Lxxi

Because, one woman 's worth, in that respect, such hairy hosts Of the other sex and sort! Men? Say you have the power To make them yours, rule men, throughout life's little hour, According to the phrase; what follows? Men, you make, By ruling them, your own: each man for his own sake Accepts you as his guide, avails him of what worth He apprehends in you to sublimate his earth With fire: content, if so you convoy him through night, That you shall play the sun, and he, the satellite, Pilfer your light and heat and virtue, starry pelf, While, caught up by your course, he turns upon himself. Women rush into you, and there remain absorbed. Beside, 't is only men completely formed, full-orbed, Are fit to follow track, keep pace, illustrate so The leader: any sort of woman may bestow Her atom on the star, or clod she counts for such,--- Each little making less bigger by just that much. Women grow you, while men depend on you at best. And what dependence! Bring and put him to the test, Your specimen disciple, a handbreadth separate From you, he almost seemed to touch before! Abate Complacency you will, I judge, at what 's divulged! Some flabbiness you fixed, some vacancy out-bulged, Some--much--nay, all, perhaps, the outward man 's your work: But, inside man?--find him, wherever he may lurk, And where 's a touch of you in his true self?