The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax

Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamoring, "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.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;

"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 answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it;" and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade 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,
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 fleld
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways 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,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
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,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

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."

I said, "When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man.

"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 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 Could find no statelier than his peers

In yonder hundred million spheres ?"

It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind."

Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all."

To which he answer'd scoffingly: "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who 'll weep for thy deficiency? "Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference

Is cancell'd in the world of sense ?"

I would have said, "Thou canst not know,"

But my full heart, that work'd below,
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely, 't were 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: 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
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;

"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought

Still moving after truth long sought,
Will learn new things when I am not."

"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, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

I said that "all the years invent. Each month is various to present The world with some development.

"Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd 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 Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main?

"Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town?

"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.

"Thou hast not gained a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite.

""T were better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek.

"Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind."

I said, "When I am gone away, 'He dared not tarry,' men will say, Doing dishonor to my clay."

"This is more vile," he made reply, "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die.

"Sick art thou-a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill

The fear of men, a coward still.

"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
To men, that how thy name may sound
Will vex thee lying underground?
"The memory of the wither'd leaf
In endless time is scarce more brief
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.
"Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust;
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust,
Hears little of the false or just."

"Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried,
"From emptiness and the waste wide
Of that abyss, or scornful pride!
"Nayrather yet that I could raise
One hope that warm'd me in the days
While still I yearn'd for human praise.

"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.

"Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines

A gleaming crag with belts of pines.

"I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow.

"If straight thy tract, or if oblique,

Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;

"And owning but a little more

Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower

"Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.”

"O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die?

"I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

"I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:

"Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream;

"But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head

"Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.

"He heeded not reviling tones,

Nor sold his heart to idle moans,

Tho' curs'd and scorn'd, and bruised with stones :

"But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face."

The sullen answer slid betwixt:

"Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, The elements were kindlier mix'd."

I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.

"And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new:

"Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
Unmanacled from bonds of sense,
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence:
"For I go, weak from suffering here;
Naked I go, and void of cheer:
What is it that I may not fear?"

"Consider well," the voice replied,
"His face, that two hours since hath died;
Wilt thou find passion, pain, or pride?

"Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands.

"His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing express'd But long disquiet merged in rest.

"His lips are very mild and meek: Tho' one should smite him on the check, And on the mouth, he will not speak.

"His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonor to her race

"His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honor, some to shame,-But he is chill to praise or blame.

"He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave.

"High up the vapors fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him."

"If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.

"The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs?

"I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew.

"From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.

"The simple senses crown'd his head: 'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 'We find no motion in the dead.'

"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease?

"Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense?

"He owns the fatal gift of eyes,
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.

"Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
His heart forebodes a mystery:
He names the name Eternity.

"That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself on every wind.

"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labor working to an end.

"The end and the beginning vex
His reason many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counter-checks.

"He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would.