'No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; We are used to that: for women, up till this Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, In high desire, they know not, cannot guess By slow approaches, than by single act Of immolation, any phase of death, We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it, To compass our dear sister's liberties.' She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; And up we came to where the river sloped A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, As these rude bones to us, are we to her That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd, 'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters ?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, A golden broach: beneath an emerald plane Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life; She rapt upon her subject, he on her : For there are schools for all.' 'And yet' I said 'Methinks I have not found among them all Or in the dark dissolving human heart, And holy secrets of this microcosm, Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light: but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make One act a phantom of succession: thus Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time ; But in the shadow will we work, and mould The woman to the fuller day.' She spake With kindled eyes: we rode a league beyond, And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came On flowery levels underneath the crag, Full of all beauty. O how sweet' I said (For I was half-oblivious of my mask) 'To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea' She answer'd' or with fair philosophies That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I With mine affianced. Many a little hand Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we wound Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns. |