Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not

what

Of insolence and love, some pretext held

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will

Seal'd not the bond-the striplings !—for their

sport!

I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these? Or you? or I? for since you think me touch'd In honour-what, I would not aught of falseIs not our cause pure? and whereas I know Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood You draw from, fight; you failing, I abide

:

What end soever fail you will not. Still
Take not his life: he risk'd it for my own ;
His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do,
Fight and fight well; strike and strike home.

dear

Ο

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you
The sole men to be mingled with our cause,
The sole men we shall prize in the after-time,
Your very armour hallow'd, and your statues
Rear'd, sung to, when, this gad-fly brush'd aside,

We plant a solid foot into the Time,

And mould a generation strong to move

With claim on claim from right to right, till she

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself;

And Knowledge in our own land make her free, And, ever following those two crowned twins, Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs

Between the Northern and the Southern morn."

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. "See that there be no traitors in your camp: We seem a nest of traitors-none to trust Since our arms fail'd-this Egypt-plague of men! Almost our maids were better at their homes, Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think Our chiefest comfort is the little child

Of one unworthy mother; which she left:

She shall not have it back: the child shall grow

To prize the authentic mother of her mind.

I took it for an hour in mine own bed

This morning there the tender orphan hands

Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from

thence

The wrath I nursed against the world: farewell."

I ceased; he said, "Stubborn, but she may sit Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms, And breed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs That swallow common sense, the spindling king, This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance.

When the man wants weight, the woman takes

it up,

And topples down the scales; but this is fixt
As are the roots of earth and base of all;

Man for the field and woman for the hearth:

Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;

All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell
Mix with his hearth: but you-she's yet a colt-

Take, break her: strongly groom'd and straitly

curb'd

She might not rank with those detestable

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance :
I like her none the less for rating at her!
Besides, the woman wed is not as we,

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,
The bearing and the training of a child
Is woman's wisdom."

Thus the hard old king:

I took my leave, for it was nearly noon :
I pored upon her letter which I held,
And on the little clause "take not his life :"
I mused on that wild morning in the woods,
And on the "Follow, follow, thou shalt win:"
I thought on all the wrathful king had said,
And how the strange betrothment was to end :
Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse
That one should fight with shadows and should

fall;

And like a flash the weird affection came :

King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows;

I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts,
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts,

To dream myself the shadow of a dream:
And ere I woke it was the point of noon,
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more
The trumpet, and again: at which the storm
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears
And riders front to front, until they closed

In conflict with the crash of shivering points,
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I dream'd
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed,
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance,

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire.

Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept their

seats:

Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and

drew :