The Prince to win her!”
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Then follow me, the Prince,” 220I answer’d, “ 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, 220A 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 back 280_ Who 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, 235 And the rest follow’d : 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. 222. Shadows in a dream, following each other without the slightestnecessary connection. 223.-228. Almost a complete prophecy of the poem.
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