Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ;—— Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; Iron jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; GODIVA. I waited for the train at Coventry; 'I hung with grooms and porters on the To watch the three tall spires; and there 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 Did more, and underwent, and overcame, Their children, clamouring, 'If we pay, 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, He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; 'But prove me what it is I would not do.' 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, No eye look down, she passing; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath She linger'd, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And shower'd 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 reach'd The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archway in the wall. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, O LADY FLORA, let me speak: I went thro' many wayward moods Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. I. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains, |