"The King can do no wrong," and thou Art King indeed to most of us, I trow. Thou'rt an enchanter, at whose sovereign will All that there is of progress, learning, skill, Of beauty, culture, grace--and I might even Include religion, though that flouts at heaven-- Comes at thy bidding, flies before thy loss;-- And yet men call thee dross! If thou art dross then I mistaken be Of thy identity. Ah, solid, weighty, beautiful! How could I first have said that thou wert dull? How could have wondered that men willingly Gave up their homes, and toiled and died for thee? Theirs was the martyrdom in which was planted A glorious State, by precious memories haunted: Ours is the comfort, ease, the power, the fame Of an exalted name: Theirs was the struggle of a proud ambition-- Ours is the full fruition. Thou, yellow nugget, wert the star That drew these willing votaries from afar, 'Twere wrong to call thee lustreless or base That lightest onward all the human race, Emblem art thou, in every song or story, Of highest excellence and brightest glory: Thou crown'st the angels, and enthronest Him Who made the cherubim: My reverend thought indeed is not withholden, O nugget golden! MAGDALENA. You say there's a Being all-loving, Whose nature is justice and pity; Could you say where you think he is roving? We have sought him from city to city, But he never is where we can find him, When outrage and sorrow beset us; It is strange we are always behind him, Or that He should forever forget us. But being a god, he is thinking Of the masculine side of the Human; And though just, it would surely be sinking The God to be thoughtful for woman. For him and by him was man made: Sole heir of the earth and its treasures; An after-thought, woman--the handmaid, Not of God, but of man and his pleasures. Should you say that man's God would reprove us, If we found him and showed him our bruises? It is dreary with no one to love us, Or to hold back the hand that abuses: Man's hand, that first led and caressed us, Man's lips, that first kissed and betrayed;-- If his God could know how he's oppressed us, Do you think that we need be afraid? For we loved him--and he who stood nearest To God, who could doubt or disdain? When he swore by that God, and the dearest Of boons that he hoped to obtain Of that God, that he truly would keep us In his heart of hearts precious and only: Say, how could we think he would steep us In sorrow, and leave us thus lonely?