What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: 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, 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, She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 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 '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 Till notice of a change in the dark world Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird '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, |