I could no more, but lay like one in trance, That hears his burial talked of by his friends, And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, But lies and dreads his doom. She turned; she paused;She stooped; and out of languor leapt a cry;Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death;And I believed that in the living world My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips;Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose Glowing all over noble shame; and all Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, And left her woman, lovelier in her mood Than in her mould that other, when she came From barren deeps to conquer all with love;And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, Naked, a double light in air and wave, To meet her Graces, where they decked her out For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Filled through and through with Love, a happy sleep.
Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held A volume of the Poets of her land:
There to herself, all in low tones, she read.
'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: wake thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Dana?to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now lies the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me.'
I heard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:
'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
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 IThy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;Myriads of rivulets hurrying through 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 looked. Pale was the perfect face;The bosom with long sighs laboured; and meek Seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, And the voice trembled and the hand. She said Brokenly, that she knew it, she had failed In sweet humility; had failed 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 scorned to help their equal rights Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws.
She prayed me not to judge their cause from her That wronged 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--'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 through 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, dwarfed 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? but work no more alone!
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, But diverse: could we make her as the man, 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, 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-summed in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other even as those who love.
