O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree 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. GODIVA. I waited for the train at Coventry ; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this :· Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she Did more, and underwent, and overcame, The woman of a thousand summers back, 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 About the hall, among his dogs, alone, 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. "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"-" Alas!" she said, And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all The hard condition; but that she would loose The people therefore, as they loved her well, : From then till noon no foot should pace the street, Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity : Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls 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 Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, One after one but even then she gain'd Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, |