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What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,

Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,

That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild

Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,

That like a broken purpose waste in air:

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth

Arise to thee; the children call, and I

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.'

So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face; The bosom with long sighs labour'd; and meek Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, And the voice trembled and the hand. She said Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd

In sweet humility; had fail'd in all;

That all her labour was but as a block

Left in the quarry; but she still were loth,

She still were loth to yield herself to one,
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws.

She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power
In knowledge: something wild within her breast,
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down.

And she had nursed me there from week to week:

Much had she learnt in little time.

In part

It was ill counsel had misled the girl
To vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl

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'Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! When comes another such? never, I think,

Till the Sun drop dead from the signs.'

Her voice

Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands,

And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break;

Till notice of a change in the dark world

Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird
That early woke to feed her little ones
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light :)
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell.

'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blame Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws; These were the rough ways of the world till now. Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free:

For she that out of Lethe scales with man

The shining steps of Nature, shares with man

His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,

Stays all the fair young planet in her hands

If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,

How shall men grow? We two will serve them both

In aiding her, strip off, as in us lies,

(Our place is much) the parasitic forms

That seem to keep her up, but drag her down

Will leave her field to burgeon and to bloom

From all within her, make herself her own

To give or keep, to live and learn and be

All that not harms distinctive womanhood.

For woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse could we make her as the man,

Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this

Not like to thee, but like in difference:

Yet in the long years liker must they grow;

The man be more of woman, she of man;

He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care:

More as the double-natured Poet each:

Till at the last she set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,

Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,

Self-reverent each and reverencing each,

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