18. 'Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength Of words--for lately did a maiden fair, _1570 Who from her childhood has been taught to bear The Tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and make Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear, And with these quiet words--"for thine own sake I prithee spare me;"--did with ruth so take _1575 19. 'All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled, Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found One human hand to harm her--unassailed Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled _1580 In virtue's adamantine eloquence, 'Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed, And blending, in the smiles of that defence, The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence. 20. 'The wild-eyed women throng around her path: _1585 From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor's wrath, Or the caresses of his sated lust They congregate:--in her they put their trust; The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell _1590 Her power;--they, even like a thunder-gust Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell Of that young maiden's speech, and to their chiefs rebel. 21. 'Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach To woman, outraged and polluted long; _1595 Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong; Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright, And matrons with their babes, a stately throng! _1600 Lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite, 22. 'And homeless orphans find a home near her, And those poor victims of the proud, no less, Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir, _1605 Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:-- In squalid huts, and in its palaces Sits Lust alone, while o'er the land is borne Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress All evil, and her foes relenting turn, _1610 And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn. 23. 'So in the populous City, a young maiden Has baffled Havoc of the prey which he Marks as his own, whene'er with chains o'erladen Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny,-- _1615 False arbiter between the bound and free; And o'er the land, in hamlets and in towns The multitudes collect tumultuously, And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones. _1620