The dame 't was, who flung it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For months past; he sat there pursuing
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance
Fine speeches like gold from a balance.

Sound the trumpet, no true knight 's a tarrier !
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,
Walked straight to the glove,-while the lion
Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,-
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,
Leaped back where the lady was seated
And full in the face of its owner

Flung the glove.

"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her? "So should I !"-cried the King-"'t was mere vanity,

"Not love, set that task to humanity!”

Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing
From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.

Not so, I; for I caught an expression
In her brow's undisturbed self-possession
Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,—
As if from no pleasing experiment

She rose, yet of pain not much heedful
So long as the process was needful,—
As if she had tried, in a crucible,

To what "speeches like gold" were reducible,
And, finding the finest prove copper,
Felt smoke in her face was but proper;
To know what she had not to trust to,
Was worth all the ashes and dust too.
She went out 'mid hooting and laughter;
Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,

And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?
If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?
"For I"-so I spoke-" am a poet :
"Human nature-behoves that I know it! "

She told me, "Too long had I heard "Of the deed proved alone by the word : "For my love—what De Lorge would not dare! "With my scorn-what De Lorge could compare! "And the endless descriptions of death "He would brave when my lip formed a breath, "I must reckon as braved, or, of course, "Doubt his word-and moreover, perforce, "For such gifts as no lady could spurn, "Must offer my love in return.

"When I looked on your lion, it brought "All the dangers at once to my thought, "Encountered by all sorts of men,

"Before he was lodged in his den,

"From the poor slave whose club or bare hands

"Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,
"With no King and no Court to applaud,
"By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,
"Yet to capture the creature made shift,
"That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,
"To the page who last leaped o'er the fence
“Of the pit, on no greater pretence

"Than to get back the bonnet he dropped,

"Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.

'So, wiser I judged it to make

"One trial what 'death for my sake'

'Really meant, while the power was yet mine,

"Than to wait until time should define

"Such a phrase not so simply as I,
"Who took it to mean just 'to die.'
"The blow a glove gives is but weak:

"Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, "That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here the parts shift?

"Here, the creature surpass the creator,-the end, what began ?

“Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this

man,

"And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?

"Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,

"To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower

"Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,

"Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole ?

"And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest), "These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?

"Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height

"This perfection,-succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute of night:

"Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the

mistake,

"Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,-and bid him`

awake

"From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set

"Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new harmony yet

"To be run and continued, and ended-who knows?— or endure !

"The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to

make sure;

"By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified

bliss,

"And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

XVIII

"I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 't is I who

receive :

"In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.

"All 's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer,

"As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.

"From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth:

"I will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not

loth

"To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I

dare

"Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?

"This ; 't is not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

"See the King—I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.

"Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,

"To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would-knowing which,

"I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through

me now!

"Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou -so wilt thou!

"So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost

crown

"And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor

down

"One spot for the creature to stand in!

breath,

It is by no

"Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!

"As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved "Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!

"He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.

""T is the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh,

that I seek

"In the Godhead! I seek and I find it.

shall be

O Saul, it

"A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to

me,

"Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand

"Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

XIX

I know not too well how I found my way home in the

night.

There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to

right,

Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the

aware:

I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly

there,

As a runner beset by the populace famished for newsLife or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell

loosed with her crews;

And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled

and shot