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. A noble dream! what was it else I saw ?
Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept their seats: Part roll❜d on the earth and rose again and drew : Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail,
The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists,
And all the plain,—brand, mace, and shaft, and shield— Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd
With hammers; till I thought, can this be he From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so, The mother makes us most-and in my dream I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes, And highest, among the statues, statuelike, Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, A single band of gold about her hair, Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she No saint-inexorable-no tenderness- Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight, Yea, let her see me fall! with that I drave Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream All that I would. But that large-moulded man, His visage all agrin as at a wake,
Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came As comes a pillar of electric cloud,
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains,
And shadowing down the champain till it strikes
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything Gave way before him: only Florian, he That loved me closer than his own right eye, Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough, rong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms;
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote And threw him: last I spurr'd; I felt my veins Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand, And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced; I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell. Home they brought her warrior dead :
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die." Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee- Like summer tempest came her tears- "Sweet my child, I live for thee."
My dream had never died or lived again. As in some mystic middle state I lay; Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all So often that I speak as having seen.
For so it seem'd, or so they said to me, That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; That when our side was vanquish'd and my cause For ever lost, there went up a great cry,
The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque And grovell'd on my body, and after him Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaïa.
But high upon the palace Ida stood
With Psyche's babe in arm: there on the roofs Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang.
"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed, The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun.
"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came; The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard A noise of songs they would not understand: They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall,
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves.
"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, The woodmen with their axes: lo the tree! But we will make it faggots for the hearth, And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, And boats and bridges for the use of men.
"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck ; With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew There dwelt an iron nature in the grain :
The glittering axe was broken in their arms, Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade.
Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and roll'd With music in the growing breeze of Time, The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs Shall move the stony bases of the world.
"And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary Is violate, our laws broken: fear we not To break them more in their behoof, whose arms Champion'd our cause and won it with a day Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast, When dames and heroines of the golden year Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, To rain an April of ovation round
Their statues, borne aloft, the three: but come, We will be liberal, since our rights are won. Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, Ill nurses; but descend, and proffer these The brethren of our blood and cause, that there Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries Of female hands and hospitality."
She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led
A hundred maids in train across the Park.
Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came, Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went The enamour'd air sighing, and on their curls From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, And over them the tremulous isles of light Slided, they moving under shade: but Blanche At distance follow'd: so they came: anon Thro' open field into the lists they wound Timorously; and as the leader of the herd That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, The lovely, lordly creature floated on
To where her wounded brethren lay; there stay'd; Knelt on one knee,-the child on one,-and prest Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers, And happy warriors, and immortal names,
And said "You shall not lie in the tents but here, And nursed by those for whom you fought, and served With female hands and hospitality."
Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance, She past my way. Up started from my side The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: "He saved my life: my brother slew him for it." No more at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, And held them up: she saw them, and a day Rose from the distance on her memory,
When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche:
And then once more she look'd at my pale face : Till understanding all the foolish work
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, Her iron will was broken in her mind; Her noble heart was molten in her breast;
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