how I trained to my arms
Lewd Holofernes, and kept him plied with lust,
Until his wild blood in the end paused fainting,
And he lay twitching, drained of all his wits;--
But there was wine as well working in him,
Feebling his sinews; 'twas not all my doing,
The snoring fit that came before his death,
The routing beastly slumber that was my time.
You know it all! Why ask me for the tale?

_Ozias_.
Comfort her: praise her. She is strangely ashamed
Of Holofernes having evilly used her.

_A Citizen_.
We will contrive the triumph of our joy
Into some tune of words, and bring thee on,
Accompanied by singing, to thy house.

_Judith_.
I pray you, rather let me go alone.
You will do better to be searching out
All sharpen'd steel that may take weapon-use.
The Assyrians are afraid: it is your time.

[_They surround_ JUDITH _and go with her_.

CHORUS _of Citizens praising_ JUDITH _and
leading her to her house_.
Over us and past us go the years;
Like wind that taketh sound from jubilee
And aloud flieth ringing,
Over us goeth the speed of the years,
Like loud noise eternally bringing
The greatness women have done.

Deborah was great; with her singing
She hearten'd the men that the horses had dismayed;
Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, alone
Stood singing where the men were horribly afraid,
Singing of God in the midst of fear;
When archers out of Hazor were
Eating the land like grasshoppers,
And darkness at noon was plundering the air
Of the light of the sun's insulted fires,
Red darkness covering Sisera's host
As Jewry was covered by the Canaanite's boast:
For the earth was broken into dust beneath
The force of his chariots' thundering tyres,
Nine hundred chariots of iron.

Deborah was great in her prophesying;
But, though her anger moved through the Israelites,
And the loose tribes her indignant crying
Bound into song, fashion'd to an army;
And before the measure of her song went flying,
Like leaves and breakage of the woods
Fallen into pouring floods,
The iron and the men of Sisera and Jabin;
Not by her alone
God's punishment was done
On Canaan intending a monstrous crime,
On the foaming and poison of the serpent in Hazor;
Two women were the power of God that time.

Yea, and sullenly down
Into its hiding town,
Even though the lightning were still in its heart,
The broken dragon, drawing in its fury,
Had croucht to mend its shatter'd malice,
Had lifted its head again and spat against God.
B