So of men, and so of letters, — books are men of higher stature,

And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear:

So, of mankind in the abstract, which grows slowly into nature,

Yet will lift the cry of “progress”, as it trod from sphere to sphere.

And her custom was to praise me when I said, — “The Age culls simples,

With a broad clown’s back turned broadly to the glory of the stars—

We are gods by our own reck’ning, — and may well shut up the temples,

And wield on, amid the incense-steam, the thunder of our cars.

“For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring,

With, at every mile run faster, — ‘O the wondrous, wondrous age!’

Little thinking if we work our SOULS as nobly as our iron,

Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage.

“Why, what is this patient entrance into nature’s deep resources,

But the child’s most gradual learning to walk upright without bane?

When we drive out from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses,

Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?

“If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising,

If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath,

’Twere but power within our tether, — no new spirit-power comprising,

And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death”.

She was patient with my talking; and I loved her, loved her certes,

As I loved all Heavenly objects, with uplifted eyes and hands!

As I loved pure inspirations, — loved the graces, loved the virtues,

In a Love content with writing his own name on desert sands.

Or at least I thought so purely! — thought no idiot Hope was raising

Any crown to crown Love’s silence, — silent Love that sat alone,—

Out, alas! the stag is like me, — he, that tries to go on grazing

With the great deep gun-wound in his neck, then reels with sudden moan.

It was thus I reeled! I told you that her hand had many suitors—

But she smiles them down imperially, as Venus did the waves;—

And with such a gracious coldness, that they cannot press their futures

On the present of her courtesy, which yieldingly enslaves.

And this morning, as I sat alone within the inner chamber,

With the great saloon beyond it lost in pleasant thought serene,—

For I had been reading Camoens — that poem you remember,

Which his lady’s eyes are praised in, as the sweetest ever seen;

And the book lay open, and my thought flew from it, taking from it

A vibration and impulsion to an end beyond its own,

As the branch of a green osier, when a child would overcome it,

Springs up freely from his clasping and goes swinging in the sun.

As I mused I heard a murmur, — it grew deep as it grew longer—

Speakers using earnest language, — “Lady Geraldine, you would!”

And I heard a voice that pleaded ever on, in accents stronger,

As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric good.

Well I knew that voice, — it was an earl’s, of soul that matched his station—

Soul completed into lordship, — might and right read on his brow:

Very finely courteous, — far too proud to doubt his domination

Of the common people, — he atones for grandeur by a bow.

High, straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold blue eyes, of less expression

Than resistance, coldly casting off the looks of other men,

As steel, arrows, — unelastic lips, which seem to taste possession,

And be cautious lest the common air should injure or distrain.

For the rest, accomplished, upright, — ay, and standing by his order

With a bearing not ungraceful; fond of art, and letters too;

Just a good man made a proud man, as the sandy rocks that border

A wild coast, by circumstances, in a regnant ebb and flow.

Thus I knew that voice, — I heard it — and I could not help the hearkening:

In the room I stood up blindly, and my burning heart within

Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses, till they ran on all sides darkening,

And scorchèd, weighed like melted metal round my feet that stood therein.

And that voice, I heard it pleading, for love’s sake, — for wealth, position,

For the sake of liberal uses, and great actions to be done,—

And she interrupted gently, “Nay, my lord, the old tradition

Of your Normans, by some worthier hand than mine is, should be won”.

“Ah, that white hand”, he said quickly, — and in his he either drew it

Or attempted — for with gravity and instance she replied,—

“Nay, indeed, my lord, this talk is vain, and we had best eschew it,

And pass on like friends, to other points less easy to decide”.

What he said again, I know not. It is likely that his trouble

Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answered in slow scorn,—