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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 cagles 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.

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
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.

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,
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.

"She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast."

Thereto the silent voice replied;
"Self-blinded are you by your pride:
Look up thro' night: the world is wide.

"This truth within thy mind rehearse,

That in a boundless universe

Is boundless better, boundless worse.

"Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers

In yonder hundred million spheres ?"

It spake, moreover, in my mind:
"Tho' thou wert scattered to the wind,
Yet is there plenty of the kind.”

Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all."

To which he answer'd scoffingly;
"Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,

Who'll weep for thy deficiency?

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