Is he fooled by her hair,
Is he tranced by her eyes,
That he draweth him near,
That he speaketh him wise? ...
He has spoken again,
He has taken her hands,
He has loosened her chain,
Unfettered she stands!
PERSEUS.
Stand there! Behold the new, uncharted day—
Not as a fool made sweet for fools to kiss;
Not as a saint to whom sick masters pray;
No more the sad shell singing of men's lust;
No more the sum of priests' pale sophistries;
But as men stand, unchallenged, equal, free,
Each path to take and every race to run.
Stand forth, O shining equal in the sun!
Unfold, upspring, outblossom from the dust,
O divinest playfellow even as we!
ANDROMEDA.
Where is he who chained me? I am weak.
I crouch still, whom the years forbade to stand.
The chain is still remembered on my neck,
There are the marks of slaves still in this hand.
PERSEUS.
No more shall he who chained you forge that chain;
He has looked upon Medusa, and has seen
What he has made of woman. To him turned
Is the last face (who shall never see again)
With its hissing, furious hair, the eyelids burned
With the eyes' hate, slime where the lips have been,
That tumbled death upon him like a stone;
And in your name Medusa smiled and spurned
A dying face more dreadful than her own.
ANDROMEDA.
The shackled feet of centuries cannot keep
Pace yet with feet that have outstripped the world.
For the maimed even the riven way is steep.
I am so strange to greatness, I am hurled
Unsceptred to my glory! I am now
Almost what you have called me, as things take
The colour of names men give them; as things grow
Fierce if dubbed fierce, and weak if branded weak,
And fools if given no name but foolishness.
I have been branded fool in life and art,—
Always a little lower, always the less,
Until the intolerable prompting has grown part
Of all I do; my labouring brain and heart
By that self-doubt are shadowed and undone.
Let me walk long beside you in the sun,
Race, wrestle with you, grow wise and swift and strong.
For I shall speak but foolish words at first
Who was hindered of wisdom since the world began.
I shall blunder and be so wayward who was nursed
On fear and folly by the laws of man.