If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,

How shall men grow? but work no more alone! 250

Our place is much : as far as in us lies

We two will serve them both in aiding her—
Will clear away the parasitic forms

That seem to keep her up but drag her down—

Will leave her space to burgeon out of all
Within her let 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,

255

But diverse: could we make her as a man,

200

Sweet Love were slain his dearest bond is this,

Not like to like, 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,

265

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

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind
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,

251. Our, of men.

253. parasitic forms, conventions that tend to degrade woman. 255. burgeon, to blossom out.

260. diverse, cf. V. 152-3.

266. The practical side of man's nature.

272. full-summed, fully developed.

271-9. So, in the distant future, man and woman each properly developed, shall lay the foundation for higher and more perfect development, each recognizing the individual sphere of each, but knowing that each attains to the greatest usefulness only when joined with the other. Then shall come again the Golden Age." Cf. IV. 56.

Self-reverent each and reverencing each,

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other ev'n as those who love.

275

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men :

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : Then springs the crowning race of humankind.

May these things be!"

They will not."

Sighing she spoke: "I fear 280

'Dear, but let us type them now

In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest
Of equal; seeing either sex alone

Is half itself, and in true marriage lies
Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfills

Defect in each, and always thought in thought,
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,
The single pure and perfect animal,

The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke,
Life."

285

And again sighing she spoke: "A dream 290 That once was mine! what woman taught you this ?” "Alone," I said, "from earlier than I know, Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, I loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, Or pines in sad experience worse than death, Or keeps his wing'd affections clipt with crime: Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one Not learned, save in gracious household ways,

295

Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the Gods and men,
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere.
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved,
And girdled her with music. Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind

300

305

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 310 Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall

He shall not blind his soul with clay."

Said Ida, tremulously, "so all unlike

"But I,"

It seems you love to cheat yourself with words:
This mother is your model. I have heard

315

Of your strange doubts: they well might be: I seem A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince;

You cannot love me."

Nay but thee,” I said "From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods

320

That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forced Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now,

302. breathing Paradise. Cf. III. 215, V. 154.

304. native to. Cf. 12, above.

298-312. It is supposed that Tennyson alludes to his own mother.

308. The reference is to the poetical belief in the Music of the Spheres.'

319. thy pictured eyes, cf. I. 37-39

321. the crust of iron moods, the unnatural severity of character and life which the Princess had assumed.

325

330

Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee,
Indeed I love the new day comes, the light
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,
My haunting sense of hollow shows the change,
This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear,
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ;
Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;
In that fine air I tremble, all the past
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels.
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me,
I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,
My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end,

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come,
Yield thyself up my hopes and thine are one:
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me."

335

340

345

331. blind half-world, that hemisphere yet in the darkness of night. 333. In that fine air I tremble, as physically in rarefied air.

334. mist-like, as does. mist.

335. morn to more, only the beginning of what is to come.

336-7. His future seems so blissful that he cannot think calmly of it. 338. signs, metaphors.

340. end, aim.

CONCLUSION.

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose :

The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
"I wish she had not yielded!" then to me,

What, if you drest it up poetically!"

So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we banter'd little Lilia first :

The women and perhaps they felt their power,

For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close-

15

They hated banter, wish'd for something real,
A gallant fight, a noble princess-why

Not make her true-heroic, true-sublime ?
Or all, they said, as earnest as the close?

20

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be.
Then rose a little feud betwixt the two,
Betwixt the mockers and the realists:

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both,
And yet to give the story as it rose,

25

11. the sort, cf. Prologue 217-19.