To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped Not only we, the latest seed of Time, Upon his town, and all the mothers brought His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!" "Alas!" she said, "But prove me what it is I would not do.” And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answered, "Ride you naked through the town, Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath She lingered, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee, Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reached The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazoned with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity. Peeped-but his eyes, before they had their will, And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once, noon Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers, Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crowned THE TWO VOICES A STILL Small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said: "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice did urge reply: "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. "An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: I said, "When first the world began, "She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied: "Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up through 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 " It spake, moreover, in my mind: Then did my response clearer fall: To which he answered scoffingly: "Or will one beam be less intense, Is cancelled in the world of sense ? I would have said, "Thou canst not know," But my full heart, that worked below, Rained through my sight its overflow. Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steeped in misery, Surely 'twere better not to be. "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: "Some turn this sickness yet might take, Even yet." But he: "What drug can make A withered palsy cease to shake ?" I wept, "Though I should die, I know "And men, through novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.” 66 "Yet," said the secret voice, some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime. "Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. "Not less the bee would range her cells, I said that "all the years invent; "Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Though watching from a ruined tower How grows the day of human power?” "The highest-mounted mind," he said, "Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead. "Will thirty seasons render plain "Or make that morn, from his cold crown |