No woman named: therefore I set my face
Against all men, and lived but for mine own.
Far from all men I built a fold for them."
So speaks the princess of the story; profusely, if with great dignity; bitterly, but argumentatively: it is a heightened, an exalted prose style; but it has not taken that leap into infinity which is the mark of the poetic grand manner. For a contrast, consider this; the work of another Victorian bard; one not greater than Tennyson, but here with his poet's blue mantle upon him, robed with the infinite. He, too, is smitten with compassion for certain women; and the flame leaps up from the blow in this wise:
Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.