The hearts and souls of mortals!--Then this realm's Iron-huskéd flower of war,--that overwhelms The world with havoc,--will explode and bloom The amaranth, peace, with love for its perfume. And then, O Launcelots and Tristrams, vowed To Gueneveres and Isouds,--now allowed No pleasure but what hour by stolen hour, In secret places, brings to flaming flower,-- You shall have feasts of passion evermore! And out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door, No more shalt stand neglected and cast off, Insulted and derided; and the scoff Of War, the bully, whose hands of insult fling Off, for the iron of arms, thy hands that cling About his brutal feet, that crush thy face, Bleeding, into the dust.--Here, in War's place, We will erect a shrine of sacrifice; Love's sacrifice; a shrine of purest price; Where each shall lay his heart and each his soul For Love, for earthly Love! who shall control The world, and make it as the Heaven whole; Being to it its stars and moon and sun, Its firmament and all its lights in one. And if by such Love Heaven should be debarred, Its God, its spheres, with spiritual love in-starred, Hell will be Heaven, our Heaven, while Love shall thus Remain earth Love, that God encouraged in us. "And now for Urience, my gaunt old lord!-- There lies my worry.--Yet, hath he no sword No dangerous dagger I, hid softly here, Sharp as an adder's fang? or for his ear No instant poison to insinuate Ice in his pulses, and with death abate?" So did she then determine; on that night Of lonely autumn, when no haggard, white, Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane; But, on the leads, beat the incessant rain, And the lamenting wind wailed wild among The trees and turrets, like a phantom throng. So grew her face severe as skies that take Suggestions of far storm whose thunders shake The distant hills with wrath, and cleave with fire A pine the moaning forest mourns as sire-- So touched her countenance that dark intent: And in still eyes her thoughts were evident, As in dark waters, luminous and deep, The heavens glass themselves when o'er them sweep The clouds of storm and austere stars they keep,-- Ghostly and gray,--locked in their steadfast gloom. Then, as if some great wind had swept the room, Silent, intense, she rose up from her seat. As if dim arms had made her a retreat, Secret as thought to move in, like a ghost, Noiseless as sleep and subtle as the frost, Poised like a light and borne as carefully, She trod the gusty hall where shadowy The hangings rolled a dim Pendragon war. And there the mail of Urience shone. A star, Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped From the stone vault and flared. And here she stopped, And took the sword, fresh-burnished by his page,