In spite of reason, falls on me:
And so all women of my race,
In pure right, shall be reason-free,
In every case.

"It shall not be in power of man
To bind them to their own contentions;
But each shall speak, as speak she can,
And start anew with fresh inventions,
Where she began.

"And so shall they be dearer still;
For man shall ne'er suspect in them
The plucking of the fatal stem,
That brought him all his ill.

XI

"And when hereafter--as there must,
Since He, that made us, so hath sworn--
From that whereof we are, the dust,
And whereunto we shall return
In higher trust--

"There spring a grand and countless race,
Replenishing this vast possession,
Till life, hath won a larger space
Than death, by quick and fair succession
Of health and grace;

"They too shall find as I have found
The grief, that lifts its head on high,
A dewy bud the sun shall dry--
But not while on the ground.

XII

"Then men shall love their wives again,
Allowing for the frailer kind,
Content to keep the heart's Amen,
Content to own the turns of mind
Beyond their ken.

"And wives shall in their lords be blest,
Their higher sense of right perceiving
(When possible) with love their test;
Exalting, solacing, believing
All for the test.

"And for the best shall all things be,
If God once more will shine around,
And lift my husband from the ground,
And teach him to lift me."

_New faith inspired the first of wives,
She smiles, and drooping hope revives;
She scorns a hundred years of woe%
And binds her hair, because the breezes blow._

THE MEETING

I

The wind is hushed, the moon is bright,
More stars on heaven than may be told;
Young flowers are coying with the light,
That softly tempts them to unfold,
And trust the night.

What form comes bounding from above
Down Arafa, the mountain lonely,
Afraid to scare its long-lost dove,
Yet swift as joy--"It can be only,
Only my love!"

What shape is that--too fair to leave
On Arafa, the mountain lone?
So trembling, and so faint--"My own,
It must be my ow