* * In the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care--
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of time,
Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each.
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of human kind.
--Alfred Tennyson.