"Woman, thou seem'st to scorn The ordinances of our holy Church; And, if I rightly understand thy words, Nature, thou say'st, taught thee in solitude Thy feelings of religion, and that now Masses and absolution and the use Of the holy wafer, are to thee unknown. But how could Nature teach thee true religion, Deprived of these? Nature doth lead to sin, But 'tis the priest alone can teach remorse, Can bid St. Peter ope the gates of Heaven, And from the penal fires of purgatory Set the soul free." The Maid replies:-- "Fathers of the holy Church, If on these points abstruse a simple maid Like me should err, impute not you the crime To self-will'd reason, vaunting its own strength Above eternal wisdom. True it is That for long time I have not heard the sound Of mass high-chaunted, nor with trembling lips Partook the holy wafer: yet the birds Who to the matin ray prelusive pour'd Their joyous song, methought did warble forth Sweeter thanksgiving to Religion's ear In their wild melody of happiness, Than ever rung along the high-arch'd roofs Of man: ... yet never from the bending vine Pluck'd I its ripen'd clusters thanklessly, Or of that God unmindful, who bestow'd The bloodless banquet. Ye have told me, Sirs, That Nature only teaches man to sin! If it be sin to seek the wounded lamb, To bind its wounds, and bathe them with my tears, This is what Nature taught! No, Fathers, no! It is not Nature that doth lead to sin: Nature is all benevolence, all love, All beauty! In the greenwood's quiet shade There is no vice that to the indignant cheek Bids the red current rush; no misery there; No wretched mother, who with pallid face And famine-fallen hangs o'er her hungry babes, With such a look, so wan, so woe-begone, As shall one day, with damning eloquence Against the oppressor plead!..."[1] In this little harangue the attentive reader is conscious, not only of the echo of the revolutionary cries on the other side of the Channel, repeated in the language of English nature-worship, but also of the young poet's want of ability to give his subject the proper local colouring or to impart to it the spirit of the age. France and the Middle Ages are to him here what the East and the world of legend were to become--a costume in which his English and Protestant ideas figure. Of one thing, however, there is no doubt, namely, that it required courage to sing the praises of the French national heroine at a moment when the animosity to France was so strong; and the poem, in spite of its aridity both as regards feeling and colour, is a work which does honour to a young poet. But the brave spirit which elevated his talent was soon to disappear from his writings.