And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve.' Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, “You would not let your little finger ache For such as these?"-" But I would die," He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul : Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"—" Alas!" she said, "But prove me what it is I would not do." And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town, And I repeal it ;" and nodding, as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all The hard condition; but that she would loose The people therefore, as they loved her well, From then till noon no foot should pace the street, No eye look down, she passing; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath She linger'd, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall.
Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,
One after one but even then she gain'd
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, To meet her lord, she took the tax away, And built herself an everlasting name.
A STILL Small voice spake unto me,
Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be ? "
Then to the still small voice I said;
"Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made."
To which the voice did urge reply ; "To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
"An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
“He dried his wings: like gauze they grew : Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew."
I said, "When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man.
"She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast."
Thereto the silent voice replied; "Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.
"This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe
Is boundless better, boundless worse.
"Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres ? "
It spake, moreover, in my mind:
Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind,
Yet is there plenty of the kind."
Then did my response clearer fall : "No compound of this earthly ball
Is like another, all in all."
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