“O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not Too harsh to your companion yestermorn; Unwillingly we spake." "No-not to her," I answer'd, "but to one of whom we spake Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say."

"Again?" she cried, "are you ambassadresses From him to me? we give you, being strange, A license: speak, and let the topic die."

I stammer'd that I knew him- could have

wish'd

"Our king expects-was there no precontract? There is no truer-hearted-ah, you seem

All he prefigured, and he could not see
The bird of passage flying south but long'd

To follow surely, if your Highness keep

Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death, Or baser courses, children of despair."

"Poor boy" she said "can he not read—no

books?

Quoit, tennis, ball-no games? nor deals in that

Which men delight in, martial exercise ?
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,

Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been:
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them :
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,
Being other since we learnt our meaning here,
To lift the woman's fall'n divinity

Upon an even pedestal with man."

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile "And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon'd out She kept her state, and left the drunken king To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms."

"Alas your Highness breathes full East," I said, "On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, I prize his truth: and then how vast a work To assail this gray prëeminence of man! You grant me license; might I use it? think; Ere half be done perchance your life may fail;

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan,
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains

May only make that footprint upon sand
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice

Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you, With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss,

Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, Love, children, happiness?"

And she exclaim'd,

"Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild! What! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, Have we not made ourself the sacrifice?

You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus: Yet will we say for children, would they grew Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well : But children die; and let me tell you, girl, Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; They with the sun and moon renew their light For ever, blessing those that look on them. Children-that men may pluck them from our

hearts,

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves—

O-children-there is nothing upon earth

More miserable than she that has a son

And sees him err: nor would we work for fame;
Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great,
Who learns the one POU STO whence after-hands
May move the world, tho' she herself effect

But little wherefore up and act, nor shrink
For fear our solid aim be dissipated

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been,

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race

Of giants living, each, a thousand years,

That we might see our own work out, and watch

The sandy footprint harden into stone."

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself
If that strange Poet-princess with her grand
Imaginations might at all be won.

And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

"No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; We are used to that: for women, up till this Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, Dwarfs of the gynæceum, fail so far

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess
How much their welfare is a passion to us.

If we could give them surer, quicker proof-
Oh if our end were less achievable

By slow approaches, than by single act

Of immolation, any phase of death,

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes,

Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it,

To compass our dear sisters' liberties."

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear;

And up we came to where the river sloped To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, "As these rude bones to us, are we to her That will be." "Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, "Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters?" "How," she cried, "you love

The metaphysics! read and earn our prize,