Then die, and leave the poem to mankind?

"O fair, O fine, O lot to be desired!
Early and late my heart appeals to me,
And says, 'O work, O will--Thou man, be fired
To earn this lot,'--she says, 'I would not be
A worker for mine OWN bread, or one hired
For mine OWN profit. O, I would be free
To work for others; love so earned of them
Should be my wages and my diadem.

"'Then when I died I should not fall,' says she,
'Like dropping flowers that no man noticeth,
But like a great branch of some stately tree
Rent in a tempest, and flung down to death,
Thick with green leafage--so that piteously
Each passer by that ruin shuddereth,
And saith, The gap this branch hath left is wide;
The loss thereof can never be supplied.'"

But, Madam, while the Poet pondered so,
Toward the leafy hedge he turned his eye,
And saw two slender branches that did grow,
And from it rising spring and flourish high:
Their tops were twined together fast, and, lo,
Their shadow crossed the path as he went by--
The shadow of a wild rose and a brier,
And it was shaped in semblance like a lyre.

In sooth, a lyre! and as the soft air played,