When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,

And topples down the scales; but this is fixt

As are the roots of earth and base of all.

Man for the field and woman for the hearth:

Man for the sword and for the needle she:

Man with the head and woman with the heart :
Man to command and woman to obey;

All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell

Mix with his hearth: but you-she's yet a colt-
Take, break her strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd

She might not rank with those detestable

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl

Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance :

I like her none the less for rating at her!

Besides, the woman wed is not as we,

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,

The bearing and the training of a child

Is woman's wisdom.'

Thus the hard old king:

I took my leave it was the point of noon :
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared

At the barrier-yet a moment, and once more
The trumpet, and again: at which the storm.
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears
And riders front to front, until they closed

In conflict with the crash of shivering points,

And thunder. On his haunches rose the steed,

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance,

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire.

Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept their seats : Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew:

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down

From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail,

The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere

He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists,

And all the plain,-brand, mace, and shaft, and shieldShock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang’d

With hammers; till I thought, can this be he

From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so,

The mother makes us most-and thinking thus
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes,
And highest, among the statues, statuelike,
Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael,
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us,
A single band of gold about her hair,

Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she
No saint-inexorable-no tenderness-
Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight,
Yea, let her see me die. With that I drave
Among the thickest, and bore down a Prince,

And Cyril, one; but that large-moulded man,

His visage all agrin as at a wake,

Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came

As comes a pillar of electric cloud,

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains,

And shadowing down the champain till it strikes

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits,

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth

Reels, and the herdsmen cry, for everything

Gave way before him only Florian, he

:

That loved me closer than his own right eye,

Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down :
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince,
With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough,
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms;
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote
And threw him: last I spurred; I felt my veins
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand,
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung,

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced;

I did but shear a feather, and life and love

Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell.

K