you talk!”—“Alas!” she
said, “But prove me what it is I would not
do.” And from a heart as rough as Esau’s
hand, He answer’d, “Ride you naked thro’
the town, And I repeal it”; and nodding as
in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his
dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made
war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won.
She sent a herald forth, And bad him cry, with sound
of trumpet, all The hard condition; but that she
would loose The people: therefore, as they
loved her well, From then till noon no foot should
pace the street, No eye look down, she passing;
but that all Should keep within, door shut, and
window barr’d. Then fled she to her inmost
bower, and there Unclasp’d the wedded eagles
of her belt, The grim Earl’s gift; but ever
at a breath She linger’d, looking like a summer
moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her
head, And shower’d the rippled ringlets to
her knee; Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From
pillar unto pillar, until she reach’d The
gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple
blazon’d with armorial gold. Then she
rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep
air listen’d round her as she rode, And all
the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The
little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout Had
cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her
cheek flame: her palfrey’s footfall shot
Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind
walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro’ all bore up, till, last, she
saw The white-flower’d elder-thicket from
the field Gleam thro’ the Gothic archways
[3]in the wall. Then she rode back cloth’d
on with chastity: And one low churl, [4] compact
of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years
to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep’d—but
his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell’d
into darkness in his head, And dropt before him.
So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell’d
a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass’d:
and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound,
the shameless noon Was clash’d and hammer’d
from a hundred towers, [5] One after one: but
even then she gain’d Her bower; whence reissuing,
robed and crown’d, To meet her lord, she took
the tax away, And built herself an everlasting name.
[Footnote 1: These four lines are not in the
privately printed volume of 1842, but were added afterwards.]
[Footnote 2: St. Michael’s, Trinity, and
St. John.]
[Footnote 3: 1844. Archway.]
[Footnote 4: His effigy is still to be seen,
protruded from an upper window in High Street, Coventry.]
[Footnote 5: A most poetical licence. Thirty-two
towers are the very utmost allowed by writers on ancient
Coventry.]
First published in 1842, though begun as early as
1833 and in course of composition in 1834. See
Spedding’s letter dated 19th September, 1834.
Its original title was ‘The Thoughts of a Suicide’.
No alterations were made in the poem after 1842.
