And what she did to Cyrus after fight,

But now fast barr'd: so here upon the flat

All that long morn the lists were hammer'd up,

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 :

'You have known, O brother, all the pangs we felt,

What heats of moral anger 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

That it was little better in better 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 we built a fold for them:
We stored it full of rich memorial:

We fenced it round with gallant institutes,

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey,
And prosper'd; till a set of saucy boys

Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace,

Mask'd like our maids, blustering we know not what Of insolence and love, some pretext held

Of old affiance, invalid, since our will

Seal'd not the bond-the striplings!-for their sport!—
We have tamed our leopards: shall we not tame these?
Or you? or we? for since you think we are touch'd
In honour

nay, we would not aught of false

Is not our cause pure? and whereas we know.
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood

You draw from, fight; we abide what end soe'er,

You failing but we know you will not. Still

You must not slay him: he risk'd his life for ours,
His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do,

Fight and fight well; strike, and strike home. O dear
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 armour 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
The woman-phantom, she that seem'd no more
Than the man's shadow in a glass, her name
Yoked in his mouth with children's, know herself,
And knowledge liberate her, nor only here,

But 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 morn.'

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. 'See that there be no traitors in your camp:

We seem a nest of traitors

Since our arms fail'd

none to trust

this Egypt-plague of men!

Almost our maids were better at their homes,

Than thus man-girdled here: indeed we 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.

We took it for an hour this morning to us,

In our own bed: the tender orphan hands

Felt at our heart, and seem'd to charm from thence The wrath we nursed against the world farewell.'

I ceased; he said: 'Stubborn, but she may sit Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms And breed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself

7

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 to it: the gray mare

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman
Shrinks in his arm-chair, while the fires of Hell
Mix with his hearth: but take and break her, you!
She's yet a colt. Well groom'd and strongly curb'd,
She might not rank with those detestable

That to the hireling leave their babe, and brawl
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance: