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At break of day the College Portress came: / She brought us Academic silks, in hue / The lilac, with a silken hood to each, / And zoned with gold; and now when these were on, / And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, / She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know / The Princess Ida waited: out we paced, / I first, and following through the porch that sang / All round with laurel, issued in a court / Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths / Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay / Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. / The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, / Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst; / And here and there on lattice edges lay / Or book or lute; but hastily we past, / And up a flight of stairs into the hall.
There at a board by tome and paper sat, / With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, / All beauty compassed in a female form, / The Princess; liker to the inhabitant / Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, / Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, / And so much grace and power, breathing down / From over her arched brows, with every turn / Lived through her to the tips of her long hands, / And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: