How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to Death -
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh -
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!
Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now -
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!

Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed with light,
When the downward-dipping trails are dank and drear,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee - snuffle-snuffle through the night -
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go;
In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear;
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy cheek -
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!

When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine-trees fall,
When the blinding, blaring raid-squalls lash and veer;
Through the war-gongs of the thunder rings a voice more loud than all -
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders leap -
Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf-rib clear -
But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side
Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter - this is Fear!

 Ephesus stands - you may find it still -
On the lee of a verdurous, pine-clad hill,
And once in a twelve-month, the folk below
Flock to the pines and the upland snow -
Flee from the sunshine, the glare, and the dust,
For the good of their souls - as is right and just.

She fell from Heaven - as all aver,
From the lap of Olympian Jupiter;
And so descended to govern us
Men of the City of Ephesus.

She ground us under Her dainty heel,
She bound us slaves to Her chariot-wheel,
She levied taxes and toll and cess
For Her sumptuous shrine and Her golden dress;
And we paid them merrily - ever thus
Is the use of the People of Ephesus.

And the years went on, as the years must do,
But our great Diana was always new -
Fresh and blooming, and young and fair,
With azure eyes and with aureate hair;
While all the people who came and went
Offered Her praise to Her heart's content.
So we said in our pride, as the years rolled by; -
'Our Great Diana can never die!'

But once - ah me! - when Her shrine was lit
And we danced to the Goddess who governed it,
When the music thundered and, far and wide,
Our lamps made day on the mountain-side,
When the incense thickened, the trumpets brayed,
Came the terrible vengeance of Time delayed!
The clear voice faltered - the lithe form stooped -
The white hands wavered - the lights burned blue,
And the Goddess died - as Goddesses do.
And all we could see in the twilight dim
Was a visage meagre and pointed and grim -
A hard, lined brow, and a mouth grown old,
And a ripple of bad, discoloured gold
From the folds of the chiton; and so we cried: -
'What shall we do now Diana hath died?'
Wherefore we mourned till the morrow - thus
True to its idols is Ephesus.

Then we dragged Her out of the City's bound,
And cast Her into the Stranger's Ground.
We cleansed the shrine from the offerings stale,
We gilt the pillars and altar-rail
We lit fresh fires and called on Jove
For another Diana to praise and love;
And e'en as our call went up on high,
Another Diana dropped out of the sky,
Stepping at once to the old one's place
With the light of the Godship about Her face.
And we gave Her power to govern us
Men of the City of Ephesus.

The City is old as the pines above,
Old as the mountains, as old as Love;
And I am as old as a man may be
Ere he pass from the pines to the Unknown Sea,
And I serve, as I served in the years gone by,
The Great Diana who fell from the sky.
The yoke of Her priesthood is heavy to bear
Though the Great Diana be always fair.
But after a season, and none know when,
Our Goddess must die in the sight of men.
We must bear Her forth to the grave that waits
In the ground Unclean, by the Temple gates,
While Her name is forgot and Her face likewise,
For another Diana drops out of the skies,
And we make obeisance and hail Her thus: -
'Queen of the City of Ephesus'.

And howso clearly I know the end
Of the love we give and the money we spend;
And howso clearly Diana foresees
That terrible day when the trumpets cease;
And howso clearly the grave be made,
Where the bones of our old-time Queens are laid;
And howso clearly the City knows
Whether the path to Her Temple goes,
These things are certain - I still obey
The great Diana who rules today,
The City with me, and She in state
Looks out o'er the path to the Temple gate,
And takes our homage and hears us cry; -
'Our Great Diana can never die!'
For this is our custom,
Endeth thus
The tale of Diana of Ephesus.

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can,
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other's tale -
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations - worm and savage otherwise, -
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger - Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave hime, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who face death by torture for each life beneath her breat
May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions - not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant amd the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! -
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons - even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice - which no woman understands.

And Man Knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern - shall enthrall but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few,)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods . . .
But there is no road through the woods.

Her hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on her heel,
She had not cast her harness of grey, war-dinted steel;
High on her red-splashed charger, beautiful, bold and browned,
Bright-eyed out of the battle, the Young Queen rode to be crowned.

She came to the Old Queen's presence, in the Hall of Our Thousand Years -
In the Hall of the Five Free Nations that are peers among their peers:
Royal she gave the greeting, loyal she bowed the head,
Crying - "Crown me, my Mother!" And the Old Queen rose and said -

"How can I crown thee further? I know whose standard flies
Where the clean surge takes the Leeuwin or the coral barriers rise.
Blood of our foes on thy bridle, and speech of our friends in thy mouth -
How can I crown thee further, O Queen of the Soveriegn South?

"Let the Five Free Nations witness!" But the Young Queen answered swift -
"It shall be crown of Our crowning to hold Our crown for a gift.
In the days when Our folk were feeble thy sword made sure Our lands:
Wherefore We come in power to take Our crown at thy hands."

And the Old Queen raised and kissed her, and the jealous circlet prest,
Roped with the pearls of the Northland and red with the gold of the West,
Lit with her land's own opals, levin-hearted, alive,
And the Five-starred Cross above them, for sign of the Nations Five.

So it was done in the Presence - in the Hall of Our Thousand Years,
In the face of the Five Free Nations that have no peer but their peers;
And the Young Queen out of the Southland kneeled down at the Old Queen's knee,
And asked for a mother's blessing on the excellent years to be.

And the Old Queen stopped in the stillness where the jewelled head drooped low: -
"Daughter no more but Sister, and doubly Daughter so -
Mother of many princes - and child of the child that I bore,
What good thing shall I wish thee that I have not wished before?

"Shall I give thee delight in dominion - mere pride of thy setting forth?
Nay, we be women together - we know what that lust is worth.
Peace in thy utmost borders, and strength on a road untrod?
These are dealt or diminished at the secret will of God.

"I have swayed troublous councils, I am wise in terrible things;
Father and son and grandson, I have known the hearts of Kings.
Shall I give thee my sleepless wisdom, or the gift all wisdom above?
Ay, we be women together - I give thee thy people's love:

"Tempered, august, abiding, reluctant of prayers or vows,
Eager in face of peril as thine for thy mother's house.
God requite thee, my Sister, through the excellent years to be,
And make thy people to love thee as thou has lovèd me!"