Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flowered elder thicket from the field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal by word of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,

Peeped - but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivelled into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused;

And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers,
One after one: but even then she gained

Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crowned,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

EXTRACT FROM "THE PRINCESS."

The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free:
For she that out of Lethe scales with man
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow? but work no more alone!
Our place is much: as far as in us lies

We two will serve them both in aiding her—
Will clear away the parasitic forms
That seem to keep her up, but drag her down-
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all
Within her-let her make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.
For woman is not undeveloped man,

But diverse could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.

Tennyson.

Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;

He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;

Till at the last she set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other even as those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
Then springs the crowning race of human kind.
May these things be!

EXTRACT FROM THE "RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY."

Mrs. Browning.

Ho! the breach yawns into ruin, and roars up against her suing,—

Toll slowly!

With the inarticulate din, and the dreadful falling in

Shrieks of doing and undoing!

Twice he wrung her hands in twain; but the small hands closed

again,

Toll slowly!

Back he reined the steed-back, back! but she trailed along his track,

With a frantic clasp and strain!

Evermore the foeman pour through the crash of window and door,Toll slowly! And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of "kill!" and "flee!"

Strike up clear the general roar,

Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again,

Toll slowly!

Wild she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood,

In a spasm of deathly pain.

Back he reined his steed, back-thrown on the slippery coping

stone,

Toll slowly!

Back the iron hoofs did grind, on the battlement behind,
Whence a hundred feet went down.

And his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank bestrode, Toll slowly! "Friends, and brothers! save my wife! - Pardon, sweet, in change

for life,

But I ride alone to God!"

Strait as if the Holy name did upbreathe her as a flame,

Toll slowly! She upsprang, she rose upright! - in his selle she sat in sight; By her love she overcame.

And her head was on his breast, where she smiled as one at rest,Toll slowly! "Ring," she cried, "O vesper-bell, in the beech-wood's old chapelle !

But the passing bell rings best."

They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose-in

vain,

Toll slowly! For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, On the last verge, rears amain.

And he hangs, he rocks between and his nostrils curdle in,

Toll slowly!

And he shivers head and hoof- and the flakes of foam fall off; And his face grows fierce and thin!

And a look of human woe, from his staring eyes did go

And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony

Of the headlong death below,

Toll slowly!

And, "Ring, ring, — thou passing bell," still she cried, "i' the c.d

chapelle !

Toll slowly! Then back-toppling, crashing back. -a dead weight flung out to

wrack,

Horse and riders overfell!

EXTRACT FROM "THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY."

Bernard of Cluni.

Trans. by John Mason Neale

For thee, O dear, dear Country!

Mine eyes their vigils keep;

For very love, beholding

Thy happy name, they weep.

The mention of thy glory

Is unction to the breast,

And medicine in sickness,

And love, and life, and rest.

O one, O onely Mansion!

O Paradise of Joy!

Where tears are ever banished,

And smiles have no alloy,

Beside thy living waters

All plants are, great and small,

The cedar of the forest,

The hyssop of the wall;

With jaspers glow thy bulwarks,

Thy streets with emeralds blaze,

The sardius and the topaz

Unite in thee their rays;
Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethyst unpriced:
Thy saints build up its fabric,
And the corner-stone is CHRIST.

Thou hast no shore, fair Ocean!
Thou hast no time, bright day!
Dear fountain of refreshment

To pilgrims far away!

Upon the Rock of Ages

They raise thy holy tower;