There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun; Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books— Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains! Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time— I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon! Not in vain the distance beacons. range. Forward, forward let us Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. (1853) CX GODIVA I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, Not only we, the latest seed of Time, Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, Upon his town, and all the mothers brought Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve ! She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve." Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, "You would not let your little finger ache For such as these?"—" But I would die," said she. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait And she, that knew not, pass'd and all at once, : With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, (1853) CXI THE TWO VOICES A STILL Small voice spake unto me, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said; To which the voice did urge reply ; Come from the wells where he did lie. "An inner impulse rent the veil "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: I said, "When first the world began, 66 She gave him mind, the lordliest Thereto the silent voice replied; Look up thro' night: the world is wide. "This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. "Think you this mould of hopes and fears To which he answer'd scoffingly; "Or will one beam be less intense, Is cancell'd in the world of sense?" I would have said, "Thou canst not know," Again the voice spake unto me: "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." I said, "The years with change advance : If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance. "Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet.' But he: "What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake? I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know |