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 : Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear, ay, ay, ay, you talk!". "Alas!" she said, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, 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 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 : Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: Boring a little auger-hole in fear, 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, 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, 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; "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, "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. |