XII

     Grand by righteous wrath transfigured,
     Towers the husband who provides
     In his person judge and witness,
     Death’s black doorkeeper besides!

     XIII

     Round his head the ancient terrors,
     Conjured of the stronger’s law,
     Circle, to abash the creature
     Daring twist beneath his paw.

     XIV

     How though he hath squandered Honour
     High of Honour let him scold: 
     Gilding of the man’s possession,
     ’Tis the woman’s coin of gold.

     XV

     She inheriting from many
     Bleeding mothers bleeding sense
     Feels ’twixt her and sharp-fanged nature
     Honour first did plant the fence.

     XVI

     Nature, that so shrieks for justice;
     Honour’s thirst, that blood will slake;
     These are women’s riddles, roughly
     Mixed to write them saint or snake.

     XVII

     Never nature cherished woman: 
     She throughout the sexes’ war
     Serves as temptress and betrayer,
     Favouring man, the muscular.

     XVIII

     Lureful is she, bent for folly;
     Doating on the child which crows: 
     Yours to teach him grace in fealty,
     What the bloom is, what the rose.

     XIX

     Hard the task:  your prison-chamber
     Widens not for lifted latch
     Till the giant thews and sinews
     Meet their Godlike overmatch.

     XX

     Read that riddle, scorning pity’s
     Tears, of cockatrices shed: 
     When the heart is vowed for freedom,
     Captaincy it yields to head.

     XXI

     Meanwhile you, freaked nature’s martyrs,
     Honour’s army, flower and weed,
     Gentle ladies, wedded ladies,
     See for you this fair one bleed.

     XXII

     Sole stood her offence, she faltered;
     Prayed her lord the youth to spare;
     Prayed that in the orange garden
     She might lie, and ceased her prayer.

     XXIII

     Then commanding to all women
     Chastity, her breasts she laid
     Bare unto the self-avenger. 
     Man in metal was the blade.

     The young princess—­A ballad of old laws of love

     1—­I

     When the South sang like a nightingale
     Above a bower in May,
     The training of Love’s vine of flame
     Was writ in laws, for lord and dame
     To say their yea and nay.

     II

     When the South sang like a nightingale
     Across the flowering night,
     And lord and dame held gentle sport,
     There came a young princess to Court,
     A frost of beauty white.

     III

     The South sang like a nightingale
     To thaw her glittering dream: 
     No vine of Love her bosom gave,
     She drank no wine of Love, but grave
     She held them to Love’s theme.