If there be Beings of higher class than Man, I deem no nobler province they possess, Than by disposal of apt circumstance To rear up kingdoms: and the deeds they prompt, 130 Distinguishing from mortal agency, They choose their human ministers from such states As still the Epic song half fears to name, Repelled from all the minstrelsies that strike The palace-roof and soothe the monarch's pride. 135 And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words Witnessed by answering deeds may claim our faith) Held commune with that warrior-maid of France Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days, With Wisdom, mother of retired thoughts, 140 Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark The good and evil thing, in human lore Undisciplined. For lowly was her birth, And Heaven had doomed her early years to toil That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself 145 Unfeared by Fellow-natures, she might wait On the poor labouring man with kindly looks, And minister refreshment to the tired Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn bench The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft 150 Vacantly watched the rudely-pictured board Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shifting mind, His vices and his sorrows! And full oft 155 At tales of cruel wrong and strange distress Had wept and shivered. To the tottering Eld Still as a daughter would she run: she placed His cold limbs at the sunny door, and loved To hear him story, in his garrulous sort, 160 Of his eventful years, all come and gone. So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's form, Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, Her flexile eye-brows wildly haired and low, 165 And her full eye, now bright, now unillumed, Spake more than Woman's thought; and all her face Was moulded to such features as declared That Pity there had oft and strongly worked, And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien, 170 And like an haughty huntress of the woods She moved: yet sure she was a gentle maid! And in each motion her most innocent soul Beamed forth so brightly, that who saw would say Guilt was a thing impossible in her! 175 Nor idly would have said--for she had lived In this bad World, as in a place of Tombs, And touched not the pollutions of the Dead.