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? 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,

P

Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tower

Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat;

The shimmering glimpses of a stream; the seas;

A red sail, or a white; and far beyond, Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France.

'Look there, a garden!' said my college friend,

The Tory member's elder son, and there!

God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,

And keeps our Britain, whole within herself,

A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,

Some patient force to change them when we will,

Some civic manhood firm against the crowd

But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,

The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, The king is scared, the soldier will not

fight,

The little boys begin to shoot and stab,
A kingdom topples over with a shriek
Like an old woman, and down rolls the
world

In mock heroics stranger than our own;
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most
No graver than a schoolboys' barring out;
Too comic for the solemn things they are,
Too solemn for the comic touches in
them,

Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream

As some of theirs - God bless the narrow seas!

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.'

'Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full

Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams

Are but the needful preludes of the truth: For me, the genial day, the happy crowd,

The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. This fine old world of ours is but a child Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time

To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides.'

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails,

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood.

Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, Among six boys, head under head, and look'd

No little lily-handed Baronet he,
A great broad-shoulder'd genial English-

man,

A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none;
Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn;
Now shaking hands with him, now him,
of those

That stood the nearest- -now address'd to speech

Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed

Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the

year

To follow: a shout rose again, and made The long line of the approaching rookery

swerve

From the elms, and shook the branches

of the deer

From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang

Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout More joyful than the city-roar that hails Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs

Give up their parks some dozen times a year

To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried,

I likewise, and in groups they stream'd

away.

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on,

So much the gathering darkness charm'd:

we sat

But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls

Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd,

And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up

Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens.

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph

From those rich silks, and home wellpleased we went.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

PUBLISHED IN 1852.

I.

BURY the Great Duke

With an empire's lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke

To the noise of the mourning of a

mighty nation,
Mourning when their leaders fall,
Warriors carry the warrior's pall,
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.

II.

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?

Here, in streaming London's central

roar.

Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore.

III.

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,

Let the long long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it
grow,

And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low.

IV.

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the Past.

No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute: Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,

The statesman-warrior, moderate, reso

lute,

Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.

O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew,

O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall'n at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds
that blew!

Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be

seen no more.

V.

All is over and done:
Render thanks to the Giver,
England, for thy son.
Let the bell be toll'd.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Under the cross of gold
That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold.
Let the bell be toll'd:

And a reverent people behold
The towering car, the sable steeds:
Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds,
Dark in its funeral fold.

Let the bell be toll'd:

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd;

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd

Thro' the dome of the golden cross;
And the volleying cannon thunder his
loss;

He knew their voices of old.
For many a time in many a clime
His captain's-ear has heard them boom
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom:
When he with those deep voices wrought,
Guarding realms and kings from shame;
With those deep voices our dead captain
taught

The tyrant, and asserts his claim
In that dread sound to the great name,
Which he has worn so pure of blame,
In praise and in dispraise the same,
A man of well-temper'd frame.
O civic muse, to such a name,
To such a name for ages long,
To such a name,

Preserve a broad approach of fame,
And ever-echoing avenues of song.

VI.

Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd guest,

With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest,

With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest?

Mighty Seaman, this is he

Was great by land as thou by sea.

Thine island loves thee well, thou famous

man,

The greatest sailor since our world began.
Now, to the roll of muffled drums,
To thee the greatest soldier comes;
For this is he

Was great by land as thou by sea;
His foes were thine; he kept us free.
O give him welcome, this is he
Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
And worthy to be laid by thee;
For this is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clash'd with his fiery few and won;
And underneath another sun,
Warring on a later day,