"You know the tale of the eagle that carried the child away
To its eyrie high in the mountain sky, grim and rugged and gray;
Of the sailor who climbed to save it, who, ere he had half-way sped
Up the mountain wild, _met_ mother and child returning as from the
dead
There's many a bearded giant had never have grown a span,
If in peril's power in childhood's hour he'd had to wait for a man.
And who is the one among you but is living and hale to-day,
Because he was tied to a woman's side in the old home far away?
"You have heard the tale of the lifeboat, and the women of Mumbles
Head,
Who, when the men stood shivering by, or out from the danger fled,
Tore their shawls into striplets and knotted them end to end,
And then went down to the gates of death for father and brother and
friend.
Deeper and deeper into the sea, ready of heart and head,
Hauling them home through the blinding foam, and raising them from
the dead.
There's many of you to-morrow who, but for a woman's hand,
Would be drifting about with the shore lights out and never a chance
to land.
"You've read of the noble woman in the midst of a Border fray
Who held her own in a castle lone, for her lord who was far away.
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