Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light

Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and called

Across the tumult, and the tumult fell:

"What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head? On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: I dare All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? Peace! there are those to avenge us, and they

come:

If not, myself were like enough, oh girls,
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights,
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war,
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause,
Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear;
Six thousand years of fear have made ye that
From which I would redeem ye: but for those
That stir this hubbub-you and you I know
Your faces there in the crowd--to-morrow morn
We hold a great convention: then shall they
That love their voices more than duty, learn
With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff,
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown,
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time,
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels,
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum,
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour,
Forever slaves at home and fools abroad!"

She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that looked A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff

When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said:

"You have done well and like a gentleman,
And like a prince: you have our thanks for all:
And you look well too in your woman's dress:
Well have you done, and like a gentleman.

You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks:
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood-
Then men had said-but now-What hinders me
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ?--
Yet since our father-Wasps in our good hive,
You would-be quenchers of the light to be,
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears—
O would I had his sceptre for one hour!

You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled
Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us
I wed with thee! I bound by precontract
Your bride, your bondslave! not though all the
gold

That veins the world were packed to make your

crown,

And every spoken tongue should lord you! Sir,
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:
I trample on your offers and on you:

Begone! we will not look upon you more.
Here, push them out at gates!'

In wrath she spake.
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough
Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause,
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands,
The weight of destiny: so from her face

They pushed us, down the steps, and through the court,

And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.

We crossed the street, and gained a petty mound Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard The voices murmuring. While I listened came On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: I seemed to move among a world of ghosts;

The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard,
The jest and earnest working side by side,
The cataract, and the tumult, and the kings
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night
With all its doings had and had not been,
And all things were and were not.

This went by As strangely as it came, and on my spirits Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy; Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one To whom the touch of all mischance but came As night to him that sitting on a hill Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun, Set into sunrise: then we moved away.

Thy voice is heard through rolling drums
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,

And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possessed,
She struck such warbling fury through the words
And, after, feigning pique at what she called
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime-
Like one that wishes at a dance to change
The music-clapt her hands and cried for war,
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end :
And he that next inherited the tale,

Half turning to the broken statue, said,
"Sir Ralph has got your colors: if I prove
Your knight and fight your battle, what for me?"
It chanced her empty glove upon the tomb
Lay by her like a model of her hand.

She took it and she flung it. Fight," she said,

"And make us all we would be, great and good."
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque,
A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall,
Arranged the favor and assumed the Prince.

V.

Now scarce three paces measured from the mound
We stumbled on a stationary voice,
And "Stand, who goes?

ace," I.

"Two from the pal

"The second two: they wait," he said, "pass on;
His Highness wakes:" and one, that clashed in arms
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas, led
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard

The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake
From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent
Whispers of war.

Entering, the sudden light
Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seemed to hear,
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies,
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear; and then
A strangled titter, out of which there brake
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death,
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old kings
Began to wag their baldness up and down,

The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth;

The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, And slain with laughter rolled the gilded Squire.

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, Panted from weary sides, "King, you are free! We did but keep you surety for our son,

If this be he,--or a draggled mawkin, thou,
That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge:"
For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers,
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel:
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm
A whispered jest to some one near him, "Look,
He has been among his shadows." "Satan take
The old women and their shadows! (thus the king
Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men.
Go: Cyril told us all."

As boys that slink
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye,
Away we stole, and transient in a trice
From what was left of faded woman-slough
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale
Of harness, issued in the sun that now
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth,
And hit the northern hills. Here Cyril met us,
A little shy at first, but by and by

We twain, with mutual pardon asked and given
For stroke and song, resoldered peace, whereon
Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away
Through the dark land, and later in the night
Had come on Psyche weeping: "then we fell
Into your father's hand, and there she lies,
But will not speak, nor stir."

He showed a tent

A stone-shot off: we entered in, and there
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements,
Pitiful sight, wrapt in a soldier's cloak,

Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot,

And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal,
All her fair length upon the ground she lay:
And at her head a follower of the camp,
A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood,
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead.