'And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary Is violate, our laws broken: fear we not To break them more in their behoof, whose arms Championed our cause and won it with a day Blanched in our annals, and perpetual feast, When dames and heroines of the golden year Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, To rain an April of ovation round Their statues, borne aloft, the three: but come, We will be liberal, since our rights are won. Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, Ill nurses; but descend, and proffer these The brethren of our blood and cause, that there Lie bruised and maimed, the tender ministries Of female hands and hospitality.' She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led A hundred maids in train across the Park. Some cowled, and some bare-headed, on they came, Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went The enamoured air sighing, and on their curls From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, And over them the tremulous isles of light Slided, they moving under shade: but Blanche At distance followed: so they came: anon Through open field into the lists they wound Timorously; and as the leader of the herd That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, And followed up by a hundred airy does, Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, The lovely, lordly creature floated on To where her wounded brethren lay; there stayed; Knelt on one knee,--the child on one,--and prest Their hands, and called them dear deliverers, And happy warriors, and immortal names, And said 'You shall not lie in the tents but here, And nursed by those for whom you fought, and served With female hands and hospitality.'