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 gather'd colour day by day."

And the agreement is filled up:--

"Dear, but let us type them now
In our lives, and this proud watchword rest
Of equal; seeing either sex alone
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies
Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils
Defect in each, and always thought in thought,
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,
The single pure and perfect animal,
The two-cell'd heart beating with one full stroke
Life"

"O we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end,
And so through those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee; come,
Yield thyself up; my hopes and thine are one;
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me."

Who will question the true poetry of this production, or who will deny
the imperfections, (mostly of affectation, though some of tastelessness)
which obscure it? Who will wonder at our confessed wavering when they
have read this course of alternate power, occasionally extravagant, and
feebleness as in the long account of the _emeute_? Of the extravagant,
the description of the princess, on receiving the declaration of war, is
an example:--

"She read, till over brow
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom
As of some fire against a stormy cloud,
When the wild peasant rights himself, and the rick
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens."

The heroine, it must be acknowledged, is much of the virago throughout,
and the prince rather of the softest; but the tale could not be
otherwise told. We add four examples--two to be admired, and two to be
con