Those winters of abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but, indeed, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait On you, their centre let me say but this, That many a famous man and woman, town And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing; but in you I found Mine old ideal involved and dazzled down And master'd, while that after-beauty makes I cannot cease to follow you as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health-yours, yours, not mine-but half That it becomes no man to nurse despair,, But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die: Behold your father's letter.' On one knee Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd Unopen'd on the marble: {a tide of fierce Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, As waits a river level with the dam Ready to burst and flood the world with foam: And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, And worse-confounded: high above them stood Not peace, she look'd, the Head: but rising up Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild sea-birds on the light Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and call'd Across the tumult, and the tumult fell: 'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: I dare All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? Peace! there are those to avenge us, and they come : If not, ― myself were like enough, O girls, To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear; That stir this hubbub · you and you I know Your faces there in the crowd-to-morrow morn We meet to elect new tutors; then shall they But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that looked A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said: 'You have done well and like a gentleman, And like a prince: you have our thanks for all : And you look well too in your woman's dress: Well have you done and like a gentleman. You have saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks : Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood Then men had said but now What hinders me To take such bloody vengeance on you both? — Yet since our father Wasps in the wholesome hive, You would-be quenchers of the light to be, |