"I dare All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? Peace! there are those to avenge us and they come: If not,--myself were like enough, O girls, To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear; Six thousand years of fear have made ye that From which I would redeem ye: but for those That stir this hubbub--you and you--I know Your faces there in the crowd--to-morrow morn We meet to elect new tutors; then shall they That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves at home and fools abroad." Ay, just as Shakspere hath it-- "To suckle fools and chronicle small beer." The hero also meets the shock, at least in poetic grace:-- "Upon my spirits Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy, Which I shook off, for I was young, and one To whom the shadow of all mischance but came As night to him that sitting on a hill Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun, Set into sunrise." It is agreed to decide the contest by a combat of fifty on each side--the one led by the prince, and the other by Arac, the brother of the princess. And clad in "harness"-- "Issued in the sun that now Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, And hit the northern hills." To the fight-- "Then rode we with the old king across the lawns Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring In every bole, a song on every spray Of birds that piped their Valentines." The prince and his companions are defeated; and he, wounded almost to the death, is consigned at her own request to be nursed by the princess:-- "So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turn'd to hospital; At first with all confusion; by and by Sweet order lived again with other laws; A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere Low voices with the ministering hand Hung round the sick." The result may be foreseen-- "From all a closer interest flourish'd up. Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears By some cold morning glacier; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself, But such as gather'd colour day by day." And the agreement is filled up:--