Page:The Five Nations.djvu/122

102 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 stooped 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 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.