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: New men, that in the flying of a wheel In Coventry for when he laid a tax : 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. So left alone, the passions of her mind, The hard condition; but that she would loose 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 archways in the wall. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, 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 re-issuing, robed and crown'd 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 Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew." |