Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled In Coventry: for when he laid a tax Upon his town, and all the mothers brought ΠΟ Their children, clamoring, "If 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, halfamazed. "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 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 seorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So 1ft 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, Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers. One after one: but even then she gain'd IIer 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, Then to the still small voice I said: Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dow 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 stat lier than his peers. In yonder hundred million spheres ?" It spake, moreover, in my mind: Tho' thou were 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 cancella in the world of sense ?" I would have said, "Thou canst not know," But my full heart, that work'd below, "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 ad vance: 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 hour 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 lour, 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 "Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. "Thou hast not gain'd a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite. ""Twere 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 re sign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind." I said, "When I am gone away, "This is more vile," he made reply, 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 filled with dust, Hears little of the false or just." "Hark task, to pluck resolve," I cried, "From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride! "Nay-rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. "When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung. "I sung the joyful Pran clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear"Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life"Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love-"As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about"To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law: "At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, "To pass, when Life her light with draws. Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause"In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honor'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown; "Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears: "Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman's line is broke, And all the war is roll'd in smoke." "Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn "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 track, 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." "() 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 forebore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: "But looking upward, full of grace, The elements were kindlier mix'd." "Consider well," the voice replied: 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 cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak. "His little daughter, whos 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 eravé From winter rains that beat his grave. "High up the vapors fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgeteth 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 case, 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 : Ilis heart forebodes a mystery: Ile names the name Eternity. "That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. Ile 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 erplex With motions, checks, and counterchecks. "He knows a baseness in his blood He may not do the thing he would. Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt. "But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. "The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. fenced A little ceased, but recommenced. In his free field, and pastime made, "A merry boy they called him then, He sat upon the knees of mea In days that never come again. "Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and ran Their course, till thou wert also man: "Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, Who-e troubles number with his days: "A life of nothings, nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!" These words," I said, " are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast: "But if I grant, thou might'st defend The thesis which thy words intendThat to begin implies to end; "Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so coil, That I first was in human mould ? "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, how 'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state. "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. "So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch. "But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace; "Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night. "Or if thro' lower lives I cameTho' all experience pas; became Consolidate in mind and frame "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined. Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, mu-t I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, Should she climb Beyond her own material prime? "Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams"Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare." The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality." "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark. "Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensuo With this old soul in organs new? "Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. O life, not death, for which we pant; rest, Each enter'd like a welcome guest. I blest them, and they wander'd on: |