She could not choose but name her shipwrecked prince,
All blushing.  She told Gladys many things
That are not in the story,—­things, in sooth,
That Prospero her father knew.  But now
’Twas evening, and the sun drooped; purple stripes
In the sea were copied from some clouds that lay
Out in the west.  And lo! the boat, and more,
The freakish thing to take fair Gladys home
She mowed at her, but Gladys took the helm: 
“Peace, peace!” she said; “be good:  you shall not steer,
For I am your liege lady.”  Then she sang
The sweetest songs she knew all the way home.

So Gladys set her feet upon the sand;
While in the sunset glory died away
The peaks of that blest island.

“Fare you well. 
My country, my own kingdom,” then she said,
“Till I go visit you again, farewell.”

She looked toward their house with whom she dwelt,—­
The carriages were coming.  Hastening up,
She was in time to meet them at the door,
And lead the sleepy little ones within;
And some were cross and shivered, and her dames
Were weary and right hard to please; but she
Felt like a beggar suddenly endowed
With a warm cloak to ’fend her from the cold. 
“For, come what will,” she said, “I had to-day. 
There is an island.”

The Moral.

What is the moral?  Let us think awhile,
Taking the editorial WE to help,
It sounds respectable.

The moral; yes. 
We always read, when any fable ends,
“Hence we may learn.”  A moral must be found. 
What do you think of this?  “Hence we may learn
That dolphins swim about the coast of Wales,
And Admiralty maps should now be drawn
By teacher-girls, because their sight is keen,
And they can spy out islands.”  Will that do? 
No, that is far too plain,—­too evident.

Perhaps a general moralizing vein—­
(We know we have a happy knack that way. 
We have observed, moreover, that young men
Are fond of good advice, and so are girls;
Especially of that meandering kind,
Which winding on so sweetly, treats of all
They ought to be and do and think and wear,
As one may say, from creeds to comforters. 
Indeed, we much prefer that sort ourselves,
So soothing).  Good, a moralizing vein;
That is the thing; but how to manage it?
“Hence we may learn,” if we be so inclined,
That life goes best with those who take it best;
That wit can spin from work a golden robe
To queen it in; that who can paint at will
A private picture gallery, should not cry
For shillings that will let him in to look
At some by others painted.  Furthermore,
Hence we may learn, you poets,—­(and we count
For poets all who ever felt that such
They were, and all who secretly have known
That such they could be; ay, moreover, all
Who wind the robes of ideality
About the bareness of their lives, and hang