That we might see our own work out, and watch The sandy footprint harden into stone.'

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself

If that strange maiden could at all be won.
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts:

'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, Dwarfs of the gynæceum, fail so far

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess
How much their welfare is a passion to us.

If we could give them surer, quicker proof-
Oh if our end were less achievable

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.'

F

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear;

And up we came to where the river sloped

To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks

A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods,

And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out

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

Sits Diotima, teaching him that died

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

One anatomic.' Nay we thought of that,'

6

She answer'd, but it pleased us not in truth

We shudder but to dream our maids should ape
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound,

And cram him with the fragments of the grave,

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 :
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty,

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt,

For many weary moons before we came,

This craft of healing.

Would tend upon you.

Were you sick, ourself

To your question now,

Which touches on the workman and his work.

Let there be light and there was light: 'tis so:

For was, and is, and will be, are but is ;

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)

6

To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea'

6

She answer'd or with fair philosophies

That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields

Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns,

Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw
The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers
Built to the Sun:' then, turning to her maids,

Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward;

Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised
A tent of satin, elaborately wrought

With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood,
Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek,
The woman-conqueror; woman-conquer'd there
The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns,

And all the men mourn'd at his side: but we
Set forth to climb; then, climbing, Cyril kept
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I

With mine affianced. Many a little hand

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set

In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we wound About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,

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.