GODIVA. I WAITED for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, Not only we, the latest seed of Time, Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 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, "You would not let your little finger ache For such as these?"—" But I would die," said she. 66 “O ay, ay, ay, you talk !"—"Alas!" she said, 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 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 archway 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 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 DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O LADY FLORA, let me speak : As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. |