Her warrior, chief among the valorous great
     In arms he was, dispelling shades of blame,
     With radiance palpable in fruit and weight. 
     Heard she reproach, his victories blared response;
     His victories bent the Critic to acclaim,
     As with fresh blows upon a ringing sconce. 
     Or heard she from scarred ranks of jolly growls
     His veterans dwarf their reverence and, like owls,
     Laugh in the pitch of discord, to exalt
     Their idol for some genial trick or fault,
     She, too, became his marching veteran. 
     Again she took her breath from them who bore
     His eagles through the tawny roar,
     And murmured at a peaceful state,
     That bred the title charlatan,
     As missile from the mouth of hate,
     For one the daemon fierily filled and hurled,
     Cannon his name,
     Shattering against a barrier world;
     Her supreme player of man’s primaeval game.

     The daemon filled him, and he filled her sons;
     Strung them to stature over human height,
     As march the standards down the smoky fight;
     Her cherubim, her towering mastodons! 
     Directed vault or breach, break through
     Earth’s toughest, seasons, elements, tame;
     Dash at the bulk the sharpened few;
     Count death the smallest of their debts: 
     Show that the will to do
     Is masculine and begets!

     These princes unto him the mother owed;
     These jewels of manhood that rich hand bestowed. 
     What wonder, though with wits awake
     To read her riddle, for these her offspring’s sake; —
     And she, before high heaven adulteress,
     The lost to honour, in his glory clothed,
     Else naked, shamed in sight of men, self-loathed; —
     That she should quench her thought, nor worship less
     Than ere she bled on sands or snows and knew
     The slave’s alternative, to worship or to rue!

     XI

     Bright from the shell of that much limited man,
     Her hero, like the falchion out of sheath,
     Like soul that quits the tumbled body, soared: 
     And France, impulsive, nuptial with his plan,
     Albeit the Critic fretting her, adored
     Once more.  Exultingly her heart went forth,
     Submissive to his mind and mood,
     The way of those pent-eyebrows North;
     For now was he to win the wreath
     Surpassing sunniest in camp or Court;
     Next, as the blessed harvest after years of blight,
     Sit, the Great Emperor, to be known the Good!

     Now had the Seaman’s volvent sprite,
     Lean from the chase that barked his contraband,
     A beggared applicant at every port,
     To strew the profitless deeps and rot beneath,
     Slung northward, for a hunted beast’s retort
     On sovereign power; there his final stand,