Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve!" She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, 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," said she. He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul: The hard condition; but that she would loose Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait 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, THE TWO VOICES. 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; 66 Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice did urge reply; 66 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, 66 She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied; Look up thro' night the world is wide. |