Twice as magnetic to sweet influences Of earth and heaven? and she of whom you speak,

My mother, looks as whole as some serene Creation minted in the golden moods

Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch, But pure as lines of green that streak the white

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say,
Not like the piebald miscellany, man,
Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual
mire,

But whole and one: and take them all-in-all,
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind,
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs
As dues of Nature. To our point: not war:
Lest I lose all."

"Nay, nay, you spake but sense," Said Gama. "We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. You talk almost like Ida: she can talk; And there is something in it as you say: But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it. He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, I would he had our daughter: for the rest, Our own detention, why the causes weigh'd, Fatherly fears -you used us courteouslyWe would do much to gratify your PrinceWe pardon it; and for your ingress here Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, You did but come as goblins in the night, Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head,

Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milkingmaid,

Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream: But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice As ours with Ida: something may be doneI know not what-and ours shall see us friends.

You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, Follow us: who knows? we four build

may

Here he reach'd

White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl'd

An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, Let so much out as gave us leave to go.

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns

Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring

In every bole, a song on every spray

And in the blast and bray of the long horn
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated
The banner anon to meet us lightly pranced
Three captains out; nor ever had I seen
Such thews of men: the midmost and the
highest

Was Arac: all about his motion clung
The shadow of his sister, as the beam
Of the East, that play'd upon them, made
them glance

Like those three stars of the airy Giant's I zone,

That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark;
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue,

And bickers into red and emerald, shone
Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they

She prest and prest it on me - I myself, What know I of these things? but, life and soul !

woke

Desire in me to infuse my tale of love

In the old king's ears, who promised help,

and oozed

All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode ; And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews Gather'd by night and peace, with each light air

that?

I take her for the flower of womankind,
And so I often told her, right or wrong,
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she
loves,

And, right or wrong, I care not this is all,
I stand upon her side: she made me swear
it-

I lagg'd in answer loath to render up My precontract, and loath by brainless war To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; Till one of those two brothers, half aside And fingering at the hair about his lip, To prick us on to combat "Like to like! The woman's garment hid the woman's heart."

A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow! For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, "Decide it here: why not? we are three to three."

Then spake the third, "But three to three? no more?

No more, and in our noble sister's cause?
More, more, for honor: every captain waits
Hungry for honor, angry for his king.
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each
May breathe himself, and quick! by over-
throw

Of these or those, the question settled die."

"Yea," answer'd I, "for this wild wreath of air,

This flake of rainbow flying on the highest
Foam of men's deeds-this honor, if ye will.
It needs must be for honor if at all:
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail,
And if we win, we fail: she would not keep
Her compact.
"Sdeath! but we will send

to her,"

Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair,

And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek They made him wild: not less one glance he caught

Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise
Of arms; and standing like a stately Pine
Set in a cataract on an island-crag,
When storm is on the heights, and right and
left

Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills

roll

And all that morn the heralds to and fro,
With message and defiance, went and came;
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand,
But shaken here and there, and rolling words
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read.

"O brother, you have known the pangs we felt,

What heats of indignation when we heard Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet;

Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a Scourge;

Of living hearts that crack within the fire Where smoulder their dead despots; and of those,

Mothers, that, all prophetic pity, fling Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops

The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart
Made for all noble motion: and I saw
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times
With smoother men: the old leaven leaven'd
all:

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights,
No woman named: therefore I set my face
Against all men, and lived but for mine own,
Far off from men I built a fold for them :

I stored it full of rich memorial:
I fenced it round with gallant institutes,
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey,
And prosper'd; till a rout of saucy boys
Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our
peace,

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what

Of insolence and love, some pretext held
Of baby troth, invalid, since my will
Seal'd not the bond-the striplings! - for
their sport! -

I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these?
Or you? or I? for since you think me touch'd
In honor- what, I would not aught of

false

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you

The sole men to be mingled with our cause,
The sole men we shall prize in the after-time,
Your very armor hallow'd, and your statues
Rear'd, sung to, when this gad-fly brush'd
aside,

We plant a solid foot into the Time,
And mould a generation strong to move
With claim on claim from right to right, till
she

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself;

And Knowledge in our own land make her free,

And, ever following those two crowned twins,

Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs Between the Northern and the Southern

Almost our maids were better at their homes,
Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think
Our chiefest comfort is the little child
Of one unworthy mother; which she left:
She shall not have it back: the child shall
grow

To prize the authentic mother of her mind.
I took it for an hour in mine own bed
This morning: there the tender orphan
hands

Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence

I ceased; he said: "Stubborn, but s may sit

Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms, And breed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself

Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs That swallow common sense, the spindling king,

This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,

And topples down the scales; but this is fixt
As are the roots of earth and base of all ;
Man for the field and woman for the hearth;
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the
heart:

Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion. Look you! the gray

mare

Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street.

They say she 's comely; there's the fairer chance :

I like her none the less for rating at her!
Besides, the woman wed is not as we,
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,
The bearing and the training of a child
Is woman's wisdom."

Thus the hard old king:
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon:
I pored upon her letter which I held,
And on the little clause "take not his life":
I mused on that wild morning in the woods,
And on the "Follow, follow, thou shalt
win":

I thought on all the wrathful king had said, And how the strange betrothment was to end :

Then

I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's

curse

That one should fight with shadows and should fall;

And like a flash the weird affection came : King, camp and college turn'd to hollow

shows;