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 bade 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.

TID

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 augur-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.

Spottiswoode & Co., Printers. London.