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 Book '_6-L 
 
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 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 A POEM 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 VOL 
 
 IS THE 
 
 PROPER! 
 
 OF T«S 
 
 NEW voKK Md SMe 
 
 WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 
 1890 
 

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 P CtePTRKIHT. 1SS9, BfY 
 
 WORTHIKGTON Ca 
 
AUEOEA LEIGH 
 
 FIRST BOOK. 
 
 /"VF writing many books there is no end ; 
 
 And I who have written much in prose and verse 
 For others' uses, will write now for mine, — 
 Will write ray story for my better self, 
 As when you paint your portrait for a friend, 
 Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it 
 Long after he has ceased to love you, just 
 To hold together what he was and is. 
 
 I, writing thus, am still what men call young ; 
 
 I have not so far left the coasts of life 
 
 To travel inland, that I cannot hear 
 
 That murmur of the outer Infinite 
 
 Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep 
 
 When wondered at for smiling ; not so far, 
 
 But still I catch my mother at her post 
 
 Beside the nursery-door, with finger up, 
 
 *Hush, hush — ^here's too much noise!' while hei 
 
 sweet eyes 
 Leap forward, taking part against her word 
 In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel 
 
1 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I Vi, Mv ^r.tuer's slow hand, when she had left us both, 
 V '^ Sti\)ke out my childish curls across his knee ; 
 ^^. »' And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew 
 
 ^ He liked it better than a better jest) 
 N^ N Inquire how many golden scudi went 
 ^Nv To make such ringlets. O my father's hand, 
 Stroke heavily, heavily the poor hair down, 
 Draw, press the child's head closer to thy kneel 
 Tm still too young, too young, to, sit alone. 
 
 I write. My mother was a Florentine, 
 Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me 
 When scarcely I was four years old ; my life 
 A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp 
 
 I Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail 
 She could not bear the joy of giving life — 
 
 I The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss 
 
 1 Had left a longer weight upon my lips, 
 It might have steadied the uneasy breath, 
 
 j And reconciled and fraternised my soul 
 With the new order. As it was, indeed, 
 
 ^ I felt a mother-want about the world, 
 
 « And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb 
 Left out at night in shuttmg up the fold,— 
 
 \ As restless as a nest-deserted bird 
 Grown chill through something b(.ing away, "-Jioiigh 
 what 
 
 ! It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born 
 
 J To make my father sadder, and myself 
 Not overjoyous, truly. Women know 
 The way to rear up children, (to be just,) 
 
 I They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
 
 ( Of tying sashes, fitting babv-shoes. 
 
fT? 
 
 AURORA LEIGH, 
 
 And stringing pretty words that make no sense, 
 
 And liissing full sense into empty words; 
 
 Whicli things are corals to cut life upon, 
 
 Although such trifles: children learn by such, 
 
 Love's huly earnest in a pretty play, 
 
 And get not over-early solemnised, 
 
 But seeing, as in a rose-bush. Love's Divue, 
 
 Which burns and hurts not, — not a single bloom,— 
 
 fJecome aware and unafraid, of Love. 
 
 Such good do mothers. Fathers love as well 
 
 — Mine did, I know, — but still with heavier brainf^ 
 
 And wills more consciously responsible. 
 
 And not as wisely, sincejess Joolisbly ; 
 
 So mothers have God's licence to be missed. 
 
 My father was an austere Englishman, 
 
 Who, after a dry life- time spent at home 
 
 In college-learning, law, and parish talk, 
 
 Was flooded with a passion unaware, 
 
 His wholej)rovi sioned and comp lacent past 
 
 Drowned outJiwnJhim^Uia^^ As he stood 
 
 In Florence, where he had come to spend a month 
 
 And note the secret of Da Vinci's drains. 
 
 He musing somewhat absently perhaps 
 
 Some English question . . whether men snould pay 
 
 The unpopular but necessary tax 
 
 With left or right hand — in the alien sun 
 
 fn that great square of the Santissima, 
 
 There drifted past him (scarcely marked enough 
 
 T-) move his comfortable island-scorn,) 
 
 A train of priestly banners, cross and psalm, 
 
 ITie white- veiled rose-crowned maidens holding up 
 
 Tall tapers, weighty for such wrists, aslant 
 
i AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To the blue luminous tremor of the air, 
 And letting drop the white wax as they 'w ent 
 To eat the bishop's wafer at the church ; 
 From which long trail of chanting priests and giili 
 A face flashed like a cymbal on his face, 
 And shool^ with silent clangour brain and heart, 
 Transfiguring him to music. Thus, even thus, 
 file too received his sacramental gift 
 With eucharistic meanings ; for he loved. 
 
 And thus beloved, she died. I've heard it said . 
 
 That but to see him in the first surprise 
 
 Of widower and father, nursing me, 
 
 I'nmothered little child of four years old. 
 
 His large man's hands afraid to touch my curls, 
 
 As if the gold would tarnish, — his grave lips 
 
 Contriving such a miserable smile. 
 
 As if he knew needs must, or I should die, 
 
 And yet 'twas hard, — would almost make the stones 
 
 Cry out for pity. There's a verse he set 
 
 In Santa Croce to her memory, 
 
 ' Weep for an infant too young to weep much 
 
 When death removed this mother' — stops the mir b 
 
 To-day on women's faces when they walk 
 
 With rosy children hanging on their gowns, 
 
 Under tlie cloister to escape the sun 
 
 Thp<- sccrches in the piazza. After whicn 
 
 lid lefl our Florence and made haste to hide 
 
 Himself, his prattling child, and silent grief, 
 
 Among the mountains above Pelago ; 
 
 Because unmothered babes, he thought, had need 
 
 Of mother nature more than others use, 
 
 A ^d Pan's white goat«, with udders warm and fuD 
 
ATTRuRA LEiGH. I 
 
 Of mystic contemplations, come to fved 
 Poor milkless lips of orphans liko Jiin own- 
 Such scholar-scraps he talked, I've heard from friends 
 
 .For even prosaic men, who weai grief long, 
 
 J Will get to wear it as a hat aside 
 
 lyV lib. a flower stuck in't. Father, then, and child, 
 We lived among the mountains many years, 
 God's silence on the outside of the house, 
 And we, who did not speak too loud within ; 
 And old Assunta to make up the fire. 
 Crossing herself whene'er a sudden flame 
 Which lightened from the firewood, made alive 
 That picture of my mother on the wall. 
 Tlie painter drew it after she was dead ; 
 And when the face was finished, throat and hands, 
 Her cameriera carried him, in hate 
 Of the English-fashioned shroud, the last brocade 
 She dressed in at the Pitti. ' He should paint 
 No sadder thing than that,' she swore, ' to wrong 
 Her poor signora.' Therefore very strange 
 The eflTect was. I, a little child, would crouch 
 For hours upon the floor with knees drawn up, 
 And gaze across them, half in terror, half 
 In adoration, at the picture there,-' 
 That swan-like supernatural white life, 
 J ust sailing upward from the red stifl" silk 
 Which seemed to have no part in it, nor powQi 
 To keep it from quite breaking out of bounds ; 
 For hours I sate and stared, Assunta's awQ 
 And my poor father's melancholy eyes 
 Still pointed thftt w^vy. That way, went my thoughts 
 When wfti^cleTing beyond sight. And as I grew 
 In Y«ii\^^, I mixed, confused, unconsciously, 
 
6 A UJIURA LEIGH. 
 
 Whatev^er I last read or heard or dreamed, 
 
 Abhorrent, admirable, beautiful, 
 
 Psthetieal, or ghastly, or grotesque, 
 
 With still that face . . . which did not therefore 
 
 change. 
 But kept the mystic level of all forms 
 And fears and admirations; was by turns 
 Ghost, fiend, and angel, fairy, witch, and sprite, 
 A dauntless Muse who eyes a dreadfiil Fate, 
 A loving Psyche who loses sight of Love, 
 A still Medusa, with mild milky brows 
 All curdled and all clothed upon with snakes 
 Whose slime falls fast as sweat will ; or, anon, 
 Our Lady of the Passion, stabbed with swords 
 Where the Babe suckeu , r. Lamia in, her first 
 Moonlighted pallor, ere she shrunk and blinked. 
 And, shuddering, wriggled down to the unclean , 
 Or, my own mother, leaving her last smile 
 In her last kiss, upon the baby-mouth 
 My father pushed down on the bed for that,— 
 Or my dead mother, without smile or kiss. 
 Buried at Florence. All which images. 
 Concentred on the picture, glassed themselves 
 Before my meditative childhood, . . as 
 The incoherencies of change and death 
 Are represented fully, mixed and merged. 
 In the smooth fair mystery of perpetual Life. 
 
 And while I stared away my childish wits 
 Upon my mother's picture, (ah, poor child !) 
 My father, who through love had suddenly 
 Thrown off the old conventions, broken loose 
 From chin-bands of the soul, like Lazarus, 
 
AUROKA LEIGH. 1 
 
 Yet had no time to learn to talk and walk 
 Or sjrow anew familiar with the sun, — 
 Who had reached to freedom, not to action, lived, 
 Hut lived as one entranced, with thoughts, not aims,— 
 Whom love had unmade from a common ntan 
 [Jut not completed to an uncommon man, — 
 My father taught me what he had learnt the best 
 Before he died and left me, — grief and love. 
 And, seeing we had books among the hills. 
 Strong words of counselling souls confederate 
 With vocal pines and waters, — out of books 
 lie taught me all the ignorance of men. 
 And how God laughs in heaven when any man 
 Says ' Here I'm learned ; this, 1 understand ; 
 In that, I am never caught at fault or doubt.' 
 lie sent the schools to school, demonstrating 
 A fool will pass for such through one mistake, 
 While a philosopher will pass for such. 
 Through said mistakes being ventured in the grcsa 
 And heaped up to a system. 
 
 I am like. 
 They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows 
 Ilowbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth 
 Of delicate features, — paler, near as grave ; 
 But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole. 
 And makes it better sometimes than itself. 
 
 So, nine full years, our days were hid wnth God 
 Among his mountains. I was just thirteen, 
 Still growing like the plants from unseen roots 
 In tongue-tied Springs, — and suddenly awoke 
 To full life and life's needs and agonies, 
 NNith an intense, strong, struggling heart beside 
 
-« AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 A stone-dead father./ Life, struck sha>^p oi; death, 
 Makes awful lightnmg.l His las<- word was, 
 
 ' Love—-' J 
 
 Love, my child, love, love !' — (then he had done 
 
 with grief) 
 Love, my child.' Ere I answered he wa? gone, 
 And none was left to love in all the world- 
 There, ended childhood : what succeeded next 
 I recollect as, after fevers, men 
 Thread back the passage of delirium. 
 Missing the turn still, baffled by the door; 
 Smooth endless days, notched here and there with 
 
 knives ; 
 A weary, wormy darkness, spurred i' the flank 
 With flame, that it should eat and end itself 
 Like some tormented scorpion. Then, at last, 
 I do remember clearly, how there came 
 A stranger with authority, not right, 
 (I thought not) who commanded, caught me up • 
 From old Assunta's neck ; how, with a shriek, 
 She let me go, — while I, with ears too full 
 Of my father's silence, to shriek back a word, 
 In all a child's astonishment at grief 
 Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood and moaned, 
 My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned ! 
 
 ("^The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy, 
 Drawn backward from the shuddering steamer-dec.?, 
 Like one in anger drawing back her skirts 
 Which suppliants catch at. Then the bitter sea 
 i Inexorably pushed between us both, 
 f And sweeping up the ship with my despair 
 I Threw us out as a pasture to the stars. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. • 
 
 Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep; 
 
 Ten nights and days without the common face 
 
 Of any day or night; the moon an\l sun 
 
 Cut off from the green reconciling earth, 
 
 To starve into a blind ferocity 
 
 And glare unnatural ; the very sky 
 
 (Dropping its bell-net dov.^n upon the sea 
 
 As if no human heart should 'scape alive,) 
 
 bedraggled with the desolating salt, 
 
 Until it seemed no more that holy heaven 
 
 To which my father went. All new, and strango — 
 
 The universe turned stranger, for a child. 
 
 Then, land ! — then, England ! oh, the frosty cliffs 
 Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home 
 Among those mean red houses through the fog ? 
 And when I heard my father's language first 
 From alien lips which had no kiss for mine, 
 I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept, 
 And some one near me said the child was mad 
 Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on. 
 Was this my father's England 1 the great isle 1 
 ITie ground seemed cut up from the fellowship 
 Of verdure, field from field, as man from man ; 
 The skies themselves looked low and positive, 
 As almost you could touch them with a hand. 
 And dared to do it they were so far off 
 From God's celestial crystals ; all things blurred 
 And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates 
 Absorb the light here ? — not a hill or stone 
 With heart to strike a radiant colour up 
 Or active outline on the indifferent air ! 
 
 I think I see my flither's sister stand 
 
10 A UKO 11 A LEI OH 
 
 Upon the hall-step of her country-house 
 
 To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm, 
 
 Fler somewhat narrow forehead braided tight 
 
 As if for taming accidental thoughts 
 
 From possible pulses ; brown hair pricked with graj 
 
 By frigid use of life, (she was not old 
 
 Although my father's elder by a year) 
 
 A nose drawn sharply, yet in delicate lines ; 
 
 A close mild mouth, a little soured about 
 
 The ends, through speaking unrequited loves. 
 
 Or peradventure niggardly half-truths ; 
 
 Eyes of no colour, — once they might have smiled 
 
 But never, never have forgot themselves 
 
 In smiling ;rcheeks in which was yet a rose 
 
 Of perished summers, like a rose in a book, 
 
 Kept more for ruth than pleasure, — if past bloon*. 
 
 Past fading also. J 
 
 She had lived, we'll say, 
 A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, 
 A quiet life, which was not life at all, 
 (But that, she had not lived enough to know) 
 Between the vicar and the county squires, 
 The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes 
 From the empyrean to assure their souls 
 Against chance vulgarisms, and, in the abyss. 
 The apothecary looked on once a year, 
 To prove their soundness of humility. 
 The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts 
 Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats, 
 Because we are of one flesh after all 
 .\nd need one flannel, (with a proper sense 
 Of difference in the quality) — and still 
 The book- club, guarded from your modem tricM 
 
AURORA LEIGH. U 
 
 Of shaking dangerous questions from tne crease, 
 Preserved her intellectual. She had lived 
 A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage, 
 Accounting that to leap from perch to perch 
 Was act and joy enough for any bird. 
 Dear heaven, how silly are the things that live 
 In thickets, and eat berries ! 
 
 I, alas, 
 A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her 
 
 cage, 
 And she was there to meet me. ( Very kind, 
 i Bring the clean water ; give out the fresh seed. 
 
 She stood upon the steps to welcome me, 
 
 Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck, — 
 
 Young babes, who catch at every shred of wool 
 
 To draw the new light closer, catch and cling 
 
 Less blindly. In my ears, my father's word 
 
 Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells, 
 
 * Love, love, my child.' She, black there with my 
 
 grief. 
 Might feel my love — she was his sister once — 
 I clung to her. A moment she seemed moved, 
 Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling. 
 And drew me feebly through the hall into 
 The room she sate in. 
 
 There, with some strange spasm 
 Of pain and passion, she wrung loose my hands 
 Imperiously, and held me at arm's length, 
 I And with two^^ra^ste^ljiaked^bladed^^ 
 ( Searched through my face,— ay, stabbed it througi 
 Vw and through. 
 Through brows and cheeks and chin, as if to find 
 
12 AURORA LElGl^ 
 
 A wicked murderer in my innocent f*ac« , 
 
 If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing l)reatH, 
 
 She struggled for her ordinary calm. 
 
 And missed it rather, — told me not to shrink, 
 
 As if she had told me not to lie or swear, — 
 
 * She loved my father and would love me too 
 
 As long as I deserved it.' Very kind. 
 
 I understood her meaning afterward ; 
 She thought to find my mother in my face, 
 And questioned it for that. For she, my aunt, 
 Had loved my father truly, as she could, 
 /And hated, with the gall of gentle souls j 
 My Tuscan mother who had fooled away 
 A wise man from wise courses, a good man 
 From obvious duties, and, depriving her. 
 His sister, of the household precedence. 
 Had wronged his tenants, robbed his native land, 
 And made him mad, alike by life and death. 
 In love and sorrow. She had pored for years 
 What sort of woman could be suitable 
 To her sort of hate, to entertain it with ; 
 And so, her very curiosity 
 Became hate too, and all the idealism 
 She ever used in life, was used for hate, 
 Till hate, so nourished, did exceed at last 
 The love from which it grew, in strength and heat, 
 And wrinkled her smooth conscience w'th a sense 
 Of disputable virtue (say not, sin) 
 When Christian doctrine was enforced at church. 
 
 And thus my father's sister was to me 
 
 My mother's hater. From that day^ she di<? 
 
AURORA LEIGH. It 
 
 Her duty to me, (I appreciate it 
 
 In her own word as spoken to herself) 
 
 Her duty, in large measure, well-pressed out, 
 
 But measured always. She was generous, blanc^ 
 
 More courteous than was tender, gave me still 
 
 The first place, — as if fearful that God's saints 
 
 Would look down suddenly and say, ' Herein 
 
 tXou missed a point, I think, through lack of love.* 
 Alas, a mother never is afraid 
 Of speaking angerly to any child, 
 Since love, she knows, is justified of love. 
 
 And 1, I was a good child on the whole, 
 A meek and manageable child. Why not ? 
 I did not live, to have the faults of life : 
 There seemed more true life in my father's grave 
 Than in all England. Since that threw me off 
 Who fain would cleave, (his latest will, they say, 
 Consigned me to his land) 1 only thought 
 , Of lying quiet there where I was thrown 
 Like sea- weed on the rocks, and suffering her 
 To prick me to a pattern with her pin. 
 Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf. 
 And dry out fVom my drowned anatomy 
 The last searsalt left in me. 
 
 So it was. 
 
 I broke the copious curls upon my head 
 In braids, because she liked smooth-ordered hair. 
 I left off saying my sweet Tuscan words 
 ^ Which still at any stirring of the heart 
 . Came up to float across the English phrase, 
 S As lilies, {^Bcne . . or che die) because 
 t She liked my father's diild to speak his tongue. 
 3 
 
14 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I learnt the collects and the catechism, 
 
 The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice, 
 
 The Articles . . the Tracts against the tin en, 
 
 (By no means Buonaventure's ' Prick of Love,') 
 
 And various popular synopses of 
 
 Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, 
 
 Because she liked instructed piety. 
 
 I learnt my complement of classic French 
 
 (Kept pure of Balzac and neologism,) 
 
 And German also, since she liked a range 
 
 Of liberal education, — tongues, not books. 
 
 I learnt a little algebra, a little 
 
 Of the mathematics,-^brushed with extreme flounce 
 
 The circle of the sciences, because 
 
 She misliked women who are frivolous, 
 
 I learnt the royal genealogies 
 
 Of Oviedo, the internal laws 
 
 Of the Burmese empire, . . by how many feet 
 
 Mount Chimborazo outsoars Teneriffe, 
 
 What navigable river joins itself 
 
 To Lara, and what census of the year five 
 
 Was taken at Klagenfurt, — because she liked 
 
 A general insight into useful facts. 
 
 I learnt much music, — such as would have been 
 
 As quite impossible in Johnson's day 
 
 As still it might be wisl^ed — fine sleights of hand 
 
 And unimagined fingering, shuffling off 
 
 The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes 
 
 To a noisy Tophet ; and I drew . . costumes 
 
 From French engravings, nereids neatly draped, 
 
 With smirks of simmering godship, — I washed in 
 
 Landscapes from nature (rather say, washed out.) 
 
 I danced the polka and Cellarius, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. If 
 
 Spun glaris, stuffed bij-ds, and modelled flowois in 
 
 wax, 
 Because she liked accomplishments in giris. 
 I read a score of books on womanhood 
 To prove, if women do not think at all, 
 They may teach thinking, (to a maiden-aunt 
 Or else the author) — books that boldly assert 
 Their right of comprehending husband's talk 
 When not too deep, and even of answering 
 With pretty ' may it please you,' or ' so it is, — 
 Their rapid insight and fine aptitude, 
 Particular worth and general missionariness, 
 As long as they keep quiet by the fire 
 And never say ' no' when the world says ' ay,* 
 For that is fatal, — their angelic reach 
 Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn, 
 And fatten household sinners, — their, in brief, 
 Potential faculty in everything 
 Of abdicating power in it : she owned 
 She liked a woman to be womanly. 
 And English women, she thanked God and sighed, 
 (Some people always sigh in thanking God) S 
 Were models to the universe. And last ) 
 I learnt cross-stitch, because she did not like 
 To see me wear the night with empty hands, 
 A-doing nothing. So, my shepherdess 
 Was something after all, (the pastoral saints 
 Be praised for't) leaning lovelorn with pink eyes 
 To match her shoos, when I mistook the silks ; 
 Her head uncrushed by. that round weight of hat 
 Bo strangely similar to the tortoise-shell 
 Wh^h slew the tragic poet. 
 
 By the way. 
 
16 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The works of women are symbolical. 
 
 We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight. 
 
 Producing what ? A pair of slippers, sir. 
 
 To put on when you're weary — or a stool 
 
 To tumble over and vex you . . * curse that stool !' 
 
 Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean 
 
 And sleep, and dream^ofsomething we^rejiot, 
 
 But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! 
 
 This hurts most, this . . that, after all, we are paid 
 
 The worth of our work, perhaps. 
 
 In looking down 
 Those years of education, (to return) 
 I wonder if Brinvilliers suffered more 
 In the water torture, . . flood succeeding flood 
 To drench the incapable throat and split the veins , , 
 Than I did. Certain of your feebler souls 
 Go out in such a process ; many pine 
 To a sick, inodorous light ; my own endured : 
 I had relations in the Unseen, and drew 
 The elemental nutriment and heat 
 From nature, as earth feels the sun at nights, 
 Or as a babe sucks surely in the dark, 
 I kept the life thrust on me, on the outside 
 Of the inner life with all its ample room 
 For heart and lungs, for will and intellect. 
 Inviolable by conventions. God, 
 I thank thee for that grace of thine ! 
 
 At first, 
 I felt no life which was not patience, — did 
 The thing she bade me, without heed to a thing 
 Beyond it, sate in just the chair she placed. 
 With back against the window, to exclude 
 The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawa, 
 
AURORA LEIGH 11 
 
 Which seemed to have come on purpose from the 
 
 woods 
 To bring the house a message, — ay, and walked 
 Demurely in her carpeted low rooms, 
 As if I should not, harkening my own steps, 
 Misdoubt I was alive. 1 read her bocks, 
 Was civil to her cousin, Romney Leigh, 
 Gave ear to her vicar, tea to her visitors,. 
 And heard them whisper, when I changed a cup 
 (I blushed for joy at that) — 'The Italian child. 
 For all her blue eyes and her quiet ways, 
 TTirives ill in England ; she is palei yet 
 Than when we came the last time ; she will die." 
 
 * Will die.' My cousin, Romney Leigh, blushed tooj 
 
 With sudden anger, and approaching m^ 
 
 Said low between his teeth — ' You're wicked nov 1 
 
 You wish to die and leave the world a-dusk 
 
 For others, with your naughty light blown out V 
 
 I looked into his face defyingly. 
 
 He might have known that, being what I was, 
 
 'Tw as natural to like to get away 
 
 As far as dead folk can ; and then indeed 
 
 Some people make no trouble when they die. 
 
 He turned and went abruptly, slammed the door 
 
 And shut his dog out. 
 
 Romney, Romney Leigh. 
 I have not named my cousin hitherto. 
 And yet I used him as a sort of friend ; 
 My elder by few years, but cold and shy 
 And absent . . tender when he thought of it, 
 Which scarcely was imperative, grave betimes, 
 As well as early master ( f Leigh Hall, 
 
 2* p 
 
[8 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Whereof the nightmare sate upon his youth 
 
 Repressing all its seasonable delights, 
 
 And agonising with a ghastly sense 
 
 Of universal hideous want and wrong 
 
 To incriminate possession. When he came 
 
 From college to the country, very oft 
 
 He crossed the hill on visits to my aunt, 
 
 With gifts of blue grapes from the hothouses, 
 
 A book in one hand, — mere statistics, (if 
 
 1 chanced to lift the cover) count of all 
 
 The goats whose beards grow sprouting down toward 
 
 hell, 
 Against God's separative judgment-hour. 
 And she, she almost loved him, — even allowed 
 That sometimes he should seem to sigh my way ', 
 It made him easier to be pitiful, 
 And sighing was his gift. So, undisturbed 
 At whiles she let him shut my music up 
 And push my needles down, and lead me out 
 To see in that south angle of the house 
 The figs grow black as if by a Tuscan rock. 
 On some light pretext. She would turn her head 
 At other moments, go to fetch a thing, 
 And leave me breath enough to speak with him, 
 For his sake ; it was simple. 
 
 Sometimes too 
 He would have saved me utterly, it seemed, 
 lie stood and looked so. 
 
 Once, he stood so near 
 He dropped a sudden hand upon my head 
 Bent down on woman's work, as soft as rain — 
 But then 1 rose and shook it off as fire. 
 The stranger's touch that took my father's place 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 19 
 
 Yet dared seem soft. 
 
 I used him for a fi*iend 
 Before I ever Jaiew him for a friend. 
 'Twas better, 'twas worse also, afterward : 
 We came so close, we saw our differences ) 
 Too intimately. Always Romney Leigh 
 Was looking for the worms, I for the gods. 
 A godlike nature his ; the gods look down, 
 Incurious of themselves ; and certainly 
 'Tis well I should remember, how, those days, 
 I was a worm too, and he looked on me. 
 
 A little by his act perhaps, yet more 
 By something in me, surely not my will, 
 I did not die. But slowly, as one in swoon. 
 To whom life creeps back in the form of death, 
 With a sense of separation, a blind pain 
 Of blank obstruction, and a roar i' the ears 
 Of visionary chariots which retreat 
 As earth grows clearer . . slowly, by degrees, 
 I woke, rose up . . where was 11 in the world ; 
 For uses therefore I must count worth while. 
 
 I had a little chamber in the house, 
 
 As green as any privet-hedge a bird 
 
 Might choose to build in, though the nest itself 
 
 Could show but dead-brown sticks and straws ; the 
 
 walls 
 Were green, the carpet was pure green, the straight 
 Small bed was curtained greenly, and the folds 
 Hung green about the wmdow, which let in 
 The out-door world with all its greenery. 
 You could not push your head out and escape 
 
90 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle, 
 But so you were baptised into the grace 
 And privilege of seeing. . . 
 
 First, the lime, 
 (1 had enough, there, of the lime, be sure, — 
 My morning-dream was often hummed away 
 By the bees in it ;) past the lime, the lawn. 
 Which, after sweeping broadly round the house, 
 Went trickling through the shrubberies in a stream 
 Of tender turf, and wore and lost itself 
 Among the acacias, over which, you saw 
 The irregular line of elms by the deep lane 
 Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow 
 Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight 
 The lane was : sunk so deep, no foreign tramp 
 Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales 
 Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge 
 Dispensed such odours, — though his stick well- 
 
 crooked 
 Might reach the lowest trail of blossoming briar 
 Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms, 
 And through their tops, you saw the folded hills 
 Striped up and dowai with hedges, (burly oaks 
 Projecting from the line to show themselves) 
 Through which my cousin Romney's chimneys smoked 
 As still as when a silent mouth in frost 
 Breathes — showing where the woodlands hid Lcigb 
 
 Hall ; 
 While, far above, a jut of table-land, 
 A promontory without water, stretched, — 
 You could not catch it if the days were tTiick, 
 Or took it for a cloud ; but, otherwise 
 The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve 
 
AURORA LEIGH. >l 
 
 And use it for an anvil till he had filled 
 
 The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts, 
 
 I'rotesting against night and darkness: — then, 
 
 When all his setting trouble was resolved 
 
 To a trance of passive glory, you might see 
 
 In apparition on the golden sky 
 
 (Alas, my Giotto's background !) the sheep run 
 
 Along the fine clear outline, small as mice 
 
 That run along a witch's scarlet thread. 
 
 Not a grand nature. Not my chesnut-woods 
 Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs 
 To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps 
 Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear 
 In leaping through the palpitatiirg pines. 
 Like a white soul tossed out to eternity 
 With thrills of time upon it. Not indeed 
 My multitudinous mountains, sitting in 
 The magic circle, with the mutual touch 
 Electric, panting from their full deep hearts 
 Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for 
 Communion and commission. Italy 
 Is one thing, England one. 
 
 On English ground 
 You understand the letter . . ere the fall 
 How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields 
 A re tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 
 The hills are crumpled plains,— the plains parterres, 
 The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped; 
 And if you seek for any wilderness 
 You find, at best, a park. A nature tamed 
 And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, 
 Which does not awe you with its :>laws and beak. 
 
St AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up, 
 But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of 
 Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pauM 
 Of finer meditation. 
 
 Rather say, 
 A sweet familiar nature, stealing in 
 As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand 
 Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so 
 Of presence and affection, excellent 
 For inner uses, from the things without. 
 
 I could not be unthankful, I who was 
 
 Entreated thus and holpen. In the room 
 
 I speak of, ere the house was well awake. 
 
 And also after It was well asleep, 
 
 I sat alone, and drew the blessing in 
 
 Of all that nature. With a gradual step, 
 
 A stir among the leaves, a breath, a ray, 
 
 It came in softly, while the angels made 
 
 A place for it beside me. The moon came. 
 
 And swept my chamber clean of fooli^ though 'a 
 
 The sun came, saying, ' Shall I lift this light 
 
 Against the lime-tree, and you will not look ? 
 
 I make the birds sing — listen ! . . but, for you, 
 
 God never hears your voice, excepting when 
 
 You lie upon the bed at nights and weep.' 
 
 Then, something moved me. Then, I wakened up 
 More slowly than I verily write now. 
 But wholly, at last, I wakened, opened wide 
 The window and my soul, and let the airs 
 And out-door sights sweep gradual gospels In, 
 Regenerating what I was. Life, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. It 
 
 How oft we tkrow it ofT and think,—' Enough, 
 Enough of life in so much ! — here's a cause 
 For rupture ; — herein we must break with Life, 
 Or be ourselves unworthy ; here we are wronged, 
 Maimed, spoiled for aspiration : farewell Life !' 
 —And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes 
 And think all ended.— Then, Life calls to ti« 
 In some transformed, apocalyptic voice, 
 Above us, or below us, or around : 
 Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, 
 Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed i» 
 To own our compensations than our griefs : • - 
 Still, Life's voice ! — still, we make our peace with 
 Life. 
 
 And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon 
 
 I used to get up early, just to sit 
 
 And watch the morning quicken in the gray, 
 
 And hear the silence open like a flower. 
 
 Leaf after leaf, — and stroke with listless hand 
 
 The woodbine through the window, till at last 
 
 [ came to do it with a sort of love, 
 
 At foolish unaware : whereat I smiled, — 
 
 A melancholy smile, to catch myself 
 
 Smiling for joy. 
 
 Capacity for joy 
 Admits temptation. It seemed, next, worth while 
 To dodge the sharp sword set against my life ; 
 To slip down stairs through all the sleepy house, 
 As mute as any dream there, and escape 
 As a soul from the body, out of doors. 
 Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lano, 
 And wander on the hills an hour or two, 
 
«4 AUROEA LEIGH. 
 
 "Then Lack again before the house should stir. 
 
 Or else I sat on in my chamber green, 
 
 And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and 
 
 prayed 
 My prayers without the vicar ; read my books, 
 Without considering whether they were fit 
 To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book. 
 And calculating profits . . so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 
 
 I read much. What my father taught before 
 
 From many a volume. Love re-emphasised 
 
 Upon the self-same pages : Theophrast 
 
 Grew tender with the memory of his eyes. 
 
 And iElian made mine wet. The trick of Greek 
 
 And Latin, he had taught me, as he would 
 
 Have taught me wrestling or the game of fives 
 
 If such he had known, — most like a shipwrecked man 
 
 Who heaps his single platter with goats' cheese 
 
 And scarlet berries ; or like any man 
 
 Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, 
 
 Because he has it, rather than because 
 
 He counts it worthy. Thus, my father gave ; 
 
 And thus, as did the women formerly 
 
 By young Achilles, when they pinned the veil 
 
 Aci'OftS the boy's audacious front, and swept 
 
 With tuneful laughs the silver-fretted rocks. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. M 
 
 He wrapt his little daughter in his large 
 Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no. 
 
 But, after I had read for memory, 
 
 I read for hope. The path my father's foot 
 
 Had trod me out, which suddenly broke off, 
 
 (What time he dropped the wallet of the flesh 
 
 And passed) alone I carried on, and set 
 
 My child-heart 'gainst the thorny underwood, 
 
 To reach the grassy shelter of the trees. 
 
 Ah, babe i' the wood, without a brother-babe ! 
 
 My own self-pity,. like the red-breast bird, 
 
 Flies back to cover all that past with leaves. 
 
 Subiimest danger, over which none weeps, 
 When any young wayfaring soul goes forth 
 Alone, unconscious of the perilous road. 
 The day -sun dazzling in his limpid eyes. 
 To thrust his own way, he an alien, thrc igh 
 The world of books ! Ah, you ! — you think it fine^ 
 You clap hands—' A fair day !'— you cheer him on^ 
 As if the worst, could happen, were to rest 
 Too long beside a fountain. Yet, behold. 
 Behold !— the world of books is still the world ; 
 And worldlings in it are less merciful 
 And more puissant. For the wicked there 
 Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes, 
 Is edged from elemental fire to assail 
 A spiritual life. The beautiful seems right 
 By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong 
 Because of weakness. Power is justified. 
 Though armed against St. Michael. Many a crown 
 Covers bald foreheads. In the book-world, true, 
 3 
 
M AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kmgs, 
 
 That shake the ashes of the grave aside 
 
 From their calm locks, and undiscomfited 
 
 Look stedfast truths against Time's changing mask. 
 
 True, many a prophet teaches in the roads; 
 
 True, many a seer pulls down the flaming heavens 
 
 Upon his own head in strong martyrdom, 
 
 In order to light men a moment's space. 
 
 But stay ! — who judges ? — who distinguishes 
 
 'Twixt Saul and Nahash justly, at first sight, 
 
 And leaves king Saul precisely at the sin, 
 
 To serve king David 1 who discerns at once 
 
 The sound of the trumpets, when the trumpets blow 
 
 For Alaric as well as Charlemagne 1 
 
 Who judges wizards, and can tell true seers 
 
 From conjurors? The child, there? Would yoa 
 
 leave 
 That child to wander in a battle-field 
 And push his innocent smile against the guns f 
 Or even in a catacomb. . . his torch 
 Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all 
 The dark a-mutter round him ? not a child. 
 
 I read books bad and good — some bad and good 
 At once : (good aims not always make good books ; 
 Well tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils 
 In digging vineyards, even) books, that prove 
 God's being so definitely, that man's doubt 
 Grows self-defined the other side the line, 
 Made Atheist by suggestion ; moral books, 
 Exasperating to license ; genkil books, 
 Discounting from the human dignity ; 
 And merry books, which set you weeping when 
 
A U R R .1 L E I G H 21 
 
 llie sun shines, — ay, and melancholy books, 
 Which make you laugh that any one should weep 
 In this disjointed life for one wrong more. 
 
 The world of books is still the world, I wr>e, 
 And both worlds have God's providence, thank God 
 To keep and hearten : with some struggle, indeed, 
 Among the breakers, some hard swimming througt 
 The deeps — I lost breath in ray soul sometimes, 
 And cried, ' God save me if there's any God,' 
 But, even so, God saved me ; and being dashed 
 From error on to error, every turn 
 Still brought me nearer to the central truth. 
 
 I thought so. All this anguish in the thick 
 
 Of men's opinions . . press and counterpress, 
 
 Now up, now down, now underfoot, and now 
 
 Eniergent . . all the best of it, perhaps. 
 
 But throws you back upon a noble trust 
 
 And use of your own instinct, — merely proves 
 
 Pure reason stronger than bare inference 
 
 At sti'ongest. Try it, — fix against heaven's wall 
 
 Your scaling ladders of school logic — mount 
 
 Step by step ! — Sight goes faster ; that still ray 
 
 Which strikes out from you, how, you cannot teJl, 
 
 And why, you know not — (did you eliminate, 
 
 That such as you, indeed, should analyse ?) 
 
 Goes straight aiid fast as light, and high as God. 
 
 The cygnet finds the water ; but the man 
 Is born in ignorance of his element. 
 And feels out blind at first, disorganised 
 By sin i' the blood, — his spirit-insight dulled 
 
28 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And crossed by his sensations. Presently 
 He feels it quicken in the dark sometimes ; 
 When mark, be reverent, be obedient, — 
 i'or such dumb motions of imperfect life 
 Are oracles of vital Deity 
 Attesting the Hereafter. Let who says 
 ' The soul's a clean white paper,' rather say, 
 A palimpsest, a prophet's holograph 
 Defiled, erased and covered by a monk's, — 
 The apocalypse, by a Longus ! poring on 
 Which obscene text, we may discern perhaps 
 Some fair, fine trace of what was written once, 
 Some upstroke of an alpha and omega 
 Expressing the old scripture. 
 
 Books, books, books ! 
 I had found the secret of a garret-room 
 Piled high M'ith cases in my father's name ; 
 Piled high, packed large, — where, creeping m and out 
 Among the giant fossils of my past, 
 Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs 
 Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there 
 At this or that box, pulling through the gap, 
 In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, 
 The first book first. And how I felt it beat 
 Under my pillow, in the morning's dark, 
 A.n hour before the sun would let me read ! 
 My books ! 
 
 At last, because the time was ripe, 
 I chanced upon the poets. 
 
 As the earth 
 Plunges in fiiry, when the internal fires 
 Have reached and pricked her heart, and, throwing flaf 
 The marts and temples, the triumphal gates 
 
AURORA LEIGH. M 
 
 And to vers of observation, clears herself 
 
 To elemental freedom— thus, my soul, 
 
 At poetry's divine first finger touch, 
 
 Let go conventions and sprang up surprised. 
 
 Convicted of the great eternities 
 
 Before two worlds. 
 
 What's this, Aurora Leigh, 
 You write so of the poets, and not laugh 1 
 Those virtuous liars, dreamers after dark, 
 Exaggerators of the sun and moon, 
 And soothsayers in a tea^cup 1 
 
 I write so 
 Of the only truth-tellers, now left to God, 
 The only speakers of essential truth. 
 Opposed to relative, comparative, 
 And temporal truths ; the only holders by 
 His sun-skirts, through conventional grey gloomaj 
 The only teachers who instruct mankind, 
 From just a shadow on a charnel wall. 
 To find man's veritable stature out. 
 Erect, sublime, — the measure of a man. 
 And that's the measure of an angel, says 
 The apostle. Ay, and while your common men 
 Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine, 
 And dust the flaunty carpets of the world 
 For kings to walk on, or our president, ^ 
 The poet suddenly will catch them up 
 With his voice like a thunder . . ' This is soul, 
 This is life, this word is being said in heaven, 
 Here's God down on us ! what are you about V 
 How all those workers start amid their work, 
 Look round, look up, and feel, a moment's space, 
 That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade, 
 3* 
 
80 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Is not the imperative labour after all. 
 
 My own best poets, am 1 one with you, 
 
 That thus I love you, — or but one through love ? 
 
 Does all this smell of thyme about my feet 
 
 Conclude my visit to your holy hill 
 
 In personal presence, or but testify 
 
 The- rustling of your vesture through my dreams 
 
 With influent odours? When my joy*and pain, 
 
 My tliought and aspiration, like the stops 
 
 Of pipe or flute, are absolutely dumb 
 
 Unless melodious, do you play on me, 
 
 My pipers,— and if, sooth, you did not blow, 
 
 Would no sound come ? or is the music mine. 
 
 As a man's voice or breath is called his own, 
 
 Imbrcathed by the Life-breather ? There's a doubt 
 
 For cloudy seasons ! 
 
 But the sun was high 
 When first I felt my pulses set themselves 
 For concord ; when the rhythmic turbulence 
 Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, 
 As wind upon the alders, blanching them 
 By turning up their under-natures till 
 They trembled in dilation. O delight 
 And triumph of the poet, — who would say 
 A man's mere ' yes,' a woman's common ' no,' 
 A little human hope of that or this. 
 And says the word so that it burns you through 
 With a special revelation, shakes the heart 
 Of all the men and women in the world, 
 As if one came back from the dead and sp i>ke, 
 With eyes too happy, a familiar thing 
 Become divine i' the utterance ! while for him 
 
AUROPwA LEIGH. SI 
 
 The poet, speaker, he expands with joy ; 
 
 The palpitating angel in his flesh 
 
 Thrills inly with consenting fellowship 
 
 To those innumerous spirits who sun themselve« 
 
 Outside of time. 
 
 O life, O poetry, 
 — Which means life in life ! cognisant of life 
 Beyond this blood-beat, — passionate for truth 
 Beyond these senses, — poetry, my life, 
 My eagle, with both grappling feet still hot 
 From Zeus's thunder, who has ravished me 
 Away from all the shepherds, sheep, and dogs^ 
 And set me in the Olympian roar and round 
 Of luminous faces, for a cup-bearer, 
 To keep the mouths of all the godheads moia?' 
 For everlasting laughters, — 1, myself 
 Half drunk across the beaker with their eyei' 
 How those gods look ! 
 
 Enough so, Ganymede. 
 We shall not bear above a round or two — 
 We drop the golden cup at Here's foot 
 And swoon back to the earth, — and find ourselves 
 Face-down among the pine-cones, cold with dew. 
 While the dogs bark, and many a shepherd scoffs, 
 * What's come now to the youth 1' Such ups and 
 
 downs 
 Have poets. 
 
 Am I such indeed 1 The name 
 Is royal, and to sign it like a queen, 
 Is what 1 dare not, — though some royal blood 
 Would seem to tingle in me now and then, 
 With sense of power and ache, — with impostbumei 
 Aiui manias usual to the race. Howbeit 
 
t2 A UK Oil A LEIGH. 
 
 i dare not : *tis too easy to go mad, 
 And ape a Bourbon in a cro\\Ti of straws ; 
 The thing's too common. 
 
 Many fervent souls 
 Strike rhyme on rhyme, who would strike steel ob 
 
 steel 
 If steel had offered, in a restless heat 
 Of doing something. Many tender souls 
 Have strung their losses on a rhyming thread. 
 As children, cowslips : — the more pains they take, 
 The work more withers. Young men, ay, and maids, 
 Too often sow their wild oats in taine verse, 
 Before they sit down under their own vine 
 And live for use. Alas, near all the birds 
 Will sing at dawn, — and yet we do not take 
 The chaffering swallow for the holy lark. 
 
 In those days, though, I never analysed, 
 
 Not even myself. Analysis coraes late. 
 
 You catch a sight of Nature, earliest, 
 
 In full front sun-face, and your eyelids wink 
 
 And drop before the wonder oft; you miss 
 
 The form, through seeing the light. I lived, thos« 
 
 And wrote because I lived — unlicensed else : 
 My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood 
 Abolished bounds, — and, which my neighbour's field, 
 Which mine, what mattered ? It is thus in youth 
 We play at leap-frog over the god Term ; 
 The love within us and the love without 
 Are mixed, confounded ; if we are loved or love, 
 We scarce distinguish : thus with other power; 
 Being acted on and acting seem the same : 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 81 
 
 [n that first onrush of life's chariot-wheels, 
 We know not if the forests move or wo. 
 
 And so, like most young poets, in a flush 
 Of individual life I poured myself 
 Along the veins of others, and achieved 
 Mere lifeless imitations of live verse, 
 And made the living answer for the dead. 
 Profaning nature. ' Touch not, do not taste, 
 Nor handle,' — we're too legal, who write young : 
 We beat the phorminx till we hurt our thumbs, 
 As if still ignorant of counterpoint ; 
 We call the Muse . . ' O Muse, bt lignant Mu^e V- 
 As if w^e had seen her purple-braided head 
 With the eyes in it, start between the boughs 
 As often as a stag's. What make-belie ve, 
 With so much earnest ! what effete results. 
 From virile efforts ! what cold wire-drawn odes, 
 From such white heats ! — bucolics, where the cov» 
 Would scare the writer if they splashed the mud 
 In lashing off the'flies, — didactics, driven 
 Against the heels of what the master said ; 
 And counterfeiting epics, shrill with trumps 
 A babe might blow between two straining cheeks 
 Of bubbled rose, to make his mother laugh ; 
 And elegiac griefs, and songs of love, 
 Like cast-off nosegays picked up on the road. 
 The worse for being warm : all these things, writ 
 On happy mornings, with a morning heart. 
 That leaps for love, is active for resolve. 
 Weak for art only. Oft, the ancient forms 
 Will thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood. 
 The wine-skins, now and then, a little warped, 
 
 
 
M AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in. 
 Spare the old bottles ! — spill not the new wine. 
 
 By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped 
 In gradual progress like another man, 
 But, turning grandly on his central self, 
 Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years 
 And died, not young, — (the life of a long life. 
 Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear 
 Upon the world's cold check to make it burn 
 For ever ;) by that strong excepted soul, 
 I count it strange, and hard to understand 
 That nearly all young poets should write old ; 
 That Pope was sexagenary at sixteen, 
 And beardless Byron academical, 
 And so with others. It may be, perkaps, 
 Such have not settled long and deep enough 
 In trance, to attain to clairvoyance,— and still 
 The memory mixes with the vision, spoils, 
 And works it turbid. 
 
 Or perhaps, again 
 In order to discover the Muse-Sphhix, 
 The melancholy desert must sweep round, 
 Behind you as before. — 
 
 For me, I wrote 
 False poems, like the rest, and thought them tr je. 
 Because myself was true in writing them. 
 I peradventure have writ true one;} smce 
 With less complacence. 
 
 But I could not hide 
 My quickening mner life from those at watch. 
 They saw a light at a window now and then, 
 They had not set there. Who had set it there ? 
 
AURORA LEIGH. St 
 
 My fathcr*s sister started when she caujrht 
 
 My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say 
 
 I had no business with a sort of soul, 
 
 But plainly she objected, — and demurred 
 
 That souls were dangerous things to carry straight 
 
 Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world. 
 
 She said sometimes, * Aurora, have you done 
 
 Your task this morning ? — have you read that book ] 
 
 And are you ready for the crochet here?' — 
 
 A.S if she said, 'I know there's something wrong; 
 
 { know I have not ground you down enough 
 
 To flatten and bake you to a wholesome crust 
 
 For household uses and proprieties, . 
 
 Before the rain has got into my barn » |J h^_, iL ^^ 
 
 And set the grains a-sprouting. What, you're green 
 
 With out-door impudence ? you almost gro-vviir "TT ( \ T 
 
 To which I answered, * Would she hear my tas\/ \^ JL 
 
 And verify my abstract of the book ? 
 
 Or should I sit down to the crochet work ? IS THE 
 
 Was such her pleasure V . . Then I sate and teased 
 
 Tlie patient needle till it spilt the thread, "Dllft P E F 
 
 Which oozed oflT from it in meandering lace * '■■•^ 
 
 From hour to hour. I was not, therefore, sad ; r^c T|-l£ 
 
 My soul was singing at a work apart 
 
 Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm 
 
 As sings the lark when sucked up out of sight,] 
 
 Li vortices of glory and blue air. 
 
 And so, through forced work and spontaneous work, 
 The inner life informed the outer life, 
 Reduced the irregular blood to settled rhythms, 
 Made cool the f<)reh(>ad with fresh-sprinkling dre<ima, 
 
 Sti 
 
M AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And, rounding to the spheric soul the thin 
 Pined body, struck a colour up the cheeks, 
 Though somewhat faint. I clenched my browa across 
 My blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass, 
 And said, * We'll live, Aurora ! we'll be strong. 
 The dogs are on us — but we will not die.' 
 
 Whoever lives true life, will love true love. 
 I learnt to love that England. Very oft, 
 Before the day was born, or otherwise 
 Through secret windings of the afternoons, 
 I threw- my hunters off and plunged myself 
 Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag 
 Will take the waters, shivering with the fear 
 And passion of the course. And when at last 
 Escaped, — so many a green slope built on slope 
 Betwixt me and the enemy's house behind, 
 I dared to rest, or wander, — in a rest 
 Made sweeter for the step upon the grass, — 
 And view the ground's most gentle dimplement, 
 (As if God's finger touched but did not press 
 In making England) such an up and down 
 Of verdure, — nothing too much up or down, 
 A ripple of land ; such little hills, the sky 
 Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields climb ; 
 Such nooks of valleys, lined with orchises, 
 Fed full of noises by invisible streams ; 
 And open pastures, where you scarcely tell 
 White daisies from white dew, — at intervals 
 The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out 
 Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade, — 
 I thought my father's land was worthy too 
 Of being my Shakspcare's. 
 
A U R O R A L E I G n $7 
 
 Very oft alone, 
 Unlicensed ; not unfrequcntly with leave 
 To walk the third with Romney and his friend 
 The rising painter, Vincent Carrington, 
 Whom men judge hardly as bee-bonneted, 
 Because ho holds that, paint a body well. 
 You paint a soul by implication, like 
 The grand first Master. Pleasant walks ! for If 
 He said . . ' W^hen I was last in Italy' . . 
 It sounded as an instrument that's played 
 Too far off for the tune — and yet it's fine 
 To listen, 
 
 Ofter we walked only two, 
 If cousin Romney pleased to walk with me. 
 We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced : 
 Wo were not lovers, nor ev6n friends well-matched - 
 Say rather, scholars upon diflerent tracKs, 
 And thinkers disagreed; he, overfull 
 Of what is, and I, haply, overbold 
 For what might be. 
 
 But then the thrushes sang, 
 And shook my pulses and the elms' new leaves, — 
 At which I tamed, and held my finger up, 
 And bade him mark that, howsoe'er the world 
 Went ill, as he related, certainly 
 The thrushes still sang in it. At the word 
 Ills brow woul4 soften, — and he bore with me 
 In melancholy patience^ not unkind, 
 While breaking into voluble ecstacy 
 I flattered all the beauteous country round. 
 All poets use . . the skies, the clouds, the fields, 
 The happy violets hiding from the roads 
 The primroses nm down to, carrying gold. 
 4 
 
iS AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out 
 Impatient horns and toierant churning mouths 
 Twixt dripping ash-boughs,~hedgerows all alive 
 With birds and gnats and large white butterflies 
 Which look as if the May-flower had caught life 
 And palpitated Forth upon the wind, 
 Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist, 
 Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills. 
 And cattle grazing in the watered vales. 
 And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods, 
 And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere. 
 Confused with smell of orchards. * See,' I said, 
 * And see ! is God not with us on the earth ? 
 And shall we put Him down by aught we do ? 
 Who says there's nothing for the poor and vile 
 Save poverty and wickedness? behold!' 
 And ankle-deep in English grass I leaped, 
 And clapped my hands, and called all very fair. 
 
 In the beginning when God called all good. 
 Even then was evil near us, it is writ. 
 But we indeed who call things good and feir, 
 Tlie evil is upon us while we speak ; 
 Deliver us from evil, let us pray. 
 
SECOND BOOK, 
 
 ^piMES followed one another. Came a morn 
 
 I stood upon the brink of twenty years, 
 And looked before and after, as I stood 
 Woman and artist, — either incomplete, 
 Both credulous of completion. There I held 
 llie whole creation in my little cup. 
 And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank 
 * Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine^ 
 And all these peoples.' 
 
 I was glad, that day ; 
 The June was in me, with its multitlides 
 Of nightingales all singing in the dark, 
 And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split. . 
 \ felt so young, so strong, so sure of God ! 
 So glad, I could not choose be very wise ! 
 And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull 
 My childhood backward in a childish jest 
 To see the face oft once more, and farewell ! 
 In which fantastic mood I bounded forth 
 At early morning, — would not*wait so long 
 As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings, 
 But, brushing a green trail across the lawn 
 With my gown in the dew, took will ar.d way 
 Among the acacias of the shrubberies, 
 
40 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To fly my fancies in the open air 
 
 And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke 
 
 To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I muromred on 
 
 As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves; 
 
 ' The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned 
 
 Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone, 
 
 And so with me it must be, unless I prove 
 
 Unworthy of the grand adversity. 
 
 And certainly I would not fail so much. 
 
 What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day 
 
 In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it, 
 
 Before my brows be numbed as Dante's own 
 
 To all the tender pricking of such leaves? 
 
 Such leaves ! what leaves V 
 
 I pulled tho branches down, 
 To choose from. 
 
 ' Not the bay ! I choose no bay ; 
 Tho fates deny us if we are overbold : 
 Nor myrtle — which means chiefly love ; and love 
 Is something awful which one dares not touch 
 So early o' mornings. This verbena strains 
 The point of passionate fragrance ; and hard by, 
 This guelder rose, at far too slight a. beck 
 Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples* 
 Ah — there's my choice, — that ivy on the wall. 
 That headlong ivy ! not a leaf will grow 
 But thinking of a wreath. Large leaves, smooth 
 
 leaves. 
 Serrated like my vines, and half as green. 
 I like such ivy ; bold to leap a height 
 'Twas strong to climb ! as good to grow on graves 
 As twist about a thyrsus ; pretty too, 
 (And that'.s not ill) when twisted round a comb.* 
 
AURORA LEIOH. 41 
 
 Thus speaking to myself, half singing It, 
 Because some thoughts are fashioned like a bell 
 To ring with once being touched, I drew a wreath 
 Drenched, blinding me with dew, across my brow 
 And fastening it behind so, . . turning faced 
 . . My public ! — cousin Romney — with a mouth 
 Twice graver thmi his eyes, 
 
 I stood there fixed — 
 My arms up, like the caryatid, sole 
 Of some abolished temple, helplessly 
 Persistent in a gesture which derides 
 A former purpose. Yet my blush was flame, 
 As if from flax, not stone. 
 
 'Aurora Leigh, 
 The earliest of Aurora's !' 
 
 Hand stretched out 
 I clasped, as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand, 
 Indiflerent to the sort of palm. The tide 
 Had caught me at my pastime, writing down 
 My foolish name too near upon the sea 
 Which drowned me with a blush as foolish. ' Yon, 
 My cousin !' 
 
 The smile died out in his eyes 
 And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead weight, 
 P'or just a moment . . ' Here's a book, I found ! 
 No name writ on it — poems, by the form ; 
 Some Greek upon the margin, — lady's Greek, 
 Without the accents. Read it? Not a word. 
 1 saw at once ths thing had witchcraft in't, 
 Whereof the reading calls up dangerous spirits; 
 I rather bring it to the witch.' 
 
 ' Afy book ! 
 You found it' . . 
 4* 
 
li AUnORA LEIGH. 
 
 * In the hollow by the stream 
 That beach leans down into — of which you eaid 
 The Oread in it has a Naiad's heart 
 A.nd pine-s for waters.* 
 
 * ITiank you/ 
 
 * Thanks to you 
 My cousin ! that I have seen you not too much 
 Witch, scholar, poet, dreamer, and the rest, 
 To be a woman also.' 
 
 With a glance 
 The smile rose in his eyes again, and touched 
 The ivy on my forehead, light as air. 
 1 answered gravely, * Poets needs must be 
 Or men or women — more's the pity.' 
 
 'Ah, 
 But men, and still less women, happily, 
 Scarce need be poets. Keep to the green wreath. 
 Since even dreaming of the stone and bronze 
 Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and defiles 
 The clean white morning dresses.' 
 
 * So you judge ! 
 Because I love the be^iutiful, I must 
 Love pleasure chiefly, and be overcharged 
 For ease and whiteness : W^ell — you know th€ 
 
 world. 
 And only miss your cousin ; 'tis not much. 
 But learn this : 1 would rather take my part 
 With God's Dead, who afford to walk in whit« 
 Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet here, 
 And gather up my f«et from even a step, 
 For fear to soil my gown in so much dust 
 I choose to walk at all risks. — Here, if heads 
 That hold a rhythmic thought, must ache perforce 
 
AUllOliA L El GU. 41 
 
 For my part I choose headaches, — and to-day's 
 My birthday.' 
 
 * Dear Aurora, choose instead 
 To cure them. You have balsams.' 
 
 * 1 perceive 
 The headache is too noble for my sex. ' . 
 You think the heartache would sound dece^iter. 
 Since that's the woman's special*, proper ache, 
 And altogether tolerable, except 
 To a woman/ 
 
 'Saying which, I loosed my wreath, 
 And swinging it beside me as I walked, 
 Half petulant, half playful, as we walked, 
 I sent a sidelong look to find his thought, — 
 As falcon set on falconer's finger may. 
 With sidelong head, and startled, braving eye. 
 Which means, ' You'll see— you'll see ! I'll soon 
 
 take flight — 
 You shall not hinder.' He, as shaking out 
 His hand and answering * Fly then,' did not speak. 
 Except by such a gesture. Silently 
 We paced, until, just coming into sight 
 Of the house-windows, he a*brupt]y caught 
 At one end of the swinging wreath, and said 
 ' Aurora !' There I stopped short, breath and all. 
 
 * Aurora, let's be serious, and throw by 
 This game of head and heart. Life means, be surej 
 Both heart and head, — both active, both complete, 
 And both in earnest. Men and women make 
 TTie world, as head and heart make human life. 
 Work man, work woman, since there's work to do 
 In this beleaguered earth, for head and heart, 
 
14 A U li R A L E I O II . 
 
 And thought can never do the work of love: 
 
 But work for ends, I mean for uses ; not 
 
 For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends ? 
 
 Still less God's glory) as we sew ourselves 
 
 Upon the velvet of those baldaquins 
 
 Held 'twixt us and the sun. That book of youra, 
 
 I have not read a page of; but I toss 
 
 A rose up — it falls calyx down, you see! 
 
 The chances are that, being a woman, young, 
 
 And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes, 
 
 You write as well . . and ill . . upon the whole, 
 
 As other women. If as well, what then] 
 
 If even a little better, . . still what then ? 
 
 We want the Best in art now, or no art. 
 
 The time is done for facile settings up 
 
 Of minnow gods, nymphs here and tritons there ; 
 
 The polytheists have gone out in God, 
 
 That unity of Bests. No best, no God ! 
 
 And so with art, we say. Give art's divine, 
 
 Direct, indubitable, real as grief, — 
 
 Or leave us to the grief we grow ourselves 
 
 Divine by overcoming with mere hope 
 
 And most prosaic patience. You, you are young 
 
 As Eve with nature's daybreak on her face ; 
 
 But this same world you are come to, dearest coz, 
 
 Has done \yith keeping birthdays, saves her wreaths 
 
 To hang upon her ruins, — and forgets 
 
 To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back 
 
 Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down 
 
 To the empty grave of Christ. The world's hard 
 
 pressed ; 
 The sweat of labour in the early curse 
 lias (turning acrid in six thousand years) 
 
AURORA LEIGH. -ifi 
 
 Become the sweat of torture. Who has time, 
 An hour's time . . think ! . . to sit upon a bank 
 And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands'? 
 When Egypt's slain, I say, let Miriam sing ! — 
 Before . . where's Moses V 
 
 * Ah — exactly that 
 WTiere's Moses ? — is a Moses to be found ? 
 You'll seek him vainly in the bulrushes, 
 While I in vain touch cymbals.. Yet concede, 
 Such sounding brass has done some actual good 
 (The application in a woman's hand, 
 If that were credi])le, being scarcely spoilt,) 
 [n colonising beehives.' 
 
 * There it is ! — 
 You play beside a death-bed like a child, 
 Yet measure to yourself a prophet's place 
 To teach the living. None of all these things, 
 Can women understand. You generalise 
 Oh, nothing ! — not even grief! Your quick-breathed 
 
 hearts, 
 So sympathetic to the personal pang, 
 Close on each separate knife-stroke, yielding up 
 A whole life at each wound ; incapable 
 Of deepening, widening a large lap of life 
 To hold the world-full woe. The human race 
 To you means, such a child, or such a man. 
 You saw one morning waiting in the cold. 
 Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up 
 A few such cases, and when strong sometimes 
 Will write of factories and of slaves, as if 
 Your father were a negro, and your son 
 A spinner in the mills. All's yours and you, 
 All, coloured with your blood, or otherwise 
 
M ADHOEA LEIGH. 
 
 Just notiiing to you. Why, I call you hard 
 
 To general suffering. Here's the 'world half blind 
 
 With intellectual light, half brutal ised 
 
 With civilisation, having caught the plague 
 
 In silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and west 
 
 Along a thousand railroads, mad with pain 
 
 And sin too ! . . does one woman of you all, 
 
 (You who weep easily) grow pale to see 
 
 ITiis tig^r shake his cage ? — does one of you 
 
 Stand still from dancing, stop from stringing pearla, 
 
 And pine and die because of the great sum 
 
 Of universal anguish 1 — Show me a tear 
 
 Wet as Cordelia's, in eyes bright as yours, 
 
 Because the world is mad ! You cannot count, 
 
 That you should weep for this account, not you ! 
 
 You weep for what you know. A red-haired child 
 
 Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, 
 
 Though but so little as with a finger-tip, 
 
 Will set you weeping ; but a million sick . , 
 
 You could as soon weep for the rule of tluce. 
 
 Or compound fractions. Therefore, this same world 
 
 Uncomprehended by you, 4nust remain 
 
 Uninfluenced by you. Women as you are, 
 
 Merc women, personal and passionate. 
 
 You give us doating mothers, and perfect wives, 
 
 Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints ! 
 
 We get no Christ from you, — and verily 
 
 We shall not get a poet, in my mind.' 
 
 * With which conclusion you conclude' . , 
 
 * But this— I 
 That you, Aurora, with the large live brow 
 And steady eyelids, caimot condescend 
 
AURnp.A J EIGH. 41 
 
 To play at art, as children play at swords, 
 
 To show a pretty spirit, chiefly admired 
 
 Because true action is impossible. 
 
 You never can be satisfied with praise 
 
 Which men give women when they judge a book 
 
 Not as mere work, but as mere woman's work, 
 
 Expressing the comparative respect 
 
 Which means the absolute scorn. * Oh, excellent . 
 
 * What grace ! what facile turns ! what fluent sweeps ! 
 ' What delicate discernment . . almost thought ! 
 
 ' The book does honour to the sex, we hold. 
 ' Among our female authors we make room 
 ' For this fair writer, and congratulate 
 *The country that. produces in these times 
 
 * Such women, competent tQ . . spell.* 
 
 'Stop there r 
 I answered — burning through his thread of talk 
 With a quick flame of emotion, — ' You have read 
 My soul, if not my book, and argue well 
 I would not condescend . . we will not say 
 To such a kind of praise, (a worthless end 
 Is praise of all kmds) but to such a use 
 Of holy art and golden life. I am young, 
 And peradventure weak — ^you tell me so— 
 Tlirough being a woman. And, for all the rest. 
 Take thanks for justice. I would rather dance 
 At fairs on tight-rope, till the babies dropped 
 Tlieir ^gerbread for joy, — than shift the types 
 For tolerable verse, intolerable 
 To men who act and sufier. Better far 
 Pursue a frivolous trade by serious meana^ 
 Than a sublime art frivolously.' * 
 
 *You 
 
«i8 AURORA liEiOn. 
 
 C}icx)se no})icr work than either, O moist eyes 
 
 And hurry ing lips, and heaving hcfirt ! We are young 
 
 Aurora, you and I. The world . . look round . . 
 
 The world, we're come to late, is swollen hai*d 
 
 With perished generations and their sins : 
 
 The civiliscr's spade grinds horribly 
 
 On dead men's bones, and cannot turn up soil 
 
 TL'it's otherwise than fetid. All success 
 
 Proves partial failure ; all advance implies 
 
 What's left behind ; all triumph, something crushed 
 
 At the chariot- wheels ; all government, some wrong • 
 
 And rich men make the poor, .who curse the rich, 
 
 Who agonise together, rich and poor. 
 
 Under and over, in the social spasm 
 
 And crisis of the ages. Here's an age, 
 
 Tnat makes its own vocation ! here, we have stepped 
 
 Across the bounds of time ! here's nought to see, 
 
 But just the rich man and just Lazarus, 
 
 And both in tcnmonts ; with a mediate gulph, 
 
 Though not a hint of Abraham's bosom. Who, 
 
 Being man, Aurora, can stand calmly by 
 
 And view these things, and never tease his soul 
 
 For some great cure 1 No physic for tliis grief, 
 
 In all the earth and heavens too V 
 
 * You believe 
 In God, for your part?— ay 1 tliat He who makes, 
 Can make good things from ill things, best from worsts 
 As men plant tulips upon dunghills when 
 They wish thorn fmest V 
 
 *True. A death-heat is 
 The same as life-hea*^, to be accurate ; 
 And in all nature is no death at all, 
 As isicn account of de^ith, as long as God 
 
AUROllA LEIGU. if 
 
 Stands witnessing for liie perpctuully' 
 
 By being just God. That's abstract truth, I know, 
 
 Philosophy, or sympathy with God: 
 
 But i, 1 sympathise with man, not God, 
 
 I think I was a man' for chiefly this ; 
 
 And when I stand beside a dying bed, 
 
 It's death to me. Observe, — it had not much 
 
 Consoled the race of mastodons to know 
 
 Before they went to fossil, that anon 
 
 Tlieir place would quicken with the elephant ; 
 
 Thoy were not elephants but mastodons : 
 
 And I, a man, as men are now and not 
 
 As men may be hereafter, feel with men 
 
 In the agonising present.' 
 
 * Is it so,' 
 I said, *my cousin? is the world so bad, 
 While I hear nothing of it through the trees 1 
 The world was always evil, — but so bad V 
 
 ' So bad, Aurora. Dear, my soul is grey 
 
 With poring over the long sum of ill ; 
 
 So much for vice, so much for discontent, 
 
 So much for the necessities of power, 
 
 So much for the connivances of fear, 
 
 Coherent in statistical despairs 
 
 With such a total of distracted life, . . 
 
 To see it down in figures on a page, 
 
 Plain, silent, clear . . as God sees through the earth 
 
 The sense of all the graves .... that's terrible 
 
 For one who is not God, and cannot right 
 
 llie wrong he looks on. May 1 choose indeed 
 
 But vow away my years, my means, my aims, 
 
 Among the hclj>crs, if there's any help 
 
 D 
 
iO /LUROllA LEIOH. 
 
 In such a social strait? The common blood 
 Tliat swings along my veins, is strong enough 
 To draw mo to this duty.* 
 
 Then I spoke. 
 'I have not stood long on the strand of life, 
 And these salt waters have had scarcely time 
 To creep so high up as to wet my feet. 
 I cannot judge these tides — I shall, perhaps. 
 A woman's always younger than a man 
 At equal years, because she is disallowed 
 Maturing by the outdoor sun and air, 
 And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk. 
 Ah well, I know you men judge otherwise ! 
 You tliink a woman ripens as a peach, 
 In the cheeks, chiefly. Pass it to me now ; 
 I'm young in age, and younger still, I think, 
 As a woman. But a child may say amen- 
 To a bishop*3 prayer and feel the way it goes ; 
 And I, incapable to loose the knot 
 Of social questions, can approve, applaud 
 August compassion, christian thoughts that shoot 
 Beyond the vulgar white of personal aims. 
 Accept my reverence.' 
 
 There he glowed on me 
 With all his face and eyes. * No other help V 
 Said he — ' no more than so V 
 
 * What help?' I asked 
 * You'd scorn my help, — ^as Nature's self, you say, 
 Has scorned to put her music in my mouth 
 Because a woman's. Do you now turn round 
 And ask for what a woman cannot give V 
 
 For what she only can, I turn and ask,' 
 
A U Ron A LEIGH, 
 
 IIo answered^ catching up mj hands in his, 
 And dropping on me from his high-eavod brow 
 The full weight of his soul, — ' I ask for love, 
 And that, she can ; for life in fellowship 
 Tlirough bitter duties — that, I know she can y 
 For wifehood . , will she V 
 
 'Now,Msaid, <may God 
 Bo witness 'twixt us two !' and with the word, 
 Meseemed I floated into a sudden light 
 Above his stature, — ' am I proved too weak 
 To stand alone, yet strong enough to b«ir 
 Such leaners on my shoulder? poor to think, 
 Yet rich enough to sympathise with thought 1 
 Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can, 
 Yet competent to love, like him V 
 
 I paused : 
 Perhaps I darkened, as the light house will 
 That turns upon the sea. * It's always so I 
 Anything does for a wife.* 
 
 * Aurora, dear, 
 And dearly honoured' , , he pressed in at once 
 With eager utterance,—* you translate me ill. 
 I do not contradict my thought of you 
 Which is most reverent, with another thought 
 Found less so. If your sex is weak for art, 
 (And I who said so, did but honour you 
 I^ usnig truth in courtship) it is strong 
 For life and duty. Place your fecund heart 
 In mine and let us blossom for the world 
 That wants love's colour in the grey of timet 
 My talk, meanwhile, is arid to you, ay, 
 Since all my talk can only set you where 
 You look down coldly on the arena-heaps 
 Of headless bodies, shapeless^ indistinct I 
 
69 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Tho Judf^nent-Angol scarce would find his way 
 Through such a heap of generalised distress 
 To the individual man with lips and eyes — 
 Much less Aurora. Ah my sweet, come down, 
 And hand in hiind we'll go where j*»«rs shall touch 
 These victims, one "by one ! till one by one, 
 Tlie formless, nameless trunk of every man 
 Shall seem to wear a head with hair you know. 
 And every woman catch your mother's face 
 To melt you into passion.' 
 
 * I am a girl,' 
 1 answered slowly ; * you do well to name 
 My mother's face. Though far too early, alas, 
 God's hand did interpose 'twixt it and me, 
 I know so much of love, as used to sliine 
 In tliat face and another. Just so much ; 
 No more indeed at all. I have not seen 
 So much love since, I pray you pardon me, 
 As answers even to make a marriage with 
 In this cold land of England. Wluit you love, 
 Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause : 
 You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir, 
 A wife to help your ends . . in her no end ! 
 \ our cause is noble, your ends excellent, 
 But I, being most unworthy of these and that, 
 Do otherwise conceive of love. Farewell.' 
 
 * Farewell, Aurora ? you reject me thus V 
 lie said. 
 
 * Sir, you were married long ago 
 You have a wife already whom you love, 
 Your social theory. I^less you both, I eay 
 For my part, I am scarcely meek enough 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 6> 
 
 lo be the handmaid of a lawful spouse. 
 Do I look a Hagar, think you V 
 
 *So you jest r 
 
 * Nay so, I speak in earnest,' I replied. 
 
 ' You treat of marriage too much like, at least, 
 A chief apostle ; you would bear with you 
 A wife . . a sister , . shall we speak it out 1 
 A sister of charity.' 
 
 * Then, must it be 
 Indeed fhrewell 1 And was I so far wrong 
 fn hope and in illusionj when I took 
 The woman to be nobler than the man, 
 Yourself the noblest woman, — in the use 
 And comprehension of what love is, — love, 
 That generates the likeness of itself 
 Through all heroic duties ? so far wrong, 
 In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, 
 
 * Come, human creature, love and work with me,'— 
 Instead of, ' Lady, thou art wondrous fair, 
 
 * And, where the Graces walk before, the Muse 
 
 * Will follow at the lighting of the eyes, 
 
 * And where the Muse walks, lovers need to creep 
 
 * Turn round and love me, or I die of love.' 
 
 With quiet indignation I broke in, 
 
 * You misconceive the question like a man, 
 Who sees a woman as the complement 
 Of his sex merely. You forget too much 
 That every creature, female as the male, 
 Stands single in responsible act and thought^ 
 A.S also in birth and death. Whoever says 
 To a loyal woman, ' Love and work with me,' 
 
 6* 
 
M AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Will get fair answers, if the work and love, 
 
 Being good themselves, are good for her — the best 
 
 She was born for. Women of a softer mood. 
 
 Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life, 
 
 Will sometimes only hear the first word, love, 
 
 And catch up with it any kind of work. 
 
 Indifferent, so that dear love go with it : 
 
 I do not blame such women, though, for love, 
 
 They pick much oakum ; earth's fanatics make 
 
 Too frequently heaven's saints. But me, your work 
 
 Is not the best for, — nor your love the best. 
 
 Nor able to commend the kind of work 
 
 For love's sake merely. Ah, you force me, sir. 
 
 To be over-bold in speaking of myself, 
 
 I too have my vocation, — work to do. 
 
 The heavens and earth have set me, since I changed 
 
 My father's face for theirs, — and, though your world 
 
 Were twice as wretched as you represent, 
 
 Most serious work, most necessary work 
 
 As any of the economists'. Reform, 
 
 Make trade a Christian possibility. 
 
 And individual right no general wrong ; 
 
 Wipe out earth's furrows of the Tliine and Mine, 
 
 And leave one green for men to play at bowls ; 
 
 With innings for them all ! . . what then, mdeed. 
 
 If mortals arc not greater by the head 
 
 Than any of their prosperities ? what then, 
 
 Unless the artist keep up open roads 
 
 Betwixt the seen and unseen, — bursting through 
 
 The best of your conventions with his best. 
 
 The speakable, imaginable best 
 
 God bids him speak, to prove what lies beyond 
 
 Roth speech and imagination ? A starved man 
 
AURORA LEIGH. M 
 
 Exceeds a fat beast : we'll not barter, sir, 
 
 The beautiful for barley. — And, even so, 
 
 I hold you will not compass your poor ends 
 
 Of barley-feeding and material ease, 
 
 Without a poet's individualism 
 
 To work your universal. It takes a soul, 
 
 To move a body : it takes a high-souled man. 
 
 To move the masses . . even to a cleaner ?tye : 
 
 It takes the ideal, to blow a hair's-breadth c^ 
 
 The dust of the actual. — Ah, your Pouriers failed, 
 
 Because not poets enough to understand 
 
 That life develops from within. For me. 
 
 Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say, 
 Of work like this . . . perhaps a woman's soul 
 Aspires, and not creates : yet we aspire, 
 And yet Til try out your perhapscs, sir ; 
 And if 1 fail . . why, burn me up my straw 
 Like other false works — I'll not ask for grace, 
 Your scorn is better, cousin Romney. I 
 Who love my art, would nev3r wish it lower 
 To suit my stature. I may love my art 
 You'll grant that even a woman may love art, 
 Seeing that to waste true love on anything 
 Is womanly, past question.' 
 
 I retain 
 The very last word which I said that day, 
 As you the creaking of the door, years past, 
 Which let upon you such disabling news 
 You ever after have been graver. He, 
 flis eyes, the motions in his silent mouth. 
 Were fiery points on which my words were caught. 
 Transfixed for ever in my memory 
 For his sake, not their own. And yet I know 
 
66 AUROHA LEIOn 
 
 I did not love him . . nor he me . . that's sure . ^ 
 And what I said, is unrepented of, 
 As truth is always. Yet . . a princely man ! — 
 If hard to me, heroic for himself! 
 He bears down on me through the slanting year«, 
 The stronger for the distance. If he had loved, 
 Ay, loved me, with that retributive fiice, . . 
 I might have been a common woman now, 
 And happier, less known and less left alone ; 
 Perhaps a better woman after all, — 
 With chubby children hanging on my neck 
 To keep me low and wise. Ah me, the vines 
 That bear such fruit, are proud to stoop with it 
 The palm stands upright in a realm of simd. 
 
 And I, who spoke the truth then, stand upright, 
 Still worthy of having spoken out the truth, 
 15y being content I spoke it, though it set 
 Him there, me here. — O woman's vile remorse, 
 To hanker after a mere name, a show, 
 A supposition, a potential love ! 
 Does every man who names love in our lives. 
 Become a power for that ? is love's true thing 
 So much best to us, that what personates love 
 Is next best ? A potential love, forsooth ! 
 Vm not 80 vile. No, no — he cleaves, I thini, 
 This man, this image, , . chiefly for the wrong 
 And shock he gave my life, in finding mo 
 Precisely where the devil of my youth 
 Had set me, on those mountain-peaks of hope 
 All glittering with the dawn-dew, all erect 
 And famished for the noon, — exclaiming, while 
 I looked for empire and much tribute, ' Come, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 67 
 
 I have some worthy work for thco below. 
 Come, sweep my barns and keep my hospitals, 
 And 1 will pay thee with a current coin 
 Which men give women.' 
 
 As we spoke, the grass 
 Was trod in haste beside us, and my aunt, 
 With smile distorted by the sun, — face, voice, 
 As much at issue with the summer-day 
 As if you brought a candle out of doors, 
 Broke in with, * Romney, here ! — My child, entreat 
 Your cousin to the house, and have your talk, 
 If girls must talk upon their birthdays. Come. 
 
 IIo answered for mo calmly, with pale lips 
 That seemod to motion for a smile in vain. 
 * ITie talk is ended, madam, where we stand. 
 Your brother's daughter has dismissed me here ; 
 And all my answer can be better said 
 Beneath the trees, than wrong by such a word 
 Your house's hospitalities. Farewell.' 
 
 With that he vanished. I could hear his heel 
 Ring bluntly in the lane, as down he leapt 
 The short way from us. — Then a measured speech 
 Withdrew me. * What means this, Aurora Leigh ? 
 My brother's daughter has dismissed my guests V 
 
 The lion in me felt the keeper's voice, 
 Through all its quivering dewlaps : I was quelled 
 Before her, — mcekened to the child she knew : 
 I prayed her pardon, said, 'I had little thought 
 To give dismissal to a guest of hers. 
 In letting go a friend of mine who ciime 
 
«8 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To take me into service as a ■wife, — 
 No more than that, indeed.' 
 
 * No more, no more f 
 Praj Heaven,' she answered, * that I was not mad 
 I could not mean to tell her to her face 
 That Romney Leigh had asked me for a wife, 
 And I refused him V 
 
 * Did he ask V I said ; 
 
 * I think he rather stooped to take me up 
 For certain uses which he found to do 
 
 For something called a wife. He never asked/ 
 
 * What stuff!' she answered ; * are they queens, these 
 
 girls r 
 They must have mantles, stitched with twenty silks. 
 Spread out upon the ground, before tliey'll step 
 One footstep for the noblest lover born.' 
 
 *But I am born,' I said with firmness, *I, 
 To walk another way than his, dear aunt.' 
 
 * You walk, you walk ! A babe at thirteen months 
 Will walk as well as you,' she cried in haste, 
 
 ' Without a steadying finger. Why, you child, 
 God help you, you are groping in the dark, 
 For all this sunlight. You suppose, perhaps, 
 That you, sole offspring of an opulent man, 
 Are rich and free to choose a way to walk ? 
 You think, and it's a reasonable thought, 
 That I beside, being weir to do in life. 
 Will leave my handful in my niece's hand 
 When death shall paralyse these fingers ? Pray 
 Pray, child, — albeit I know you love me not^ 
 
AURORA LSiGH. 6% 
 
 As if yua loved me, that I rniiy not die ? 
 
 For when I die and leave you, oui you go, 
 
 (Hnless 1 make room for you in my grave) 
 
 Unhoused, unfed, my dear, poor brother's lamb, 
 
 (Ah heaven, — that pains !) — without a right to crop 
 
 A single blade of grass beneath these trees, 
 
 Or cast a Limb's small shadow on the lawn, 
 
 Unfed, unfolded ! Ah, my brother, here's 
 
 The fruit you planted in your foreign loves ! — 
 
 Ay, there's the fruit he planted ! never look 
 
 Astonished at m^ with your mother's eyes, 
 
 For it was they who set you where you are, 
 
 An undowered orphan. Child, your father's cheioe 
 
 Of that said mother, disinherited 
 
 His daughter, his and hers. Mm do not think 
 
 Of sons and daughters, when they fliU in love. 
 
 So much more than of sisters ; otherwise 
 
 lie would have paused to ponder what ho did, 
 
 And shrunk before that clause in the entail 
 
 Excluding offspring by a foreign wife 
 
 (The clause set up a hundred years ago 
 
 By a Leigh who wedded a French dancing-girl 
 
 And had his heart danced over in return) 
 
 But this man shrank at nothing, never thought 
 
 Of you, Aurora, any more than me — 
 
 Your mother must have been a pretty thing, 
 
 For all the coarse Italian blacks and browns, 
 
 To make a good man, which my brother was, 
 
 Unchary of the duties to his house ; 
 
 But*o it fell indeed. Our cousin Vano, 
 
 Vane Leigh, the father of this Romney, wrote 
 
 Directly on your birth, to Italy, 
 
 * I ask your baby daughter for my son 
 
ISO AURORA LEIGU. 
 
 In whom the entail now merges by the hivv. 
 Betroth her to us out of love, instead 
 Of colder reasons, and she shall not lose 
 By love or law from henceforth' — so he wrote ; 
 A generous cousin, was my cousin Vane. 
 Remember how he drew you to his knee 
 The year you came here, just before ho died, 
 And hollowed out his hands to hold your cheeks, 
 And wished them redder, — you remember Vane 1 
 And now his son who represents our houso 
 And holds the fiefs and manors in his place, 
 To whom reverts my pittance when I dia, 
 (Except a few books and a pair of shawls) 
 The boy is generous like him, and prepared 
 To carry out his kindest word and thought 
 To you, Aurora. Yes, a fine young man 
 Is Romney Leigh ; although the sun of youth 
 Has shone too straight upon his brain, I know, 
 And fevered him with dreams of doing good 
 To good-for-nothing people. But a wife 
 Will put all right, and stroke his temples cool- 
 With healthy touches' . . 
 
 I broke in at that 
 I could not lifl my heavy heart to breathe 
 Till then, but then I raised it, and it fell 
 In broken words like these — ' No need to wait. 
 The dream of doing good to . . me, at least. 
 Is ended, without waiting for a wife 
 To cool the fever for him. We've escaped 
 That danger . . thank Heaven for it.* 
 
 * You,' she criea, 
 * Have got a fever. What, I talk and talk 
 An hour long to you, — I instruct you how 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 61 
 
 You cannot cat or drink or stand or sit, 
 
 Or even die, like any decent wretch 
 
 [n all this unroofed and unfurnished world, 
 
 Without your cousin, — ar.d you still maintain 
 
 There's room 'twixt him and you, for flirting fans 
 
 And running knots in eyebrows ! You must have 
 
 A pattern lover sighing on his knee : 
 
 You do not count enough a noble heart, 
 
 Above book-patterns, which this very morn 
 
 Unclosed itself in two dear fathers' names 
 
 To embrace your orphaned life ! fie, fie ! But stay» 
 
 I write a word, and counteract tliis sin.' 
 
 She would have turned to leave me, but I clung. 
 ' O sweet ray father's sister, hear my word 
 Before you write yours. Cousin Vane did well, 
 And cousin Romney well, — and I well too, 
 In casting back with all my strength and will 
 The good they meant me. O my God, my God ! 
 God meant me good, too, when he hindered me 
 From saying ' yes' this morning. If you write 
 A word, it shall be * no.' I say no, no I 
 I tie up ' no' upon His altar-horns, 
 Quite out of reach of perjury ! At least 
 My soul is not a pauper ; I can live 
 At least my soul's life, without alms from men ; 
 And if it must be in heaven instead of earth, 
 Let heaven look to it, — I am not afraid.' 
 
 She seized my hands with both hers, strained them ihst^ 
 And drew her probing and unscrupulous eyes 
 Uight through me, body and heart. 'Yet, foolish 
 Sweet, 
 
62 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 You lOvc this man. I have watched you when h« 
 
 came, 
 And when he went, and when we've talked of him : 
 I am not old for nothing ; I can tell 
 The weather-signs of love — ^you love this man. 
 
 Girls blush sometimes because they are alive. 
 Half wishing they were dead to save the shame. 
 Tlie sudden blush devours them, neck and brow ; 
 They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnat^ 
 Atid flare up bodily, wings and all. What then f 
 Who's sorry for a gnat . . or girl ] 
 
 1 blushed. 
 1 feel the brand upon my forehead now 
 Strike hot, sear deep, as guiltless men may feel 
 llie felon's iron, say, and scorn the mark 
 Of what they are not. Most illogiciil 
 Irrational nature of our womanhood, 
 lluit blushes one way, feels another way. 
 And prays, perhaps, another ! After all. 
 We cannot be the equal of the male, 
 Who rules his blood a little. 
 
 For although 
 I blushed indeed, as if I loved the man, 
 And her incisive smile, accrediting 
 That treason of fiilse witness in my blush, 
 Did bow me downward like a swathe of grass 
 Below its level that struck me, — I attest 
 The conscious skies and all their daily suns, 
 I think I loved him not . . nor then, nor since . . 
 Nor ever.. Do we love the schoolmaster. 
 Being busy in the woods ? much less, being poor. 
 The overseer of the parish 1 Do we keep 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 81 
 
 Our love to pay our debts with 1 
 
 White and cold 
 I grew next moment. As my blood recoiled 
 From that imputed ignominy, I made 
 My heart great with it. Then, at last, I spoke, 
 Spoke veritable words but passionate, ' 
 Too passionate perhaps . . ground up with sobs 
 To shapeless endings. She let fall my hands, 
 And took her smile off, in sedate disgust, 
 As peradventure she had touched a snake, — 
 A dead snake, mind ! — and, turning round, replied, 
 ' We'll leave Italian manners, if you please. 
 
 ohink you had an English father, child, 
 And ought to find it possible to speak 
 A quiet ' yes' or ' no,' like English girls. 
 Without convulsions. In another month 
 We'll take another answer . . no, or yes.' 
 With that, she left me in the garden-walk. 
 
 1 had a father ! yes, but long ago — 
 
 How long it seemed that moment. Oh, how far, 
 
 How far and safe, God, dost thou keep thy saints 
 
 When once gone from us ! We may call against 
 
 The lighted windows of thy fair June-heaven 
 
 Where all the souls are happy, — and not one, 
 
 Not even my father, look from work or play 
 
 To ask, * Who is it that cries after us, 
 
 Below there, in the dusk V Yet formerly 
 
 He turned his face upon me quick enough. 
 
 If I said ' father.' Now I might cry loud j 
 
 The little lark reached higher with his song 
 
 Than I with crying. Oh, alone, alone, — 
 
 Not troubling any in heaven, nor any od earth. 
 
04 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I stood there in the garden, and looked up 
 The deaf blue sky that brings tlie roses out 
 On such June mornings. 
 
 You who keep account 
 Of crisis and transition in this life, 
 Set down the first time Nature says plain ' no' 
 To some ' yes' in you, and walks over you 
 In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin 
 By singing with the birds, and running fast 
 With June-days, hand in hand: but once, for all, 
 The birds must sing against us, and the sun 
 Strike down upon us like a friend's sword caught 
 ^y an enemy to slay us, while wej-ead 
 The dear name on the blade w^hich bites at us ! — 
 That's bitter and convincing : after that. 
 We seldom doubt that something in the large 
 Smooth order of cr^tion, though no more 
 Than haply a man's footstep, has gone wrong. 
 
 Some tears fell down my cheeks, and then I smiled, 
 
 As those smile who have no face in the world 
 
 To smile back to them. I had lost a friend 
 
 In Romney Leigh ; the thing was sure — a friend, 
 
 Who had looked at me most gently now and then, 
 
 And spoken of my favourite books . . ' our books' . 
 
 With such a voice 1 Well, voice and look were no-* 
 
 More utterly shut out from me, I felt. 
 
 Than even my father's. Romney now was turned 
 
 To a benefactor, to a generous man. 
 
 Who had tied himself to marry . . me, instead 
 
 Of such a woman, with low timorous lids 
 
 He lifted with a sudden word one day, 
 
 And left, perhaps, for my sake. — Ah, self-tied 
 
A U 11 II A L E 1 II . en 
 
 Bjr a contract, — male Iphigenia bound 
 
 At a fatal Aulis for the winds to change, 
 
 (But loose him — they'll not change ;) he well might 
 
 seem 
 A little cold and dominant in love ! 
 lie had a right to be dogmatical, 
 This poor, good Romney. Love, to him, was made 
 A simple law-clause. If 1 married him, 
 I would not dare to call my soul my own, 
 Which so he had bought and paid for ; every thought 
 And every heart-beat down there in the bill. 
 Not one found honestly deductible 
 From any use that pleased him ! He might cut 
 My body into coins to give away 
 Among his other paupers ; change my sons, 
 While I stood dumb as Griseld, for black babea 
 Or piteous foundlings ; might unquestioned set 
 My right hand teaching in the Ragged Schools, 
 My left hand washing in the Public Baths, 
 What time my angel of the Ideal stretched 
 Both his to me in vain ! I could not claim 
 The poor right of a mouse in a trap, to squeal, 
 And take so much as pity from myself. 
 
 Farewell, good Romney ! if I loved you even, 
 
 I could but ill afford to let you be 
 
 So generous to me. Farewell, friend, since friend 
 
 Betwixt us two, forsooth, must be a word 
 
 So heavily overladen. And, since help 
 
 Must come to me from those who love me not, 
 
 Farewell, all helpers — I must help myself, 
 
 And am alone from henceforth. — Then I stooped, 
 
 And lifted the soiled garland from the earth, 
 
66 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And set it on my head as b:tterly 
 
 As when the Spanish monarch crowned the bones 
 
 Of his dead love. So be it. 1 preserve 
 
 That crown still, — in the drawer there ! 'twas iht 
 
 first; 
 The rest are like it ; — those Olympian crowns, 
 We run for, till we lose sight of the sun 
 In the dust of the racing chariots ! 
 
 After that, 
 Before the evening fell, I had a note 
 Which ran, — ' Aurora, sweet Chaldean, you read 
 My meaning backward like your eastern books. 
 While I am from the west, dear. Read me now 
 A little plainer. Did you hate me quite 
 But yesterday 1 I loved you for my part ; 
 I love you. If I spoke untenderly 
 rhis morning, my beloved, pardon it ; 
 And comprehend me that I loved you so 
 I set you on the level of my soul, 
 And overwashed you with the bitter brine 
 Of some habitual thoughts. Henceforth, my flower, 
 Be planted out of reach of any such. 
 And lean the side you please, with all your leaves ! 
 Write woman's verses and dream woman's dreams ; 
 But let me feel your perfume in my home, 
 To make my sabbath after working-days ; 
 Bloom out your youth beside me, — be my wife.' 
 
 I wrote in answer — ' We, Chaldeans, discern 
 Still farther than we read. I know your heart, 
 And shut it like the holy book it is, 
 Reserved for mild-eyed saints to pore upon 
 Betwixt their prayers at vespers. Well, you're righit 
 
\ 
 
 AURORA LCIGU. «<) 
 
 I did not surely hate you yesterday ; 
 
 And yet I do not love you enough to-day 
 
 To wed you, cousin Romney. Take this w rrd, 
 
 And let it stop you as a generous man 
 
 From speaking farther. You may tease, indeed, 
 
 And blow about my feelings, or my leaves, 
 
 And here's my aunt will help you with cast wind^, 
 And break a stalk, perhaps, tormenting me ; 
 But certain flowers grow near as deep as trees, 
 And, cousin, you'll not move my root, not you, 
 With all your confluent storms. Then let me grow 
 Within my wayside hedge, and pass your way ! 
 This flower has never as much to say to you 
 As the antique tomb which said to travellers, * Pause 
 ' Siste, viator.' ' Ending ,thus, I signed. 
 
 The next week passed in silence, so the next, 
 
 And several after : Romney did not come, 
 
 Nor my aunt chide me. I lived on and on, 
 
 As if my heart were kept beneath a glass. 
 
 And everybody stood, all eyes and ears. 
 
 To see and hear it tick. I could not sit. 
 
 Nor walk, nor take a book, nor lay it down, 
 
 Not sew on steadily, nor drop a stitch 
 
 And a sigh with it, but I felt her looks 
 
 Still cleaving to me, like the sucking asp 
 
 To Cleopatra's breast, persistently 
 
 Through the intermittent pan tings. Being observed 
 
 When observation is not sympathy, 
 
 Is just being tortured. If she said a word, 
 
 A * thank you,' or an ' if it please you, dear.' 
 
 She meant a commination, or, at best. 
 
 An exorcism against the devildom 
 
68 AURORALEKJn. 
 
 Which plainly held me. So with all the house. 
 
 Susannah could not stand and twist my hair, 
 
 Without such glancing at the looking-glass 
 
 To see my face there, that she missed the plait. 
 
 And John, — I never sent my plate for soup, 
 
 Or did not send it, but the foolish John 
 
 Hesolyed the problem, 'twixt his napknied thumbs, 
 
 Of what was signified by taking soup 
 
 Or choosing mackerel. Neighbours who dropped In 
 
 On morning visits, feeling a joint wrong, 
 
 Smiled admonition, -sate uneasily. 
 
 And talked with measured, emphasised reserve, 
 
 Of parish news, like doctors to the sick. 
 
 When not called in, — as if, with leave to speak, 
 
 They might say something. Nay, the very dog 
 
 Would watch me from his sun-patch on the floor, 
 
 In alternation with the large black fly 
 
 Not yet in reach of snapping. So I lived. 
 
 A Roman died so : smeared with honey, teased 
 By insects, stared to torture by the noon : 
 And many patient souls 'neath English roofs 
 Have died like Romans. I, in looking back. 
 Wish only, now, I had borne the plague of all 
 With meeker spirits than were rife in Rome. 
 
 For, on the sixth week, the dead sea broke up. 
 Dashed suddenly through beneath the heel of Him 
 Who stands upon the sea and eartn, and swears 
 Time shall be nevermore. Tlie clock struck nine 
 That morning too — no lark was out of tune ; 
 The hidden farms among the hills breathed straight 
 
AURORA LEI an. 6t 
 
 Their smoke toward heaven ; the lime-tree scarcely 
 
 stirred 
 Beneath the blue weight of the cloudless sky, 
 Though still the July air came floating through 
 The woodbine at my window, in and out, 
 With touches of the out-door country-news 
 For a bending forehead. There I sate, and wished 
 That morning-truce of God would last till eve, 
 Or longer. ' Sleep,' I thought, ' late sleepers, — sleep. 
 And spare me yet the burden of your eyes.' 
 
 Then, suddenly, a single ghastly shriek 
 Tore upjvards from the bottom of the house. 
 Like one who wakens in a grave and shrieks, 
 The still house seemed to shriek itself alive, 
 And shudder through its passages and stairs 
 With slam of doors and clash of bells. — I sprang, 
 I stood up in the middle of the room. 
 And there confronted at my chamber-door, 
 A white face, — shivering, ineffectual lips. 
 
 • Come, come,' they tried to utter, and I went ; 
 As if a ghost had drawn me at the point 
 Of a fiery finger through the uneven dark, 
 I went with reeling footsteps down the stair, 
 Nor asked a question. 
 
 There she sate, my aunt, — 
 Bolt upright in the chair beside her bed, 
 Whose pillow had no dint ! she had used no bed 
 For that night's sleeping . . yet slept well. My God, 
 The dumb derision of that grey, peaked face 
 Concluded something grave against the sun, 
 Which filled the chamber with its Jul^ burst 
 
70 AURORA LEIGU. 
 
 When Susan drew the curtains, ignorant 
 
 Of who sate open-eyed behind her. There 
 
 She sate . . it sate . . we said * she' yesterday . . 
 
 And held a letter with unbroken seal 
 
 As Susan gave it to her hand last night : 
 
 All night she had held it. If its news referred 
 
 To duchies or to dunghills, not an inch 
 
 She'd budge, 'twas obvious, for such worthless oddn 
 
 Nor, though the stars were suns and overburned 
 
 Their spheric limitations, swallowing up 
 
 Like wax the azure spaces, could they force 
 
 Those open eyes to wink once. What last sight 
 
 Had lefl them blank and flat so, — drawing out 
 
 The faculty of vision from the roots, 
 
 As nothing more, worth seeing, remained behind 1 
 
 Were those the eyes that watched me, worried me 1 
 
 That dogged me up and down the hours and days, 
 
 A beaten, breathless, miserable soul ? 
 
 And did 1 pray, a half hour back, but so. 
 
 To escape the burden of those eyes . . those eyes ] 
 
 * Sleep late' I said. — 
 
 Why now, indeed, they sleep. 
 God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, 
 And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, 
 A gauntlet with a gifl in't. Every wish 
 Is like a prayer . . with God. 
 
 I had my wish, 
 To read and meditate the thing I would, 
 To fashion all my life upon my thought, 
 And marry or not marry. Henceforth, none 
 Could disapprove me, vex me, hamper me. 
 Full ground-room, in this desert newly made. 
 
AURORA LEI nil. 7) 
 
 For Babylon or Balbec, — when the breath, 
 
 Now choked with sand, returns fur building tovsns. 
 
 The heir came over on the funeral day, 
 
 And we two cousins met before the dead, 
 
 With two pale faces. Was it death or life 
 
 Tliat moved us 1 When the will was read and done, 
 
 Tlie official guest and witnesses withdrawn. 
 
 We rose up in a silence almost hard. 
 
 And looked at one another. Then I said, 
 
 * Farew^ell, my cousin.' 
 
 But he touched, just touched 
 My hatstrings tied for going, (at the door 
 The carriage stood to take me) and said low, 
 His voice a little unsteady through his smile, 
 Siste, viator.' 
 
 ' Is there time,' I asked, 
 
 * In these last days of railroads, to stop short 
 Like Ceesar's chariot (weighing half a ton) 
 On the Appian road for morals V 
 
 ' There is time. 
 He answered grave, * for necessary words. 
 Inclusive, trust me, of no epitaph 
 On man or act, my cousin. We ha 'e read 
 A will, which gives you all the perse nal goods 
 And fuiided monies of your aunt.' 
 
 ' I thank 
 Her memory for it. With three hundred pounds 
 We buy in England even, clear standing-room 
 To stand and w^ork in. Only two hours since, 
 I fancied I was poor.' 
 
 * And cousin, still 
 Fou're richer than you fancy. The wiL Bays, 
 
Y9 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Three hundred pounds^ and any other sum 
 Of which the said testatrix dies possessed. 
 I say she died possessed of other sums.* 
 
 ' Dear Romney, need we chronicle the pence 1 
 I'm richer than I thought — that's evident. 
 Enough so.' 
 
 ' Listen rather. You've to do 
 With business and a cousin,' he resumed, 
 ' And both, I fear, need patience. Here's the fact. 
 The other sum (there is another sum. 
 Unspecified in any will which dates 
 After possession, yet bequeathed as much 
 And clearly as those said three hundred pounds) 
 Is thirty thousand. You will have it paid 
 When 1 . . where 1 M y duty troubles you with w jrdsi 
 
 He struck tne iron when the bar was hot ; 
 No wonder if my eyes sent out some sparks. 
 ' Pause there ! I thank you. You are delicate 
 In glosing gifts ; — but I, who share your blood, 
 Am rather made for giving, like yourself, 
 Than taking, like your pensioners. Farewell.* 
 
 He stopped me with a gesture of calm pride. 
 * A Leigh,' he said, ' gives largesse and gives love, 
 But gloses never : if a Leigh could glose, 
 He would not do it, moreover, to a Leigh, 
 With blood tranied up along nine centurii/»s 
 To hound and hatft a lie from eyes like yours. 
 And now we'll make the rest as clear ; your aunt 
 Possessed these monies.' 
 
 * You will make it clear 
 
AURORA LKIGH. W 
 
 My cousin, as the honour of us both, 
 Or one of us speaks vainly — that's not I. 
 My aunt possessed this sum, — inherited 
 From whom, and whenl brin^ documents, prcv^ 
 dates.' 
 
 * Why now indeed you throw your bonnet off, 
 As if you had time left for a logarithm ! 
 The faith's the want. Dear cousin, give me faith, 
 And you shall walk this road with silken shoes, 
 As clean as any lady of our house 
 Supposed the proudest. Oh, I comprehend 
 The whole position from your point of sight. 
 I oust you from your father's halls and lands. 
 And make you poor by getting rich-:— that's law ; 
 Considering which, in common circumstance, 
 You would not scruple to accept from me 
 Some compensation, some sufficiency 
 Of income — that were justice ; but, alas, 
 I love you . . that's mere nature ; you reject 
 My love . . that's nature also ; and at once. 
 You cannot, from a suitor disallowed, 
 A hand thrown back as mine is, into yours 
 Receive a doit, a farthing, . . not for the world ! 
 That's woman's etiquette, and obviously 
 Exceeds the claim of nature, law, and right, 
 Unanswerable to all. I grant, you see, 
 The case as you conceive it,— leave you room 
 To sweep your ample skirts of womanhood ; 
 While, standing humbly squeezed against the wall, 
 1 own myself excluded from being just, 
 Restrained from paying indubitable debts, 
 Because denied from ^-ivina: vou mv soul— 
 7 
 
T4 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 That's my misfortune ! — I submit to it 
 As if, in some more reasonable age, 
 'Twould not be less inevitable. Enough. 
 You'll trust mc, cousin, as a gentleman. 
 To keep your honour, as you count it, pure, 
 Your scruples (just as if 1 thought them wise) 
 Safe and inviolate from gifts of mine.' 
 
 I answered mild but earnest. ' I believe 
 
 In no one's honour which another keeps. 
 
 Nor man's nor woman's. As I keep, myself 
 
 My truth and my religion, I depute 
 
 No father, though 1 had one this side death, 
 
 Nor brother, though I had twenty, much less you, 
 
 Though twice my cousin, and once Romney Leigh^ 
 
 To keep my honour pure. You face, to-day, 
 
 A man who wants instruction, mark me, not 
 
 A woman who wants protection. As to a man, 
 
 Show manhood, speak out plainly, be precise 
 
 With facts and dates. My aunt inherited 
 
 This sum, you say — ' 
 
 * I said she died possessed 
 Of this, dear cousin.' 
 
 ' Not by heritage. 
 T^iank you : we're getting to the facts at last. 
 Perhaps she played at commerce with a ship 
 Which came in heavy with Australian gold ? 
 Or touched a lottery with her finger-end. 
 Which tumbled on a sudden into her lap 
 Some old Rhine tower or principality ? 
 Perhaps she had to do with a marine 
 Sub-transatlantic railroad, which pre-pay* 
 As well as pre- supposes? or perhaps 
 
A U 11 R A L E 1 G II 7| 
 
 Some stale ancestral debt was after-paid 
 
 By a hundred years, and took her by surprise?— 
 
 You shake your head my cousin ; I guess ill,* 
 
 * You need not guess, Aurora, nor deride, — 
 The truth is not afraid of hurting you. 
 You'll find no cause, in all your scruples, why 
 Your aunt should cavil at a deed of gift 
 'Twixt her and me.' 
 
 * I thought so — ah ! a gift.* 
 
 * You naturally thought so,' he resumed. 
 •A very natural gift.' 
 
 * A gift, a gift ! 
 Her individual life being stranded high 
 Above all want, approaching opulence, 
 Too haughty was she to accept a gift 
 Without some ultimate aim : ah, ah, I see, — 
 A gift intended plainly for her heirs. 
 And so accepted . . if accepted . . ah. 
 Indeed that might be ; I am snared perhaps. 
 Just so. But, cousin, shall I pardon you. 
 If thus you have caught me wdth a cruel springe V 
 
 He answered gently, ' Need you tremble and pant 
 Like a netted lioness? is't my fault, mine, 
 That you're a grand wild creature of the woods, 
 And hate the stall built for you ? Any way. 
 Though triply netted, need you glare at me ? 
 I do not hold the cords of such a net ; 
 You're free from me, Aurora !' 
 
 ' Now may GoJ 
 Deliver me from this strait ! This gift of yours 
 
W AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Was tendered . . when 1 accepted . . when V I asked. 
 
 * A month . . a fortnight smce 1 Six weeks ago 
 It was not tendered. By a word she dropped 
 
 I know it M'as not tendered nor received. 
 When was it *? bring your dates.' 
 
 ' What matters when ? 
 A half-hour ere she died, or a half-year, 
 Secured the gift, maintains the heritage 
 Inviolable with law. As easy pluck 
 The golden stars from heaven's embroidered stole, 
 To pin them on the grey side of this earth. 
 As make you poor again, thank God.' 
 
 ' Not poor 
 Nor clean again from henceforth, you thank God *? 
 Well, sir — I ask you . . I insist at need . . 
 Vouchsafe the special date, the special date.' 
 
 The day before her death-day,' he replied, 
 
 * Tlie gift was in her hands. We'll find that deed, 
 And certify that date to you.' 
 
 As one 
 Who has climbed a mountain-height and carried up 
 His own heart climbing, panting in his throat 
 With the toil of the ascent, takes breath at last, 
 Looks back in triumph— so I stood and looked : 
 
 * Dear cousin Romney, we have reached the top 
 Of this steep question, and may rest, I think. 
 But first, — I pray you pardon, that the shock 
 And surge of natural feeling and event 
 
 Had made me oblivious of acquainting you 
 That this, this letter , . unread, mark, — still sealed, 
 Was found enfolded in the poor dead hand : 
 That spirit of hers had gone beyond the address, 
 
AURORA LEIGH 71 
 
 Which could not find her though you wrote it clear, — 
 
 I know your writing, Romney, — recognize 
 
 The open-hearted A, the liberal sweep 
 
 Of the 0. Now listen, — let us understand ; 
 
 You will hot find that famous deed of gift, 
 
 Unless you find it in the letter here, 
 
 Which, not being mine, I give you back. — Refuse 
 
 To take the letter 1 well then — you and I, 
 
 As writer and as heiress, open it 
 
 Together, by your leave. Exactly so : 
 
 The words in which the noble offering's made, 
 
 Are nobler still, my cousin ; and, I own, 
 
 The proudest and most delicate heart alive, 
 
 Distracted from the measure of the gift 
 
 By such a grace in giving, might accept 
 
 Your largesse without thinking any more 
 
 Of the burthen of it, than King Solomon 
 
 Considered, when he wore his holy ring 
 
 Charactered over with the ineffable spell, 
 
 IIow many carats of fine gold made up 
 
 Its money-value. So, Leigh gives to Leigh — 
 
 Or rather, might have given, observe! — for thats 
 
 The point we come to. Here's a proof of gift, 
 
 But here's no proof, sir, of acceptancy, 
 
 But rather, disproof. Death's black dust, being 
 
 blown, 
 mfiltrated through every secret fold 
 Of this sealed letter by a puff* of fate. 
 Dried up for ever the fresh-written ink, 
 Annulled the gift), disutilised the grace, 
 And left these fragments.' 
 
 As T spoke, 1 tore 
 The paper up and down, and down and up 
 
78 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And crosswise, till it fluttered from my hands. 
 As forest-leaves, stripped suddenly and rapt 
 By a whirlwind on Valdarno, drop again, 
 Drop slow, and strew the melancholy ground 
 Before the amazed hills . . . why, so, indeed, 
 I'm writing likp a poet, somewhat large 
 In the type of the image, — and exaggerate 
 A small thing with a great thing, topping it ! — 
 But then I'm thinking how his eyes looked . . his 
 With what despondent and surprised reproach ' 
 I think the tears were in them, as he looked — 
 I think the manly mouth just trembled. Then 
 He broke the silence. 
 
 ' I may ask, perhaps, 
 Although no stranger . . only Romney Leigh, 
 Which miians still less . . than Vincent Carrington 
 Your plai.s in going hence, and where you go. 
 This cannot be a secret.' 
 
 * All my life 
 Is open to you, cousin. I go hence 
 To London, to the gathering-place of souls. 
 To live mine straight out, vocally, in books ; 
 Harmoniously for others, if indeed 
 A woman's soul, like man's, be wide enough 
 To carry the whole octave (that's to prove) 
 Or, if I fail, still purely for myself. 
 Pray God be with me, Romney.' 
 
 * Ah, poor child. 
 Who fight against the mother's 'tiring hand. 
 And choose the headsman's ! May God change his 
 
 world 
 For your sake, sweet, and make it mild as heaven, 
 And juster than I have found you !' 
 
A IT R R A L E I G II 79 
 
 But I paused. 
 And you, my cousin 1' — 
 
 ' J,' he said, — ' you ask ? 
 You care to ask ? Well, girls have curious minds, 
 And fain would know the end of everything, 
 Of cousins, therefore, with the rest. For me, 
 Aurora, I've my work ; you know my work ; 
 And having missed this year some personal hope, 
 I must beware the rather that I miss 
 No reasonable duty. While you sing 
 Your happy pastorals of the m^ads and trees, 
 Bethink you that I go to impress and prove 
 On stifled brains and deafened ears, stunned deaf, 
 Crushed dull with grief, that nature sings itself. 
 And needs no mediate poet, lute or voice. 
 To make it vocal. While you ask of men 
 Your audience, I may get their leave perhaps 
 For hungry orphans to say audibly 
 ' We're hungry, see,' — for beaten and bullied wives 
 To hold their un weaned babies up in sight. 
 Whom orphanage would better ; and for all 
 To speak and claim their portion . . by no means 
 Of the soil, . . but of the sweat in tilling it. 
 Since this is now-a-days turned privilege. 
 To have only God's curse on us, and not man's. 
 Such work I have for doing, elbow-deep 
 fn social problems, — as you tie your rhymes. 
 To draw my uses to cohere with needs 
 And brijg the uneven world back to its round ; 
 Or, failing so much, fill up, bridge at least 
 To smoother issues, some abysmal cracks 
 And feuds of earth, intestine heats have made 
 To keep men separate, — using sorry shifts 
 
so AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of hospitals, almshouses, infant schools, 
 And other practical stuff of partial good, 
 You lovers of the beautiful and whole, 
 Despise by system.' 
 
 ' / despise ? The scorn 
 Is yours, my cousin. Poets become such, 
 Through scorning nothing. You decry them for 
 The good of beauty sung and taught by them, 
 While they respect your practical partial good 
 As being a part of beauty's self. Adieu ! 
 When God helps all the workers for his world, 
 The singers shall have help of Him, not last.' 
 
 He smiled as men smile when they will not speak 
 Because of something bitter in the thought ; 
 And still I feel his melancholy eyes 
 Look judgment on me. It is seven years since : 
 I know not if 'twas pity or 'twas scorn 
 Has made them so far-reaching : judge it ye 
 Who have had to do with pity more than love, 
 And scorn than hatred. I am used, since then, . 
 To other ways, from equal men. But so. 
 Even so, we let go hands, my cousin and I, 
 And, in between us, rushed the torrent-world 
 To blanch our faces like divided rocks. 
 And bar for ever mutual sight and touch 
 Except through swirl of spray and all that roar 
 
THIRD BOOK. 
 
 ' T^O-DAY thou girdest up thy loins thyself, 
 
 And goest where thou wouldest : presently 
 Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, ' to go 
 Where thou would'st not.' He spoke to Pefc«!^ 
 
 thus, 
 To signify the death which he should die 
 When crucified head downwards. 
 
 If lie spoke 
 To Peter then, He speaks to us the same ; 
 The word suits many different martyrdoms, 
 And signifies a multiform of death, 
 Although we scarcely die apostles, we, 
 And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth. 
 
 For 'tis not in mere death that men die most ; 
 
 And, after our first girding of the loins 
 
 In youth's fine linen and fair broidery^ 
 
 To run up hill and meet the rising sun, 
 
 We are apt to si^ tired, patient as a fool. 
 
 While others gird us with the violent bands 
 
 Of social figments, feints, and formalisms, 
 
 Reversing our straight nature, lifting up 
 
 Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts. 
 
 Head downward on the cross-sticks of the woild. 
 
82 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Yet lie can pluck us from that shameful cross. 
 God, set our feet low and our forehead high, 
 And show us how a man was made to walk ! 
 
 Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed. 
 
 The room does very well ; I have to write 
 
 Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away ; 
 
 Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room. 
 
 Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters ! throw them down 
 
 At once, as I must have them, to be sure. 
 
 Whether I bid you never bring me such 
 
 At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse. 
 
 You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps 
 
 To throw, them in the fire. Now get to bed, 
 
 And dream, if possible, I am not cross. 
 
 Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow, — 
 A mere, mere woman, — a mere flaccid nerve, 
 A kerchief left out all -'ght in the rain. 
 Turned soft so, — overtasked and overstrained 
 And overlived in this close London \\j'e ! 
 And yet I should be stronger. 
 
 Never burn 
 Your letters, poor Aurora ! for they stare 
 With red seals from the table, saying each, 
 Here's something that you know not.' Out alas, 
 Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise 
 Or even straighter and more consequent 
 Since yesterday at this time — yet, again. 
 If but one angel spoke from Ararat, 
 I should be very sorry not to hear : 
 So open all the letters ! let me read. 
 Blanche Ord, the writer in the ' Lady's Fan,* 
 
AUROHA LEIGH. 
 
 Requests my judgment on . . that, afterwards. 
 Kate Ward desires the model of my cloak, 
 And signs, * Elisha to you.' Pringle Sharpe 
 Presents his work on ' Social Conduct,' . . craves 
 A little money for his pressing debts . . 
 From me, who scarce have money for my needs, 
 Art's fiery chariot which we journey in 
 Being apt to singe our singing-robes to holes. 
 Although you ask me for my cloak, Kate Ward ! 
 Here's Rudgely knows it, — editor and sciibe — 
 He's * forced to marry where his heart is not, 
 {because the purse lacks where he lost his heart.' 
 
 Ah, lost it because no one picked it up ! 
 
 Ihat's really loss ! (and passable impudence.) 
 My critic Hammond flatters prettily. 
 And wants another volume like the last. 
 My critic Belfair wants another book 
 Entirely different, which w^ill sell, (and live ?) 
 A striking book, yet not a startling book, 
 The public blames originalities, 
 (You must not pump spring-water unawares 
 Upon a gracious public, full of nerves — ) 
 Good things, not subtle, new yet orthodox, 
 As easy reading as the dog-eared page 
 That's fingered by said public fifty years. 
 Since first taught spelling by its grandmother, 
 And yet a revelation in some sort : 
 That's hard, my critic Belfair ! So — what next 1 
 My critic Stokes objects to abstract thoughts ; 
 
 * Call a man, John, a woman, Joan,' says he, 
 
 * And do not prate so of humanities :' 
 Whereat I call my critic simply Stokes. 
 My critic Jobson recommends more mirth 
 
84 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Because a cheerful genius suits the times, 
 And all true poets laugh unquenchably 
 Like Shakspeare and the gods. That's very hard. 
 The gods may laugh, and Shakspeare ; Dante smiled 
 With such a needy heart on two pale lips. 
 We cry, * Weep rather, Dante.' Poems are 
 Men, if true poems : and who dares exclaim 
 At any man's door, ' Here, tis understood 
 The thunder fell last week and killed a wife, 
 And scared a sickly husband — what of that? 
 Get up, be merry, shout and clap your hands. 
 Because a cheerful genius suits the times — ' 1 
 None says so to the man, — and why indeed 
 Should any to tne poem 1 A ninth seal ; 
 The apocalypse is drawing to a close. 
 Ila, — this from Vincent Carrington, — ' Dear friend, 
 I want good counsel. Will you lend me wings 
 To raise me to the subject, in a sketch 
 I'll bring to-morrow — may 1 ? at eleven "? 
 A poet's only born to turn to use ; 
 So save you ! for the world . . and Carrington.' • 
 (Writ after.) Have you heard of Romney Leigli, 
 Beyond what's said of him in newspapers. 
 His phalansteries there, his speeches here. 
 His pamphlets, pleas, and statements, everywhere I 
 He dropped me long ago ; but no one drops 
 A golden apple — though indeed one day 
 You hinted that, but jested. Well, at least 
 You know Lord Howe who sees him . . whom he seos 
 And you see, and I hate to see, — for Howe 
 Stands high upon the brink of theories. 
 Observes the swimmers and cries ' Very fine,' 
 But keeps dry linen equally, — unlike 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 8fi 
 
 That gallant breaster, Romney. Strange it is, 
 
 Such sudden madness seizing a young man 
 
 To make earth over again, — while I'm content 
 
 To make the pictures. Let me bring the sketch, 
 
 A tiptoe Danae, overbold and hot ; 
 
 Both arms a-flame to meet her wishing Jove 
 
 Halfway, and burn him faster down ; the face 
 
 And breasts upturned and straining, the loose locki 
 
 All glowing with the anticipated gold. 
 
 Or here's another on the self-same theme. 
 
 She lies here — flat upon her prison-floor, 
 
 The long hair swathed about her to the heel 
 
 Like wet sea-weed. You dimly see her through 
 
 The glittering haze of that prodigious rain, 
 
 Half blotted out of nature by a love 
 
 As heavy as fate. I'll bring you either sketch. 
 
 I think, myself, the second indicates 
 
 More passion.' 
 
 Surely. Self is put away, 
 And calm with abdication. She is Jove, 
 And no more Danae — greater thus. Perhaps 
 The painter symbolises unawares 
 Two states of the recipient artist-soul ; 
 One, forward, personal, wanting reverence, 
 Because aspiring only. We'll be calm. 
 And know that, v/hen indeed our Joves come dowB^ 
 We all turn stiller than we have ever been. 
 
 Kind Vincent Carrington. I'll let him come. 
 Ho talks of Florence,— and may say a word 
 Of something as it chanced seven years ago, 
 A hedgehog in the path, or a lame bird, 
 ai those green country walks, in that good time, 
 8 
 
.g« AURORA LEIOH. 
 
 When certainly I was so miserable . . 
 
 I seem to have missed a blessing ever since. 
 
 Tlie music soars within the little lark, 
 
 And the lark soars. It is not thus with men. 
 
 We do not make our places with our strains, — 
 
 Content, while they rise, to remain behind, 
 
 Alone on earth instead of so in heaven. 
 
 No matter — I bear on my broken tale. 
 
 When Romney Leigh and 1 had parted thus, 
 
 I took a chamber up three flights of stairs 
 
 Not far from being as steep as some larks climi. 
 
 And there in a certain house in Kensington, 
 
 Three years I lived and worked. Get leave to work 
 
 In this world, — 'tis, the best you get at all ; 
 
 For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 
 
 llian men in benediction. God says, ' Sweat 
 
 For foreheads ;' men say ' crowns ;' and so we are 
 
 crowned, — 
 Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
 Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work ; get 
 
 work ; 
 Be sure 'tis better tlian what you work to get. 
 
 Serene and unafraid of solitude 
 
 I worked the short days out, — and watched the sun 
 
 On larid morns or monstrous afternoons, 
 
 Like some Druidic idol's fiery brass 
 
 With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat. 
 
 From which the blood of wretches pent inside 
 
 Seems oozing forth to incarnadine the air. 
 
 Push out through fog with his dilated disk. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. S** 
 
 And startle the slant roofs and chimney-pots 
 
 With splashes of fierce colour. Or I saw 
 
 Fog only, the great tawny weltering fog, 
 
 Involve the passive city, strangle it 
 
 Alive, and draw it off into the void, 
 
 Sjjires, bridges, streets, and squares, as if a spongo 
 
 Had wiped out London, — or as noon and night 
 
 Had clapped together and utterly struck out 
 
 The intermediate time, undoing themselves 
 
 In the act. Your city poets see such things 
 
 Not despicable. Mountains of the south, 
 
 When, drunk and mad with elemental wines 
 
 They rend the seamless mist and stand up bare, 
 
 Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings, 
 
 Descending Sinai ; on Parnassus- mount 
 
 You take a mule to climb and not a muse, 
 
 Except in fable and figure : forests chant 
 
 Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. 
 
 But sit in London at the day's decline. 
 
 And view the city perish in the mist 
 
 Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Red Sea, 
 
 The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host, 
 
 Sucked down and choked to silence — then, surprised 
 
 By a sudden sense of vision and of tune,' 
 
 You feel as conquerors though you did not fight, 
 
 And you and Israel's other singing girls. 
 
 Ay, Miiiam with them, sing the song you choose. 
 
 { worked with patience which means almost power. 
 
 I did some excellent things indifferently. 
 
 Some bad things excellently. Both were praised, 
 
 The latter loudest. And by such a time 
 
 That 1 myself had set them down as sins 
 
58 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Scarce worth the price of sackcloth, week by week 
 
 Arrived some letter through the sedulous post, 
 
 Like these I've read, and yet dissimilar, 
 
 With pretty maiden seals, — initials twined 
 
 Of lilies, or a heart niarked Emily, 
 
 (Convicting Emily of being all heart) ; 
 
 Or rarer tokens from young bachelors, 
 
 Who wrote from college with the same goosequill, 
 
 Suppose, they had just been plucked of, and a snatch 
 
 From Horace, * Collegisse juvat,' set 
 
 Upon the first page. Many a letter signed 
 
 Or unsigned, showing the writers at eighteen 
 
 Had lived too long, although a muse should help 
 
 Their dawn by holding candles, — compliments, 
 
 To smile or sigh at. Such could pass with me 
 
 No more than coins from Moscow circulate 
 
 At Paris. Would ten rubles buy a tag 
 
 Of ribbon on the boulevard, worth a sou ? 
 
 I smiled that all this youth should love me, — sighed 
 
 That such a love could scarcely raise them up 
 
 To love what was more worthy than myself; 
 
 Then sighed again, again, less generously. 
 
 To think the very love they lavished so, 
 
 Proved me inferior. The strong loved me not, 
 
 And he . . my cousin Ronmey . . did not write. 
 
 I felt the silent finger of his scorn 
 
 Prick every bubble of my frivolous fame 
 
 As my breath blew it, and resolve it back 
 
 To the air it came from. Oh, I justified 
 
 The measure he had taken of my height : 
 
 The thing was plain — he was not wrong a Ime ; 
 
 I played at art, made thrusts with a toy-sword, 
 
 Amused the lads and maidens. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 8f 
 
 Came a sigh 
 Deep, hof.rse with resolution, — I would work 
 To better ends, or play in earnest. * IleavenS; 
 I think I should be almost popular 
 If this went on !' — I ripped my verses up. 
 And found no blood apon the rapier's point ; 
 The heart in them was just an embryo's heart 
 Which never yet had beat, that it should die ; 
 Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life ; 
 Mere tones, inorganised to any tune. 
 
 And yet I felt it in me where it burnt. 
 
 Like those hot fire-seeds of creation held 
 
 In Jove's clenched palm before the worlds weri 
 
 sown, — 
 But 1 — I was not Juno even ! my hand 
 Was shut in weak convulsion, woman's ill^ 
 And when I yearned to loose a finger — lo, 
 The nerve revolted. 'Tis the same even nov: : 
 This hand may never, haply, open large, 
 Before the spark is quenched, or the palm charred, 
 To prove the power not else than by the pain. 
 
 it burns, it burnt — my whole life burnt with it, 
 And light, not sunlight and not torchlight, flashed 
 My steps out through the slow and difficult road. 
 I had grown distrustful of too forward Springs, 
 The season's books in drear significance 
 Of morals, dropping round me. Lively books ? 
 The ash has livelier verdure than the yew ; 
 And yet the yew's green longer, and alone 
 Found worthy of the holy Christmas time. 
 We'll plant more yews if possible, albeit 
 8* 
 
90 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 We plant the graveyards with them. 
 
 Day and nighl 
 I worked my rhythmic thought, and furrowed up 
 Both watch and slumber with long lines of life 
 Which did not suit their season. The rose fell 
 From either cheek, my eyes globed luminous 
 Tlirough orbits of blue shadow, and my pulse 
 Would shudder along the purple-veined wrist 
 Like a shot bird. Youth's stern, set face to face 
 With youth's ideal : and when people came 
 And said, 'You work too much, you are looking ill,' 
 I smiled for pity of them who pitied me, 
 And thought I should be better soon perhaps 
 For those ill looks. Observe — ' I,' means in youth 
 Just / . . the conscious and eternal soul 
 With all its ends, — and not the outside life, 
 The parcel-man, the doublet of the flesh, 
 The so much liver, lung, integument, 
 Which make the sum of ' I ' hereafter when 
 World-talkers talk of doing well or ill. 
 /prosper, if I gain a step, although 
 A nail then pierced my foot: although my brain 
 Embracing any truth froze paralysed, 
 I prosper. I but change my instrument ; 
 i break the spade off, digging deep for gold. 
 And catch the mattock up. 
 
 I worked on, on. 
 Tlirough all the bristling fence of nights and days 
 Which hedges time in from the eternities, 
 I struggled, . . never stopped to note the stakes 
 Which hurt me in my course. The midnight oil 
 Would stink sometimes; there came some vulgai 
 
AURORA LEIGH. »1 
 
 [ had to live that therefore I might work, 
 
 And, being but poor, I was constrained, for life, 
 
 To work with one hand for the booksellers 
 
 While working with the other for myself 
 
 And art. You swim with feet as well as hands, 
 
 Or make small way. 1 apprehended this, — 
 
 In England, no one lives by verse that lives , 
 
 And, apprehending, I resolved by prose 
 
 To make a space to sphere nn^' living verse. 
 
 i wrote for cyclopaedias, magazines. 
 
 And weekly papers, holding up my name 
 
 To keep it from the mud. I learnt the use 
 
 Of the editorial ' we' in a review. 
 
 As courtly ladies the fine trick of trains. 
 
 And swept it grandly through the open doors 
 
 As if one could not pass through doors at all 
 
 Save so encumbered. I wrote tales beside, " 
 
 Carved many an article on cherry-stones 
 
 To suit light readers, — sonriething in the bnes 
 
 Revealing, it was said, the mallet-hand, 
 
 But that, I'll never vouch for. What you do 
 
 For bread, will taste of common grain, not grapea 
 
 Although you have a vineyard in Champagne, — 
 
 Much less in Nephelococcygia, 
 
 As mine was, peradventure. 
 
 Having bread 
 For just so many days, just breathing room 
 For body and verse, I stood up straight and worked 
 My veritable work. And as the soul 
 Which grows within a child makes the child grow,^ 
 Or as the fiery sap, the touch from God, 
 Careering through a tree, dilates the bark 
 And roughs with scale and knob, before it strikes 
 
n AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The summer foliage out in a green flame — 
 So life, in deepening with me, deepened all 
 The course I took, the work I did. Indeed 
 The academic law convinced of sin ; 
 The critics cried out on the falling off, 
 Regretting the first manner. But I felt 
 My heart's life throbbing in my verse to show 
 It lived, it also — certes incomplete, 
 Disordered with all Adam in the blood. 
 But eyen its very tumours, warts, and wens. 
 Still organised by and implying life. 
 
 A lady called upon me on such a day. 
 
 She had the low voice of your English dames, 
 
 Unused, it seems, to need rise half a note 
 
 To catch attention, — and their quiet mood, 
 
 As if they lived too high above the earth 
 
 For that to put them out in anything : 
 
 So gentle, because verily so proud ; 
 
 So wary and afraid of hurting you, 
 
 By no means that you are not really vile. 
 
 But that they would not touch you with their foot 
 
 To push you to your place ; so self-possessed 
 
 Yet gracious and conciliating, it takes 
 
 An effort in their presence to speak truth : 
 
 You know the sort of woman, — brilliant stuff. 
 
 And out of nature. * Lady Waldemar.' 
 
 She said her name quite simply, as if it meant 
 
 Not much indeed, but something, — took my handsj 
 
 And smiled as if her smile could help my case, 
 
 And dropped her eyes on me and let them melt 
 
 ^ Is this,' she said, ' the Muse V 
 
 * No sybil even,* 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 93 
 
 *■ 
 I answered, * since she fails to guess the cause 
 Which taxed you with this visit, madam." 
 
 'Good, 
 She said, *! value what's sincere at once; 
 Perhaps if I had found a literal Muse, 
 The visit might have taxed me. As it is, 
 You wear your blue so chiefly in your eyes, 
 My fair Aurora, in a frank good way, 
 It coraforls me entirely for your fame. 
 As well as for the trouble of ascent 
 To this Olympus.' 
 
 There, a silver laugli 
 Ran rippling through her quickened little breathi 
 The steep stair somewhat justified. 
 
 ' But still 
 Your ladyship has left nie curious why 
 You dared the risk of finding the said Muse V 
 
 * Ah, — keep me, notwithstanding, to the point, 
 
 Like any pedant. Is the blue in eyes 
 
 As awful as in stockings after all, 
 
 I wonder, that you'd have my business out 
 
 Before I breathe— exact the epic plunge 
 
 In spite of gasps ? Well, naturally you think 
 
 I've come here, as the. lion-hunters go 
 
 To deserts, to secure you with a trap. 
 
 For exhibition in my drawing-rooms 
 
 On zoologic soirees 1 Not in the least. 
 
 Roar softly at me ; I am frivolous, 
 
 I dare say ; I have played at wild-beasts shows, 
 
 Like other women of my class,. — but now 
 
 I meet my lion simply as Androcles 
 
 Met his . . when at his mercy.* 
 
04 AURORA LEI U II. 
 
 St^, she bent 
 Tier head, as queens may mock, — then lifUng up 
 Fler eyelids with a real grave queenly look, 
 Which ruled and ^vould not spare, not even hei 
 
 self,— 
 ' I think you have a cousin :— Romney Leigh.' 
 
 ' You bring a word from him /' — my eyes leapt up 
 To the very height of hers, — ' a word from him /' 
 
 ' I bring a word about him, actually. 
 
 But first,' — she pr- ssod me with her urgent eyes — 
 
 ' You do not lo^ e him, — you V 
 
 ' You're frank at least 
 hi putting questions, madam,' I replied. 
 ' I love my cousin cousinly — no more.' 
 
 ' I guessed as much. I'm ready to be frank 
 In answering also, if you'll question me, 
 Or even with something less. You stand outside, 
 You artist women, of the common sex ; 
 You share not with us, and exceed us so 
 Perhaps by what yoli're mulcted in, your hearts 
 Being starved to make your heads : so run the old 
 Traditions of you. I can therefore speak, 
 Without the natural shame which creatures feel 
 When speaking on their level, to their like. 
 There's many a papist she, would rather die 
 Than own to her maid she put a ribbon on 
 To catch the indifferent eye of such a man, — 
 Who yet would count adulteries on her beads 
 At holy Mary's shrine and never blush ; 
 Because the saints are so far off, we lose 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 98 
 
 All modesty before them. Thus, to-day. 
 'Tis /, love Romney Leigh.* 
 
 * Forbear,' I cried* 
 * If here's no Muse, still less is any saint ; 
 Nor even a friend, that Lady Waldemar 
 Should make confessions' , . 
 
 * That's unkindly said. 
 If no friend, what forbids to make a friend 
 To join to our confession ere we have done 'i 
 I love your cousin. If it seems unwise 
 To say so, it's still foolisher (we're frank) 
 To feel so. My first husband left me young, 
 And pretty enough, so please you, and rich enough, 
 To keep my booth in May-fair with the rest 
 To happy issues. There ^re marquises 
 Would serve seven years to call me wife, I know ! 
 And, after seven, I might consider it. 
 For there's some comfort in a marquisate 
 When all's said, — yes, but after the seven years ; 
 I, now, love Romney. You put up your lip, 
 So like a Leigh ! so like him ! — Pardon me, 
 I am well aware I do not derogate 
 In loving Romney Leigh. The name is good. 
 The means are excellent ; but the man, the man- 
 Heaven help us both, — I am near as mad as he, 
 In loving such an one.' 
 
 She slowly wrung 
 Her heavy ringlets till they touched her smile. 
 As reasonably sorry fbr herself; 
 And thus continued, — 
 
 ' Of a truth, Miss Leigh, 
 I have not, without struggle, come to this, 
 I took a master in the German tongue, 
 
M aDRORA LEIGH 
 
 1 gamed a little, went to Paris twice ; 
 
 But, after all, this love ! . . . you eat of love, 
 
 And do as vile a thing as if you ate 
 
 Of garlic — which, whatever else you eat, 
 
 Tastes uniformly acrid, till your peach 
 
 Reminds you of your onion ! Am I coarse ? 
 
 Well, love's coarse, nature's coarse — ah, there's ihf 
 
 rub! 
 -We fair fine ladies, who park out our lives 
 From common sheep-paths, cannot help the crows 
 From flying over, — we're as natural still 
 As Blowsalinda. Drape us perfectly 
 In Lyons' velvet, — we are not, for that. 
 Lay-figures, like you : we have hearts within, 
 Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts, 
 As ready for outrageous ends and acts 
 As any distressed sempstress -of them all 
 That Romney groans and toils for. We catch love 
 And other fevers, in the vulgar way. 
 Love will not be outwitted by our wit, 
 Nor outrun by our equipages : — mine 
 Persisted, spite of efforts. All my cards 
 Turned up but Romney Leigh ; my German stopped 
 At germane Wertherism ; my Paris rounds 
 Returned me from the Champs Elysees just 
 A ghost, and sighing like Dido's. I came. home 
 Uncured, — convicted rather to myself 
 Of being in love . . in love ! That's coarse you'll sa/, 
 I'm talking garlic' 
 
 Coldly I replied 
 * Apologise for atheism, not love ! 
 For me, I do believe in love, and God. 
 1 know my cousin : Lady Waldemar 
 
AURORA LEIGH V* 
 
 \ know not : yet I say as much as this — 
 Whoever Icves him, let her not excuse 
 But cleanse herself, that, loving such a man, 
 She may not do it with such unworthy love 
 He cannot stoop and take it.' 
 
 * That is said 
 Austerely, like a youthful prophetess. 
 Who knits her brows across her pretty eyes 
 To keep them back from following the grey flight 
 Of doves between the temple-columns. Dear, 
 Be kinder with me. Let us two be friends. 
 I'm a mere woman, — the more weak perhaps 
 Through being so proud ; you're better ; as for 
 
 him, 
 lie's best. Indeed he builds his goodness up 
 So high, it topples down to the other side, 
 And makes a sort of badness ; there's the worst 
 I have to say against your cousin's best ! 
 And so be mild, Aurora, with my worst, 
 For his sake, if not mine.' 
 
 * I own myself 
 Incredulous of confidence like this 
 Availing him or you.* 
 
 • And I, myself, 
 Of being worthy of him with any love : 
 In your sense I am not so — ^let it pass. 
 Let that pass too.' 
 
 * Pass, pass ! we play police 
 Upon my cousin's life, to indicate 
 What may or may not passf I cried. * He knows 
 What's worthy of him ; the choice remains with him , 
 And what he chooses, act or wife, I think 
 I shall not call unworthy, I, for one.' 
 
 o 
 
98 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 * lis somewhat rashly said,' she answered slow. 
 
 * Now let's talk reason, though we talk of love. 
 Your cousin Romney Leigh's a monster : there^ 
 The word's out fairly ; let me prove the fact 
 We'll take, say, that most perfect of antiques 
 They call the Genius of the Vatican, 
 
 Which seems too beauteous to endure itself 
 In this mixed world, and fasten it for once 
 Upon the torso of the Dancing Fawn, 
 (Who might limp surely, if he did not dance,) 
 Instead of Buonarroti's mask : what then 1 
 We show the sort of monster Romney is, 
 With god-like virtue and heroic aims 
 Subjoined to limping possibilities 
 Of mismade human nature. Grant the man 
 Twice godlike, twice heroic, — still he limps, 
 And here's the point we come to.' 
 
 * Pardon me, 
 But, Lady Waldemar, the point's the thing 
 We never come to.' 
 
 ' Caustic, insolent 
 At need ! I like you' — (there, she took my hand^) 
 ' And now my lioness, help Androcles, 
 For all your roaring. Help me ! for myself 
 I would not say so — but for him. lie limps 
 So certainly, he'll fall into the pit 
 A week hence, — so I lose him — so he is lost ! 
 l^or when he's fairly married, he a Leigh, 
 To a girl of doubtful life, undoubtful birth, 
 Starved out in London till her coarse-grained hand? 
 Are whiter than her morals, — even you 
 May caD his choice unworthy.' 
 
 * Married I lost I 
 
A0RORA LEI^JII. n 
 
 He, . . , Romney !' 
 
 * Ah, you're moved at last,' sho said. 
 ' These monsters, set out in the open sun, 
 Of course throw monstrous shadows : those who think 
 Awry, will scarce act straightly. Who but he 1 
 And who but you can wonder ? He has been mad, 
 The whole world knows, since first, a nominal man, 
 He soured the proctors, tried the gownsmen's wits, 
 With equal scorn of triangles and wine. 
 And took no honours, yet was honourable. 
 They'll tell you he lost count of Homer's ships 
 In Melbourne's poor-bills, Ashley's factory bills, — 
 Ignored the Aspasia we all dare to praise. 
 For other women, dear, we could not name 
 Because we're decent. Well, he had some right 
 On his side probably ; men always have, 
 Who go absurdly wrong. The living boor 
 Who brews your ale, exceeds in vital worth 
 Dead Caisar who ' stops bungholes' in the cask ; 
 And also, to do good is excellent. 
 For persons of his income, even to boors : 
 I sympathise with all such things. But ho 
 Went mad upon them . . madder and more mad. 
 From college times to these, — as, going down hill, 
 Tlie faster still, the farther ! you must know 
 Your Leigh by heart ; he has sown his biiick young 
 
 curls 
 With bleaching cares of half a million men 
 Already. If you do not starve, or sm, 
 You're nothing to him. Pay the income-tax, 
 And break your heart upon't . . he'll scarce be 
 
 touched ; 
 Hilt ooiT^o lipon tlic p.u-ish, qualifiexi 
 
100 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 For the parish stocks, and Romney will be there 
 To call you brother, sister, or perhaps 
 A tenderer name still. Had I any chance 
 With Mister Leigh, who am Lady Waldemar, 
 And never committed felony V 
 
 * You speak 
 Too bitterly,' I said, * for the literal truth.' 
 
 * The truth is bitter. Here's a man who looks 
 
 For ever on the ground ! you must be low ; 
 
 Or else a pictured ceiling overhead, 
 
 Good painting thrown away. For me, I've done 
 
 What women may, we're somewhat limited. 
 
 We modest women, but I've done my best. 
 
 — How men are perjured when they swear our eyea 
 
 Have meaning in them ! they're just blue or brown. 
 
 They just can drop their lids a little. And yet 
 
 Mine did more, for I read half Fourier through, 
 
 Proudhon, Considerant, and Louis Blanc, 
 
 With various other of his socialists ; 
 
 And if I had been a fathom less in love, 
 
 Had cured myself with gaping. As it was,' 
 
 I quoted from them prettily enough 
 
 Perhaps, to make them sound half rational 
 
 To a saner man than he whene'er we talked, 
 
 (For which I dodged occasion) — learnt by heart 
 
 His speeches in the Commons and elsewhere 
 
 Upon the social question ; heaped reports 
 
 Of wicked women and penitentiaries. 
 
 On all my tables, with a place for Sue ; 
 
 And gave my name to swell subscription-lists 
 
 Toward keeping up the smi at nights in heaven, 
 
 And other possibhi ends. All ihinfira I did. 
 
A U U II A L K I G n 101 
 
 Except tho Impossible . . such as wearing gowiis 
 l^rovided by the Ten IR)urs' movement: there, 
 I stopped — we must stop somewhere. He, mc<\n 
 
 while, 
 Unmoved as the Indian tortoise 'neath the world, 
 Let all that noise go on upon his back : 
 Jle would not disconcert or throw me out ; 
 Twaa well to see a woman of my class 
 With such a dawn of conscience. For the heart, 
 Made firewood for his sake, and flaming up 
 To his face, — he merely warmed his feet at it ; 
 But deigned to let my carriage stop him short 
 In park or street, — he leaning on the door 
 With news of the committee which sate last 
 On pickpockets at suck.' • 
 
 ' You jest — you jest.' 
 
 ' As martyrs jest, dear, (if you read there lives) 
 Upon the axe which kills them. When alPs done 
 By me, . . for him — you'll ask him presently 
 The colour of my hair — he cannot tell, 
 Or answers ' dark' at random, — whilcj be sure. 
 He's absolute on the figure, five or ten. 
 Of my last subscription. Is it bearable, 
 And I a woman 1 ' 
 
 ' Is it reparable, 
 ITiough /were a mauV 
 
 * I know not. That's to provei. 
 But first, this shameful marriage.' 
 
 ' Ay ri cried, 
 ' Then really there's a marriage 1 ' 
 
 ' Yesterday 
 ©• 
 
104 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I held him fh,st upon it. ' Mister Leigh,' 
 Said I, * shut up a thing, it makes more noise. 
 *The boiling town keeps secrets ill ; I've known 
 
 * Yours since last week. Forgive my knowledge so 
 
 * You feel I'm not the woman of the world 
 
 * The world thinks ; you have borne with me before 
 
 * And used me in your noble work, our work, 
 
 * And now you shall not cast me off because 
 
 * You're at the difficult point, the join. 'Tis tru<^ 
 
 * Even I can scarce admit the cogency 
 
 * Of such a marriage . . where you do not love, 
 
 * (Except the class) yet marry and throw your name 
 
 * Down to the gutter, for a fire-escape 
 
 * To future generations ! 't is sublime, 
 
 * A great example, — a true Genesis 
 
 * Of the opening social era. But take heed ; 
 
 ' This virtuous act must have a patent weight, 
 
 * Or loses half its virtue. Make it tell, 
 
 * Interpret it, and set in the light, 
 
 * And do not muffle it in a winter-cloak 
 
 * As a vulgar bit of shame, — as if, at best, 
 
 ' A Leigh had made a misalliance and blushed 
 
 * A Howard should know it* Then, I pressed him 
 
 more — 
 
 * He would not choose,' I said, ' that even his kin, . . 
 Aurora Leigh, even . . should conceive his act 
 
 * Less sacrifice, more fantasy.' At which 
 
 I le grew so pale, dear, . . to the lips I knew, 
 I had touched him. ' Do you ^now her,' he inquired^ 
 *!My cousin Aurora 1 ' * Yes,' I said, and lied, 
 (But truly we all know you by your books) 
 And so I offered to come straight to you, 
 Explain the subject, justify the cause, 
 
AURO R A LEIO II. lOi 
 
 And take you with mo U) St. Margaret's G)urt 
 To see this miracle, this Marian Erie, 
 This drover's daughter (she's not pretty, he sweiirs) 
 Upon whose fmger, exquisitely pricked 
 By a hundred needles, we're to hang the tie 
 *Twixt class and class in England, — thus indeed 
 By such a presence, yours and mine, to lift 
 The match up from the doubtful place. At once 
 lie thanked me sighing . . murmured to himself 
 * She'll do it perhaps; she's noble,' — thanked m^, 
 
 twice, 
 And promised, as my guerdon, to put off 
 II is marriage for a month.' 
 
 I answered then. 
 ' I understand your drift imperfectly. 
 You wish to lead me to my cousin's betrothed, 
 To touch her hand if worthy, and hold her hand 
 If feeble, thu? tx) justify his match. 
 So be it then. But how this serves your ends, 
 And how the strange confession of your love 
 Serves this, I have to learn — I cannot see,' 
 
 She knit her restless forehead. * Then, despite, 
 
 Aurora, that most radiant morning name, 
 
 You're dull as any London afternoon. 
 
 I wanted time, — and gained it, — wanted you, 
 
 And gain you ! You will come and see the girl 
 
 In whose most prodigal eyes the lineal peail 
 
 And pride of all your lofty race of Leighs 
 
 Is destined to solution. Authorised 
 
 By sight and knowledge, then, you'll speak your mind, 
 
 And prove to Romney, in your brilliant way, 
 
 He'll wrong the people and posterity, 
 
104 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 (Say such a thing is bad for me and you, 
 
 And you fail utterly,) by concluding this 
 
 An exccrabl 3 marriage. Break it up. 
 
 Disroot it — peradventure presently, 
 
 We'll plant a better fortune in its place. 
 
 Be good to me, Aurora, scorn me less 
 
 For saying the thing I should not Well I know 
 
 I should not. I have kept, as others have, 
 
 ITie iron rule of womanly reserve 
 
 In lip and life, till now : I wept a week 
 
 Before I came here.' — Ending, she was pale ; 
 
 The last words, haughtily said, were tremulous. 
 
 This palfrey pranced in harness, arched her ncck^ 
 
 And, only by the foam upon the bit, 
 
 You saw she champed against it 
 
 Then I rose. 
 ' I love love : truth's no cleaner thing than love. 
 I comprehend a love so fiery hot 
 It burns its natural veil of august shame, 
 And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste 
 As Medicean Venus. But I know, 
 A love that burns through veils will burn through 
 
 masks 
 And shrivel up treachery. What, love and lie ! 
 Nay — go to the opera ! your love's curable,' 
 
 * I love and lie V she said — ' I lie, forsooth V 
 
 And beat her taper foot upon the floor. 
 
 And smiled against the shoe, — ' You're hafd, Miss 
 
 Leigh, 
 Unversed in current phrases, — Bowling-greens 
 Of poets are fresher than the world's highways j 
 Forj^ive me tliat I rashly blew the dust 
 
AURORA LEIGH. lOf 
 
 Which dims our hedges even, in your eyes, 
 
 And vexed you so much. You find, probably, 
 
 No evil in this marriage, — rather good 
 
 Of innocence, to pastoral ise in song : 
 
 You'll give the bond your signature, perhaps, 
 
 Beneath the lady's mark, — indifferent 
 
 That Romney chose a wife, could write her nanie. 
 
 In witnessing he loved her.' 
 
 ' Loved !' I cried ; 
 * Who tells you that he wants a wife to love ? 
 He gets a horse to use, not love, I think : 
 There's work for wives as well, — and after, straw, 
 When men are liberal. For myself, you err 
 Supposing power in me to break this match. 
 I could not do it, to save Romney 's life ; 
 And would not, to save mine.' 
 
 ' You take so it,' 
 She said ; ' farewell then: Write your books in 
 
 peace, 
 As far as may be for some secret stir 
 Now obvious to me, — for, most obviously, 
 In coming hither I mistook the way.' 
 Whereat she touched my hand, and bent her head. 
 And floated from me like a silent cloud 
 That leaves the sense of thunder. 
 
 I drew breath 
 Oppressed in my deliverance. After all 
 This woman breaks her social system up 
 For love, so counted — the love possible 
 To such, — and lilies are still lilies, pulled 
 Uy smutty hands, though spotted from their whifct> ; 
 And thus she is better haply, of her kind, 
 Tlian Romney Ivcigh, vho lives by diagraina, 
 
106 AURORA LEI Gil. 
 
 And crosses out the spont<ineities 
 
 Of all his individual, personal life, 
 
 With formal universals. As if man 
 
 Were set upon a high stool at a desk 
 
 To keep God's books for Him in red and black, 
 
 And feel by millions ! What, if even God 
 
 Were chiefly God by living out Himself 
 
 To an individualism of the Infinite, 
 
 Eterne, intense, profuse, — still throwing up 
 
 The golden spray of multitudinous worlds 
 
 In measure to the proclive weight and rush 
 
 Of His inner nature, — the spontaneous love 
 
 Still proof and outflow of spontaneous life ? 
 
 Then live, Aurora 
 
 Two hours afterward, 
 Within St. Margaret's Court I stood alone. 
 Close-veiled. A sick child, from an ague-fit, 
 Whose wasted right hand gambled 'gainst his left 
 With an old brass button in a blot of sun, 
 Jeered weakly at me as I passed across 
 The uneven pavement ; while a woman, rouged 
 Upon the angular cheek-bones, kerchief torn, 
 Thin dangling locks, and flat lascivious mouth, 
 Cursed at a window both ways, in and out, 
 By turns some bed-rid creature and myself, — 
 ' Lie still there, mother ! liker the dead dog 
 You'll bo to-morrow. What, we pick our way, 
 Fine madam, with those damnable small feet ! 
 We cover up our face fVom doing good, 
 A* if it were our purse.! What brings you here, 
 My lady 1 is't to find my gentleman 
 Who visits his tame pigeon in the eaves ] 
 Our cholera catx^h you with its cramps and spa.sms, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. lifl 
 
 And tumble up your good clothes, veil and all, 
 
 And turn your whiteness dead-blue.* I looked up ; 
 
 I think I could have walked through hell that day, 
 
 And never flinched. ' The dear Christ comfort you, 
 
 I said, * you must have been most miserable 
 
 To be so cruel,' — and I emptied out 
 
 My purse upon the stones : when, as I had cast 
 
 The last charm in the cauldron, the whole court 
 
 Went boiling, bubbling up, from all its doors 
 
 And windows, with a hideous wail of laughs 
 
 And roar of oaths, and blows perhaps . . I passed 
 
 Too quickly for distinguishing . . and pushed 
 
 A little side-door hanging on a hinge, 
 
 And plunged into the dark, and groped and climbed 
 
 llie long, steep, narrow stair 'twixt broken rail 
 
 And mildewed wall that let the plaster drop 
 
 To startle me in the blackness. Still, up, up! 
 
 So high lived Romney's bride. I paused at last 
 
 Before a low door in the roof, and knocked ; 
 
 There came an answer like a hurried dove — 
 
 ' So soon 1 can that be Mister Leigh ? so soon V 
 
 And as I entered, an ineffable face 
 
 Met mine upon the threshold. * Oh, not you, 
 
 Not you !' . . . the dropping of the voice implied, 
 
 * Then, if not you, for me not any one.' 
 
 I looked her in the eyes, and held her hands. 
 
 And said, ' I am his cousin, — Romney Leigh's ; 
 
 And here I'm come to see my cousin too.' 
 
 She touched me with her face and with her voice, 
 
 This daughter of the people. Such soft flowers, 
 
 From such rough roots 1 the people, under there. 
 
 Can sin so, curse so, look so, smell so . , , faugh ! 
 
 Yet have such daughters ? 
 
106 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 No wise beautiful 
 Was Marian Erie. She was not white nor hro>Mi 
 But could look either, like a mist that changed 
 According to being shone on more or less. 
 The hair, too, ran its opulence of curls 
 In doubt 'twixt dark and bright, nor left you clear 
 To name the colour. Too much hair perhaps 
 (I'll name a fault here) for so small a head, 
 Which seemed to dro(^p on that side and on this, 
 As <\ full-blown rose uneasy with its weight 
 Though not a wind should trouble it. Again, 
 The dimple in the check had better gone 
 With redder, fuller rounds : and somewhat large 
 The mouth was, though the milky little t^^eth 
 Dissolved it to so infantine a smile. 
 For soon it smiled at me ; the eyes smiled too, 
 But 'twas as if remembering they had wept. 
 And knowing they should, some day, weep again. 
 
 We talked. She told me all her story out, 
 
 Which I'll re-tell with fuller utterance, 
 
 As coloured and confirmed in aftertimes 
 
 By others and herself too. Marian Erie 
 
 Was born upon the ledge of Malvern Hill 
 
 To eastward, in a hut built up at night ■ 
 
 To evade the landlord's eye, of mud and turf, 
 
 Still liable^ if once he looked that way, 
 
 To being s'^aight levelled, scattered by his foot, 
 
 Like any other anthill. Born, I say ; 
 
 God sent her to his world, commissioned right 
 
 ITer human testimonials fully signed, 
 
 Not scant in soul — complete in lineaments; 
 
 But others had to swindle her a place 
 
AURORA LKIGII. 109 
 
 To wail in when she h;i(i come. No [)I<ice for her. 
 By man's law ! bcirn an outlaw, was this babe. 
 Her first cry in our strange and strangling air, 
 When cast in spasms out by the shuddering woml>, 
 Was wrong against the social code, — forced wrong. 
 What business had the baby to cry there ? 
 
 I tell her story and grow passionate. 
 She, Marian, did not tell it so, but used 
 Meek words that made no wonder of her-seK 
 For being so sad a creature. ' Mister Leigh 
 Considered truly that such things should change. 
 They will, in heaven — but meantime, on the e^irth, 
 There's none can like a nettle as a pink. 
 Except himself. We're nettles, some of us, 
 And give offence by the act of springing up ; 
 And, if we leave the damp side of the wall, 
 The hoes, of course, are on us.' So she said. 
 Her father earned his life by random jobs 
 Despised by steadier workmen — keeping swine 
 On commons, picking hops, or hurrying on 
 The harvest at wet seasons, — or, at need, 
 Assisting the Welsh drovers, when a drove 
 Of startled horses plunged into the mist 
 Below the mountain-road, and sowed the whid 
 With wandering neighings. In between the gaps 
 Of such irregular work, he drank and slept. 
 And cursed his wife because, the pence being oiit^ 
 She could not buy more drinl At which she tun.eo 
 (The worm) and beat her baby in revenge 
 For her own broken heart. There's not a crime 
 But takes its proper change out still in crime. 
 If once rung on the counter of this world ; 
 10 
 
no AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Let sinners look to it. 
 
 Yet the out«ist chili, 
 For whom the very mother's face forewent 
 The mother's special patieifce, lived and grew ; 
 Learnt early to cry low, and walk alone, 
 With that pathetic vacillating roll 
 Of the infant body on the uncertain feet, 
 (The earth being ftjlt unstable ground so soon) 
 At which most women's arms unclose at once 
 With irrepressive instinct Thus, at three, 
 This poor weaned kid would run off from the fold, 
 This babe would steal off from the mother's chair, 
 And, creeping through the golden walls of gorse, 
 Would find some keyhole toward the secrecy 
 Of Heaven's high blue, and, nestling down, peer ou^— 
 Oh, not to catch the angels at their games, 
 She had never heard of angels, — but to gaze 
 She knew not why, to see she knew not what, 
 A-hungering outward from the barren earth 
 For something like a joy. She liked, she said. 
 To dazzle black her sight against the sky, - 
 For then, it seemed, some grand blind Love cam« 
 
 down, 
 And groped her out, and clasped her with a kiss ; 
 She learnt God that way, and was beat for it 
 Whenever she went home, — yet came again, 
 As surely as the trapped hare, getting free, 
 Returns to his form. Tliis grand blind LovOj she said, 
 This skyey father and mother both in one, 
 Instructed her and civilised her more 
 Than even Sunday-school did afterward, 
 To which a lady sent her to learn books 
 And sit upon a long bench in a row 
 
AURORA LEIGH. Ill 
 
 With other children. Well, she laughed sonietimea 
 To see them laugh and laugh and maul their texts ; 
 But ofter she was sorrowful with noise, 
 And wondered if their mothers beat them hard 
 That ever they should laugh so. There was one 
 She loved indeed, — Rose Bell, a seven years' child, 
 So pretty and clever, who read syllables 
 When Marian was at letters ; she would laugh 
 At nothing — hold your finger up, she laughed, 
 Then shook her curls down over eyes and mouth 
 To hide her make-mirth from the scho(>lmaster. 
 And Rose's pelting glee, as frank as rain 
 On cherry-blossoms, brightened Marian too, 
 To see another merry whom she loved. 
 She whispered once (the children side by side, 
 With mutual arms entwined about their necks) 
 
 * Your motber lets you laugh so V ' Ay,' said Rose, 
 
 * She lets me. She was dug into the ground 
 Six years since, I being but a yearling wean. 
 Such mothers let us play and lose our time, 
 And never scold nor beat us ! don't you wish 
 
 You had one like that V There, Marian breaking o(T 
 Looked suddenly in my face. ' Poor Rose,' said she, 
 ' I heard her laugh last night in Oxford Street. 
 I'd pour out half my blood to stop that laugh. 
 Poor Rjse, poor Rose !' said Marian. 
 
 She resumed 
 It tried her, when she had learnt at Sunday-school 
 What God was, what he wanted from us all, 
 And how in choosing sin we vexed the Christ, 
 To go straight home and hear her father pull 
 The Name down on us from the thunder shelf^ 
 Then drink away his soul into the dark 
 
Ua AUROllA LEIGIl. 
 
 From sceiiig judgment. Father, mother, home, 
 Were God and heaven reversed to her : the more 
 She knew of Right, the more-she guessed their wrong 
 Her price paid down for knowledge, was to know 
 The vijeness of her kindred: through her heart, 
 Her filial and tormented heart, henceforth. 
 They struck their blows at virtue. Oh, 'tis hard 
 To learn you have a father up in heaven 
 By a gathering certain sense of being, on earth. 
 Still worse than orphaned : 'tis too heavy a grief, 
 Tho having to thank God for such a joy ! 
 
 And so passed Marian's life from year to year. 
 
 Her parents took her with them when they tramped, 
 
 Dodged lanes and heaths, freque'nted towns and fairs, 
 
 And once went farther and saw Manchester, 
 
 And once the sea, that blue end of the world. 
 
 That fair scroll-finis of a wicked book, — 
 
 And twice a prison, back at intervals. 
 
 Returning to the hills. Hills draw like heaven, 
 
 And stronger sometimes, holding out their hands 
 
 To pull you from the vile flats up to them ; 
 
 And though perhaps these strollers still strolled back. 
 
 As sheep do, simply that they knew the way. 
 
 They certainly felt bettered unaware 
 
 Emerj^inor from the social smut of towns 
 
 To wipe their feet clean on the mountain-turf. 
 
 In which long wanderings, Marian lived and learn<»-d, 
 
 Endured and learned. The people on the roads 
 
 Would stop and ask her how her eyes outgrew 
 
 Her cheeks, and if she meant to lodge the birds 
 
 In all that hair ; and then they lifted her, 
 
 The miller in his cart, a mile or twain, 
 
AURORA LEI Gi;. Ill 
 
 The butcher's boy on horseback. Often too 
 
 ITie pedlar stopped, and tapped her on the hei*d 
 
 With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed, 
 
 And asked if perad venture she could read ; 
 
 And when she answered ' ay,' would toss her dovm 
 
 Some stray odd volume from his heavy pack, 
 
 A Thomson's Seasons, mulcted of the Spring, 
 
 Or half a play of Shakspeare's, torn across : 
 
 (She had to guess the bottom of a page 
 
 By just the top sometimes, — as difficult, 
 
 As, sitting on the moon, to guess the earth !) 
 
 Or else a sheaf of leaves (for that small Ruth's 
 
 Small gleanings) torn out from the heart of books, 
 
 From Churchyard Elegies and Edens Lost, 
 
 From Burns, and Bunyan, Selkirk, and Tom Jonea 
 
 'Twas somewhat hard to keep the things distinct, 
 
 And oft the jangling influence jarred the child 
 
 Like looking at a sunset full of grace 
 
 Through a pothouse window while the drunken oaths 
 
 Went on behind her ; but she weeded out 
 
 Her book-leaves, threw away the leaves that hurt, 
 
 (First tore them small, that none should find a word) 
 
 And made a nosegay of the sweet and good 
 
 To fold within her breast, and pore upon 
 
 At broken moments of the noontide glare, 
 
 When leave was given her to untie her cloak 
 
 And rest upon the dusty highway's bank 
 
 From the road's dust. Or oft, the JMUiucy d<>ne, 
 
 Some city friend would lead her by the hand 
 
 To hear a lecture at an institute : 
 
 And thus she had grown, this Marian Erie of our«, 
 
 To no book-learning, — she was ignorant 
 
 Of authors, — nut in earshot of the things 
 
 10^ u 
 
114 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Out-spoken o'er the heads of common meo 
 By men who arc uncommon, — but within 
 The cadenced hum of such, and capable 
 Of witching from the fringes of the wind 
 Some fragmentary phrases, here and there, 
 Of that fine music,— which, being carried in 
 To her soul, had reproduced itself afresh 
 In finer motions of the lips and lids. 
 
 She said, in speaking of it, ' If a flower 
 Were thrown you out of heaven at intervals, 
 You'd soon attain to a trick of looking up, — 
 And so with her.' She counted me her years, 
 Till / felt old ; and then she counted me 
 Her sorrowful pleasures, till I felt ashamed. 
 She told me she was fortunate and calm 
 On such and such a season ; sate and sewed. 
 With no one to break up her crystal thoughts , 
 While rhymes from lovely poems span around 
 Their ringing circles of ecstatic tune, 
 Beneath the moistened finger of the Hour. 
 Her parents called her a strange, sickly child. 
 Not good for much, and given to sulk and stare, 
 And smile into the hedges and the clouds. 
 And tremble if one shook her fVom her fit 
 By any blow or word even. Out-jioor jobs 
 Went ill with her ; and household quiet work 
 She was not born to. Had they kept the north. 
 They might have had their pennyworth out of hci 
 Like other parents, in the Victories ; 
 (Your children work for you, not you for them, 
 Or else they beHer had been choked witn air 
 The first breath dr».w»',) but, m tliis tramping life, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. l:i 
 
 Wa8 nothing to be done with such a child 
 
 But tramp and tramp. And yet she knitted hose 
 
 Not ill, and was not dull at needlework ; 
 
 And all the country people gave her pence 
 
 For darning stockings past their natural age, 
 
 And patching petticoats from old to new, 
 
 And other light work done for thrifty wives. 
 
 One day, said Marian, — the sun shone that day— ^ 
 
 Her mother had been badly beat, and felt 
 
 The bruises sore about her wretched soul, 
 
 (That must have been ) : she came in suddenly, 
 
 And snatching in a sort of breathless rage 
 
 Her daughter's headgear comb, let down the hair, 
 
 Upon her like a 8udden waterfall, 
 
 Then drew her drenched and passive by the arm 
 
 Outside the hut they lived in. When the child 
 
 Could clear her blinded face from all that stream 
 
 Of tresses . . there, a man stood, with beasts' eyes 
 
 That seemed as they would swallow her alive 
 
 Complete in body and spirit, hair and all, — 
 
 With burning stertorous breath that hurt her cheek 
 
 rie breathed so near. The mother held her tight, 
 
 Saying hard between her tee'-h — * Why wench, why 
 
 wench, 
 The squire speaks to you now — the squire's too good 
 lie means to set you up, and comfort us. 
 Be mannerly at least.' The child turned round 
 And looked up piteous in the mother's face, 
 (Be sure that mother's death-bed will not want 
 Another devil to damn, than such a look) 
 ' Oh, mother !' then, with desperate glance to heaven, 
 ' God, free me from my mother,' she shrieked outv, 
 
116 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 • Tliese mothers are too dreadful.' And, with force 
 
 As passiv.)nate as fear, she tore her hands 
 
 Like lilies from the rocks, from hers and his. 
 
 And sprang down, bounded headlong down the steep, 
 
 Away from both — away, if possible. 
 
 As far as God, — away ! They yelled at her. 
 
 As famished hounds at a hare. She heard them yell, 
 
 She felt her name hiss after her from the hills, 
 
 Like shot from guns. On, on. And now she had 
 
 cast 
 The voices off with the uplands. On. Mad fear 
 Was running in her feet and killing the ground ; 
 The white roads curled as if she burnt them up, 
 The green fields melted, wayside trees fell back 
 To make room for her. Then her head grew vexed, 
 Trees, fields, turned on her and ran after her ; 
 She heard the quick pants of the hills behind, 
 Their keen air pricked her neck. She had lost her 
 
 feet. 
 Could run no more, yet somehow went as. fast, 
 Tlie horizon red 'twixt steeples in the cast 
 So sucked her forward, forward, while her heart 
 Kepi swelling, swelling, till it swelled so big 
 It seemed to fill her body ; when it burst 
 And overflowed the world and swamped the light, 
 'And now 1 am dend find safe,' thought Marian 
 
 Erie- 
 She had dropped, she had fainted. 
 
 As the sense returned, 
 The night had passed — not life's night. She was 
 
 'ware 
 Of heavy tumbling motions, creaking wheels, 
 The driver shouting to the hxzy team 
 
AURORA LEIGH. ll'i 
 
 That s\nmg iheir rankling bells against her brain ; 
 While, through the waggon's coverture and chinks, 
 The cruel yellow morning pecked at her 
 Alive or dead upon tbe straw inside, — 
 At M^hich her soul ached back into the dark 
 And prayed, * no more of that.' A waggoner 
 Had found her in a ditch beneath the moon, 
 As white as moonshine save for the oozing blood. 
 At first he thought her dead ; but when he had wiped 
 Tho mouth and heard it sigh, he raised her up. 
 And laid her in his waggon in the straw, 
 And so conveyed her to the distant town 
 To which his business called himself, and left 
 That heap of misery at the hospital. 
 
 She stirred ; — the place seemed new and strange a« 
 
 death, 
 fhe white strait bed, with others strait and white, 
 Like graves dug side by side at measured lengthii. 
 And quiet people walking in and out 
 With wonderful low voices and soft steps 
 And apparitional equal care for each, 
 Astonished her with order, silence, law : 
 And when a gentle hand held out a cup. 
 She took it, as you do at sacrament. 
 Half awed, half melted, — not being used, indeed. 
 To so much love as makes the form of love 
 And courtesy of manners. Delicate drinko 
 And rare white bread, to which some dying eysh 
 Were turned in observation. O my God, 
 How sick we must be, ere we make men just t 
 I think it frets the saints in heaven to see 
 How many desolate creatures on the earth 
 
118 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship 
 
 And social comfort, in a hospital, 
 
 As Marian did. She lay there, stunned, half tranced, 
 
 And wished, at intervals of growing sense. 
 
 She might be sicker yet, if sickness made 
 
 The world so marvellous kind, the air so hushed, 
 
 And all her wake-time quiet as a sleep ; 
 
 For now she understood, (as such things were) 
 
 How sickness ended very oft in heaven 
 
 Among the unspoken raptures. Yet more sick, 
 
 And surelier happy. Then she dropped her lids. 
 
 And, folding up her hands as flowers at night. 
 
 Would lose no moment of the blessed time. 
 
 She lay and seethed in fever many weeks ; 
 But youth was strong and overcame the test ; 
 Revolted soul and flesh were reconciled 
 And fetched back to the necessary day 
 And daylight duties. She could creep about 
 The long bare rooms, and stare out drearily 
 From any narrow window on the street. 
 Till some one, who had nursed her as a friend 
 Said coldly to her, as an enemy, 
 
 * She had leave to go next week, being well enough, 
 While only her heart ached. * Go next week, 
 
 thought she, 
 
 * Next week ! how would it be with her next week, 
 Let out into that terrible street alone 
 
 Among the pushing people, . . to go . . where V 
 
 One day, the last before the dreaded last. 
 Among the convalescents, like herself 
 '^ropared to go next morning, she sate dumb, 
 
aohora lei oh. 11» 
 
 And heard half absently the women talk, 
 How one was famished for her baby's cheeks — 
 
 * Ine little wretch would know her ! a year old 
 And lively, like his father !' one was keen 
 
 To get to work, and fill some clamorous mouths ; 
 
 And one was tender for her dear good man 
 
 Who had missed her sorely, — and one, querulous . , 
 
 * Would pay backbiting neifjhbours who had dared 
 
 dared 
 To talk about her as already dead,' — 
 And one was proud . . ' and if her sweetheart Luka 
 Had left her for a ruddier fhce than hers, 
 (The gossip would be seen through at a glance) 
 Sweet riddance of such sweethearts — let him hang ! 
 Twere good to have been as sick for such an end.' 
 
 And while they talked, and Marian felt the worse 
 
 For having missed the worst of all their wrongs, 
 
 A visitor was ushered through the wards 
 
 And paused among the talkers. * When he looked 
 
 It was as if he spoke, and when he spoke 
 
 lie sang perhaps,' said Marian ; * could she tell ? 
 
 She only knew' (so much she had chronicled, 
 
 As seraphs might the making of the sun) 
 
 * That he who came and spake, was Romney Leigh, 
 And then, and there, she saw and heard him first' 
 And when it was her turn to have the face 
 
 Upon her, — all those buzzing pallid lips 
 
 Being satisfied with comfort — when he clianged 
 
 To Marian, saying * And you ? you're going, where?'— 
 
 She, moveless as a worm beneath a stone 
 
 Which some one's stumbling foot has spurned aside, 
 
 Writhed suddenly, astonished with the light, 
 
120 AURORA LEHIH. 
 
 And breaking into sobs cried, ' Where I gol 
 None asked me till this moment. Can I say 
 Where / go 1 when it has not seemed worth whil« 
 To God himself, who thinks of every one, 
 To think of me, and fix where I shall go V 
 
 * So young,' he gently asked her, ' you have lost 
 Your father and your mother V 
 
 ^ Both,' she said, 
 ' Both lost ! my father was burnt up with gin 
 Or ever I sucked milk, and so is lost. 
 My mother sold rac to a man last month, 
 And so my mother's lost, 'tis manifest. 
 And I, who fled from her for miles and miles. 
 As if I had caught sight of the fire of hell 
 Through some wild gap, (she was my mother, sir) 
 It seems I shall be lost too, presently. 
 And so we end, all three of us.' 
 
 ' Poor child !' 
 lie said, — with such a pity in his voice, 
 it soothed her more than her own tears, — ' poor child 
 ' Tis simple that betrayal by mother's love 
 6>hould bring despair of God's too. Yet be taught 
 lie's better to us than many mothers are. 
 And children cannot wander beyond reach 
 Of the sweep of his white raiment. Touch and hold 
 And if you weep still, weep where John was laid 
 While Jesus loved him.' 
 
 * She could say the words, 
 She told me, * exactly as he uttered them 
 A year back, . . since in any doubt or dark 
 They came out like the stars, and shone on her 
 With just their comfort. Common words, perhaps 
 Tlie ministers in church might say the same ; 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 121 
 
 But he^ he irade the church uith what he spoke, — 
 The difference was the miracle,' said she. 
 
 Then catching up her smile to ravishment, 
 She added quickly, ' I repeat his words. 
 But not his tones : can any one repeat 
 The music of an organ, out of church 1 
 And when he said ' poor child,' I shut my eyes 
 To feel how tenderly his voice broke through, 
 As the ointment-box broke on the Holy feet 
 To let out the rich medicative nard.' 
 
 She told me how he had raised and rescued her 
 
 With reverent pity, as, in touching grief, 
 
 He touched the w^ounds of Christ, — and made her feel 
 
 More self-respecting. Hope, he called, belief 
 
 In God, — work, v/orship . . therefore let us pray I 
 
 And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, 
 
 And keep it stainless from her mother's face, 
 
 He sent her to a famous sempstress-house 
 
 Far off in London, there to work and hope. 
 
 With that they parted. She kept sight of Heaven, 
 But not of Itomney. He had good to do 
 To others : through the days and through the nights 
 Bho sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped 
 
 sometimes, 
 kndi wondered, while along the tawny light 
 She struck the new thread into her needle's eye, 
 How people without mothers on the hills 
 Could choose the town to live in ! — then she drew 
 The stitch, and mused how Romney's face would look 
 And if 'twere likely he'd remember her's, 
 When they two liad their meeting after dea^'- 
 
 11 
 
FOURTH BOOK, 
 
 npiIEY met still sooner. *Twas a year from thence 
 When Lucy Gresham, the sick sempstress girl, 
 Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick. 
 And leant her head upon its back to cough 
 More freely when, the mistress turning round, 
 The others took occasion to laugh out. 
 Gave up at last. Among the workers, spoke 
 A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips, 
 ' You know the news ? Who's dying, do you think 1 
 Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it 
 As little as Nell Hart's wedding. Blush not, Nell 
 Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks ; 
 And, some day, there'll be found a man to dote 
 On red curls. — Lucy Gresham swooned last night, 
 Dropped sudden in the street while going home ; 
 And now the baker says, who took her up 
 And laid her by her grandmother in bed. 
 He'll give hor a week to die in. Pass the silk. 
 Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach, 
 For otherwise they'll starve befire they die, 
 That funny pair of bedfellows ! Miss Bell, 
 I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone 
 Is paralytic — that's the reason why 
 Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath. 
 
AUROilA LiilGlI. i«a 
 
 Which went too quick, we all know. Marian H/le* 
 Why, Marian Erie, you're not the fool to cry 1 
 Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dreas, 
 You piece of pity V 
 
 Marian rose up straight, 
 And, breaking through the talk and through the work, 
 Went outward, in the face of their surprise, 
 To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life 
 Or down to death. She knew, by such an act 
 All place and grace were forfeit in the house. 
 Whose mistress would supply the missing hand 
 With necessary, not inhuman haste, 
 And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues : 
 She could not leave a solitary soul 
 To founder in the dark, while she sate still 
 And lavished stitches on a lady's hem 
 As if no other work were paramount. 
 * Why, God,' thought Marian, ' has a missing hand 
 This moment ; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps. 
 Let others miss me ! never miss me, God !' 
 
 So Marian sat by Lucy's bed, content 
 
 With duty, and was strong, for recompense, 
 
 To hold the lamp of human love axm-high 
 
 To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them, 
 
 Until the angels, on the luminous side 
 
 Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said. 
 
 When Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind, 
 
 It touched her strangely. ' Marian Erie called kind 1 
 
 What, Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die ! 
 
 'Tis verily good fortune to be kind. 
 
 Ah, you,' she said, * who are born to such a grace^ 
 
 Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor, 
 
124 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Reduced to think the best good fortune means 
 That others, simply, should be kind to them.' 
 
 From sleep to sleep while Lucy slid away 
 
 So gently, like a light upon a hill, 
 
 Of which none names the moment that it goes 
 
 Though all see when 'tis gone, — a man came in 
 
 And stood beside the bed. The old idiot wretch 
 
 Screamed feebly, like a baby overlain, 
 
 'Sir, sir, you won't mistake me for the corpse? 
 
 Don't look at wie, sir! never bury me! 
 
 Although I lie here I'm alive as you, 
 
 Except my legs and arms, — 1 eat and drink. 
 
 And understand, — (that you're the gentleman 
 
 Who fits the funerals up, Heaven speed you, sii,) 
 
 And certainly I should be livelier still 
 
 If Lucy here . . sir, Lucy is the corpse . . 
 
 Had worked more properly to buy me wine : 
 
 But Lucy, sir, was always slow at work, 
 
 I shan't lose much by Lucy. Marian Erie, 
 
 Speak up and show the gentleman the corpse.* 
 
 And then a voice said, ' Marian Erie.' She rose ; 
 
 It was the hour for angels — thej-e, stood hers ! 
 
 She scarcely marvelled to see liomncy Leigh. 
 
 As light November snows to empty nests. 
 
 As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed stones, 
 
 As July suns to ruins, through the rents, 
 
 As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss, 
 
 As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of death 
 
 He came uncalled wherever grief had come. 
 
 * And so,' said INIarian Erie, ' we met anew,' 
 
 Aud added softly, ' so, we shall not part,' 
 
AUROllA LElCrlL. 12S 
 
 He was not angry that she had \ef\ the house 
 Wherein he placed her. Well — she had feared it 
 
 might 
 Have vexed hiui. Also, when he found her set 
 On keeping, though the dead was out of sight. 
 That half-dead, half-live body left behind 
 W^ith eaukero-Lis heart and flesh, — which took you< 
 
 best 
 And cursed you for the little good it did, 
 (Could any leave the bedrid wretch alone, 
 So joyless she was thankless even to God, 
 Much more to you?) he did not say 'twas well, 
 Yet Marian thought he did not take it ill,-- 
 Since day by day he came, and every day 
 She felt within his utterance and his eyes 
 A closer, tenderer presence of the soul, 
 Until at last he said, ' We shall not part.' 
 
 On that same day, was Marian's work complete : 
 
 She had smoothed the empty bed, and swept the rtoof 
 
 Of coffin sawdust, set the chairs anew 
 
 llie dead had ended gossip in, and stood 
 
 In that poor room so cold and orderly, 
 
 The door-key in her hand, prepared to go 
 
 As they had, howbeit not their way. He spoke, 
 
 ' Dear Marian, of one clay God made us all. 
 And though men push and poke and paddle in't 
 (As cliildren play at fashioning dirt-pies) 
 And call their fiuicies by the name of facts, 
 Assuming difference, lordship, privilege, 
 When all's plain dirt, — they come back to it at last; 
 The first grave-digger proves it with a spade, 
 n* 
 
126 AUROllA LEIGU. 
 
 And pats all even. Need wo wait for this, 
 You, Marian, and 1, Romney V 
 
 She, at that, 
 Looked blindly in his face, as when one looks 
 Through driving autunm-rains to find the sky. 
 lie went on speaking. 
 
 * Marian, I being bom 
 What men call noble, and you, issued from 
 The noble people, — though the tyrannous sword 
 Which pierced Christ's heart, has cleft the world m 
 
 twain 
 *Twixt class and class, opposing rich to poor, 
 Shall we keep parted ? Not so. Let us lean 
 And strain together r ^ her, each to each, 
 Compress the red lips of this gaping wound. 
 As far as two souls can, — ay, lean and league, 
 I, from my superabundance, — from your want 
 Vou, — joining in a protest Against the wrong 
 On both sides V 
 
 All the f est, he held her hand 
 In speaking, which confused the sense of much; 
 Her heart against his words beat out so thick, 
 They might as well be written on the dust 
 Where some poor bird, escaping from hawk's beak, 
 lias dropped and beats its shuddering wings,— the 
 
 lines 
 Are rubbed so, — yet 'twas something like to this, 
 — ' That they two, standing at the two extremes 
 Of social classes, Lid received one seal. 
 Been dedicate and drawn beyond themselves 
 To mercy and ministration, — ^he, indeed. 
 Through what he knew, and she, through what she 
 
 felt, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 121 
 
 He, by man's conscience, she, by woman's heart, 
 
 Ftelinquishing their several 'vantage posts 
 
 Of wealthy ease and honourable toil, 
 
 To work with God at love. And since God willed 
 
 That putting out his hand to touch this ark, 
 
 He found a woman's hand there, he'd accept 
 
 The sign too, hold the tender fingers fast. 
 
 And say, ' My fellow- worker, be my wife I' ' 
 
 She told the tale with simple, rustic turns, — 
 Strong leaps of meaning in her sudden eyes 
 That took the gaps of any imperfect phrase 
 Of the unschooled speaker : I have rather writ 
 The thing I understood so, than the thing 
 I heard so. And I cannot render right 
 Her quick gesticulation, wild yet soft, 
 Self-startled from the habitual mood she used, 
 Half sad, half languid, — like dumb creatures (now 
 A rustling bird, and now a wandering deer, 
 Or squirrel 'gainst the oak-gloom flashing up 
 His sidelong burnished head, in just her way 
 Of savage spontaneity,) that stir 
 Abruptly the green silence of the woods. 
 And make it stranger, holier, more profound ; 
 As Nature's general heart confessed itself 
 Of life, and then fell backward on repose. 
 
 [ kissed the lips that ended. — ' So indeed 
 He loves you, Marian V 
 
 * Loves me !' She looked up 
 With a child's wonder when you ask him first 
 Who made the sun — a puzzled blush, that grew, 
 Then broke off in a rapijd radiant smile 
 
128 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of sure solution. ' Loves me ! he loves all, — 
 And me, of course. He had not asked me else 
 To work with him for ever and be his wife.' 
 
 Her words reproved me. This perhaps was love- 
 To have its hands too full of gifts to give. 
 For putting out a hand to take a gift ; 
 To love so much, the perfect round of love 
 Includes, in strict conclusion, being loved ; 
 As Eden-dew went up and fell again. 
 Enough for watering Eden. Obviously 
 She had not thought about his love at all : 
 The cataracts of her soul had poured themselves, 
 And risen self-crowned in rainbow ; would she ask 
 Who crowned her ? — it sufficed that she was crowned. 
 With women of my class, 'tis otherwise : 
 We haggle for the small change of our gold, 
 And so much love accord for so much love, 
 Rialto-prices. Are we therefore wrong 1 
 If marriage be a contract, look to it then. 
 Contracting parties should be equal, just ; 
 But if, a simple fealty on one side, 
 A mere religion, — right to give, is all. 
 And certain brides of Europe duly ask 
 To mount the pile as Indian widows do. 
 The spices of their tender youth heaped up. 
 The jewels of their gracious virtues worn, 
 More gems, more glory, — to consume entire 
 For a living husband : as the man's alive. 
 Not dead, the woman's duty by so much, 
 Advanced in England beyond Hindostan. 
 
 I sate there musing, till she touched my han^ 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 129 
 
 With hers, as softly as a strange white bird 
 
 She feared to startle in touching. * You are kir..d. 
 
 But are you, peradventure, vexed at heart 
 
 Because your cousin takes me for a wife ? 
 
 I know I an) not worthy — nay, in truth, 
 
 Pm glad on't, since, for that, he chooses me. 
 
 He likes the poor things of the world the best ; 
 
 I would not therefore, if I could, be rich. 
 
 It pleasures him to stoop for buttercups ; 
 
 1 would not be a rose upon the wall 
 
 A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, 
 
 To say to a courtier, ' Pluck that rose for me, 
 
 ' It's prettier than the rest.' O Romney Leigh ! 
 
 rd rather far be trodden by his foot. 
 
 Than lie in a great queen's bosom.' 
 
 Out of breath 
 She paused. 
 
 * Sweet Marian, do you disavow 
 The roses with that face V 
 
 She dropt her head. 
 As if the wind had caught that flower of her, 
 And bent it in the garden, — then looked up 
 With grave assurance. ' Well, you think me bold I 
 But so we all are, when we're praying God. 
 And if I'm bold — yet, lady, credit me, 
 fhat, since I know myself for what I am. 
 Much fitter for his handmaid than his wife, 
 ['11 prove the handmaid and the wife at once, 
 Serve tenderly, and love obediently. 
 And be a worthier mate, perhaps, than some 
 Who are wooed in silk among their learned books ; 
 While / shall set myself to read his eyes, 
 Till such grow plainer to me than the French 
 
180 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To wisest ladies. Do you think I'll miss 
 
 A letter, in the spelling of his mind ? 
 
 No more than they do when they sit and write 
 
 Their flying words with flickering wild-fowl tails, 
 
 Nor ever pause to ask how many ts, 
 
 Should that be y or i — they know't so well : 
 
 I've seen them writing, when I brought a dress 
 
 And waited, — floating out their soft white hands 
 
 On shining paper. But they're hard sometimes, 
 
 For all those hands ! — we've used out many nights, 
 
 And worn the yellow daylight into shreds 
 
 Which flapped and shivered down our aching eyes 
 
 Till night appeared more tolerable, just 
 
 That pretty ladies might look beautiful, 
 
 Who said at last . . * You're lazy in that house ! 
 
 * You're slow in sending home the work, — I count 
 
 * I've waited near an hour for't.' Pardon me, 
 I do not blame them, madam, nor misprize ; 
 They are fair and gracious ; ay, but not like you, 
 Since none but you has Mister Leigh's own blood 
 Both noble and gentle, — and without it . . well. 
 They are fair, I said ; so fair, it scarce seems strange 
 That, flashing out in any looking-glass 
 
 The wonder of their glorious brows and breasts. 
 They are charmed so, they forget to look behind 
 And mark how pale we've grown, we pitiful 
 Remainders of the world. And so perhaps 
 If Mister Leigh had chosen a wife from these, 
 She might . . although he's better than her best, 
 And dearly she would know it . . steal a thought 
 W hich should be all his, an eye-glance from his face, 
 To plunge into the mirror opposite 
 In search of her own beauty's pearl : while / , . 
 
A U R ]l A L E I G H . 181 
 
 A-h, dearest lady, serge will outweigh silk 
 For winter-wear when bodies feel a-cold, 
 A.nd I'll be a true wife to your cousin Leign.* 
 
 Before I answered he was there himself. 
 I think he had been standing in the room 
 And listened probably to half her talk, 
 Arrested, turned to stone, — as white as stone. 
 Will tender sayings make men look so white? 
 rie loves her then profoundly. 
 
 ' You are here, 
 Aurora 1 . Here I meet you !' — We clasped hands. 
 
 ' Even so, dear Romney. Lady Waldemar 
 Has sent me in haste tp find a cousin of mine 
 Who shall be.' 
 
 * Lady Waldemar is good.' 
 
 'Here's one, at least, who is good,' I sighed, ari^d 
 
 touched 
 Poor Marian's happy head, as, doglike she 
 Most passionately patient, waited on, 
 A-tremble for her turn of greeting words ; 
 *I've sat a full hour with your Marian Erie, 
 And learnt the thing by heart, — and, from my liearl, 
 Am therefore competent to give you thanks 
 For such a cousin.' 
 
 ' You accept at last 
 A. gift from me, Aurora, without scorn 1 
 At last I please you V — How his voice was changed ! 
 
 ' You cannot please a woman against her will, 
 
183 lURORA LEIGH 
 
 And once you vexed me. Shall we speak of thatt 
 
 We'll say, then, you were noble in it all 
 
 And I not ignorant — let it pass. And now 
 
 You please me, Romney, when you please } ourself ; 
 
 So, please you, be fanatical in k»ve. 
 
 And I'm well pleased. Ah, cousin ! at the old hall. 
 
 Among the gallery portraits of our Leighs, 
 
 We shall not find a sweeter signory 
 
 Than this pure forehead's.' 
 
 Not a word he said. 
 How arrogant men are ! — Even philanthropists. 
 Who try to take a wife up in the way 
 They put down a subscription-cheque, — if once 
 She turns and says, ' I will not tax you so, 
 Most charitable sir,' — feel ill at ease, 
 As though she had wronged them somehow. 1 sup- 
 
 We women should remember what we are, 
 And not throw back an obolus inscribed 
 With Caesar's image, lightly. I resumed. 
 
 *It strikes me, some of those sublime Vandykes 
 Were not too proud to make good saints in heaven ; 
 And if so, then they're not too proud to-day 
 To bow down (now the ruffs are off their necks) 
 And own this good, true, noble Marian, .* . yours, 
 And mine, I'll say ! — For poets (bear the word) 
 Half-poets even, are still whole democrats, — 
 ph, not that we're disloyal to the high, 
 But loyal to the low, and cognisant 
 Of the less scrutable majesties. Fcr me, 
 r comprehend your choice — I justify 
 Your right in choosing.' 
 
AURORA LEIGH. lit 
 
 ' No, no, no,' he sighed, 
 With a sort of melancholy impatient scorn, 
 As some grown man, who never had a child. 
 Puts by some child who plays at being a man , 
 — * You did not, do not, cannot comprehend 
 My choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself: 
 No matter now — we'll let it pass, you say. 
 I thank you for your generous cousinship 
 Which helps this present ; I accept for her 
 Your favourable thoughts. We're fallen on days, 
 We two who are not poets, when to wed 
 Requires less mutual love than common love, 
 For two together to bear out at once 
 Upon the loveless many. Work in pairs, 
 In galley -couplings or in marriage-rings, 
 The difference lies in the honour, not the work, — 
 And such we're bound to, I and she. But love, 
 (You poets are benighted in this age ; 
 The hour's too late for catching even moths, 
 You've gnats instead,) love ! — love's fool-paradise 
 [s out of date, like Adam's. Set a swan 
 To swim the Trenton, rather than true love 
 To float its fabulous plumage safely down 
 The cataracts of this loud transition-time, — 
 Whose roar, for ever henceforth in my ears 
 Must keep me deaf to music' 
 
 There, I turned 
 And kissed poor Marian, out of discontent. 
 The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flung 
 For refuge to the woman,-^as, sometimes, 
 Impatient of some crowded room's close smell. 
 You throw a window open and lean out 
 To breathe a long breath in the dewy night 
 
184 AUROIlx\ LEI Gil 
 
 And cool your angry forehead. She, at least, 
 Was not built up as walls are, brick by brick ; 
 Each fancy squared, each feeling ranged by line, 
 The very heat of burning youth applied 
 To indurate forms and systems ! excellent bricks, 
 A well-built wall, — which stops you on the road, 
 And, into which, you cannot see an inch 
 Although you beat your head against it — pshaw * 
 
 * Adieu,' I said, 'for this time, cousins both; 
 And, cousin Romney, pardon me the word. 
 Be happy ! — oh, in some esoteric sense 
 
 Of course ! — I mean no harm in wishing well. 
 Adieu, my Marian : — may she come to me. 
 Dear Romney, and be married from my house ? 
 It is not part of your philosophy 
 To keep your bird upon the blackthorn V 
 
 'Ay,' 
 He answered, ' but it is : — I take my wife 
 Directly from the people, — and she comes. 
 As Austria's daughter to imperial France, 
 Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race, 
 From Margaret's Court at garret-height, to meet 
 And wed me at St. James's, nor put off 
 Her gown of serge for that. The things we do, 
 We do : we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed.' 
 
 * Dear Romne}^ you're the poet,' I replied. 
 But felt my smile too mournful for my word. 
 And turned and went. Ay, masks, I thought,- 
 
 beware 
 Of tragic masks we tie before the glass, 
 Uplifted on the cothurn half a yard 
 
AURORA LEIGH IM 
 
 Above the natural stature ! we woul( pUiy 
 Heroic parts to ourselves, — and end, . crhaps, 
 As impotently as Athenian wives 
 Who shrieked in fits at the Eumenides. 
 
 ITis foot pursued me down the stair. 'At least, 
 
 You'll suffer me to walk with you beyond 
 
 Tliese hideous streets, these graves, where men ali re, 
 
 Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciously 
 
 About the plague that slew them ; let me go. 
 
 The very women pelt their souls in mud 
 
 At any woman who walks here alone. 
 
 How came you here alone ? — you are ignorant.' 
 
 We had a strange and melancholy walk : 
 
 The night came drizzling downward in dark rain ; 
 
 And, as we walked, the colour of the time. 
 
 The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm, 
 
 His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense, 
 
 Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books, 
 
 And daily papers ; Spanish marriage-schemes, r'p'"pSf"'T*' g 
 
 And English climate — was't so cold last year 1 
 
 And will the wind change by to-morrow m0«B»?-jr y-^ "T 
 
 Can Guizot stand 1 is London full ? is trade \/ I) J 
 
 Competitive 1 has Dickens turned his hinge 
 
 A-pinch upon the fingers of the great? |g THE 
 
 And are potatoes to grow mythical 
 
 Like moly ? will the apple die out too 1 
 
 Which way is the wind to-night "? south-e; 
 
 east? ^p THE 
 
 We talked on fast, while every common word ^ 
 Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end, . ^ 
 
 And ready to pull down upon our heads i|niTPn \t?l 
 
 aBROPE^ 
 
186 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 A terror out of sight. And yet to" pause 
 Were surelier mortcal : we tore greedily up 
 All silence, all the innocent breathing-pointa, 
 As if, like pale conspirators in haste, 
 We tore up papers where our signatures 
 Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death. 
 
 I cannot tell you why it was. 'Tis plain 
 We had not loved nor hated : wherefore dread 
 To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire 1 
 Perhaps we had lived too closely, to diverge 
 So absolutely : leave two clocks, they say. 
 Wound up to different hours, upon one shelf, 
 And slowly, through the interior wheels of eacli, 
 The blind mechanic motion sets itself 
 A-throb to feel out for the mutual time. 
 It was not so with us, indeed. While he 
 Struck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn, 
 While he marked judgment, I, redemption-day ; 
 And such exception to a general law, 
 Imperious upon inert matter even. 
 Might make us, each to either, insecure, 
 A beckoning mystery or a troubling fear. 
 
 I mind me, when we parted at the door. 
 
 How strange his good-night sounded, — like good 
 
 night 
 Beside a deathbed, where the morrow's sun 
 Is sure to come too late for more good days : 
 And all that night I thought . . ' Good-night,' said hei 
 
 And so, a month passed. Let me set it down 
 At once, — I have been ^vrong, I have been wrong. 
 
A U R R A L E I G H . 187 
 
 We are wrong always when wo think too much 
 
 Of what we think or are; albeit our thoughts 
 
 Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice, 
 
 We're no less selfish. If we sleep on rocka 
 
 Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon 
 
 We're lazy. This I write against myself. 
 
 I had done a duty in the visit paid 
 
 To Marian, and was ready otherwise 
 
 To give the witness of my presence and name 
 
 Whenever she should marry. — Which, I thought, 
 
 Sufficed. I even had cast into the scale 
 
 An overweight of justice toward the match ; 
 
 The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool, 
 
 Had broken it in the lock as being too straicrht 
 
 For a crooked purpose, while poor Marian Erie 
 
 Missed nothing in my accents or my acts : 
 
 I had not been ungenerous on the whole. 
 
 Nor yet untender ; so, enough. I felt 
 
 Tired, overworked : this marriage somewhat jarred , 
 
 Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise . . 
 
 The pricking of the map of life with pins, 
 
 In schemes of . . ' Here we'll go,' and ' There we'll 
 
 stay,' 
 And ' Everywhere we'll prosper in our love,' 
 Was scarce my business. Let them order it; 
 Who else should care 1 ' I threw myself aside. 
 As one- who had done her work and shuts her eyoa 
 To rest the better. 
 
 I, who should have known, 
 Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavow 
 Being keeper to our brother we're his Cain. 
 
 I might have held that poor child to my heart 
 la* 
 
{88 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 A little longer ! 'twould have hurt me much 
 
 To have hastened by its beats the marriage day, 
 
 And kept her safe meantime from tampering handi 
 
 Or, peradventure, traps. What drew me back 
 
 From telling Romney plainly the designs 
 
 Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out 
 
 To me . . me ? had I any right, ay, right, 
 
 With womanly compassion and reserve 
 
 To break the fall of woman's impudence 1 — 
 
 To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew, 
 
 And hear him call her c/ood^ 
 
 Distrust that word. 
 There is none good save God,' said Jesus Christ, 
 [file once, in the first creation-week. 
 Called creatures good, — for ever afterward, 
 The Devil only has done it, and his heirs. 
 The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose ; 
 The word's grown dangerous. In the middle age, 
 I think they called malignawt fays and imps 
 Good people. A good neighbour, even in this. 
 Is fatal sometimes, — cuts your morning up " 
 To mince-meat of the very smallest talk, 
 Then helps to sugar her bobea at night 
 With your reputation. I have known good wives, 
 As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar's ; 
 And good, good mothers, who would use a child 
 To better an intrigue ; good friends, beside, 
 (Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck 
 And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do 
 By sleeping infants. And we all have knowna 
 Good critics w^ho have stamped out poet's hopes ; 
 Good statesmen who pulled ruin on the state ; 
 Good patriots who for a theory risked a cause ; 
 
AURORALEIGH m 
 
 Good kings who disembowelled for a tax ; 
 Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy ; 
 Good Christians who sate still in easy chairs 
 And damned the general world for standing up. — 
 Now may the good God pardon all good menA 
 
 How bitterly I speak, — how certainly 
 The innocent white milk in us is turned, 
 By much persistent shining of the sun ! 
 Shake up the sweetest in us long enough 
 With men, it drops to foolish curd, too sour 
 To feed the most untender of Christ's lambs. 
 
 I should have thought . . a woman of the world 
 
 Like her I'm meaning, — centre to herself, 
 
 Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life 
 
 In isolated self-love and self-will, 
 
 As a windmill seen at distance radiating 
 
 Its delicate white vans against the sky, 
 
 So soft and soundless, simply beautiful, 
 
 S^en nearer . . what a roar and tear it makes, 
 
 How it grinds and bruises ! . . if she loves at lafe*, 
 
 Her love's a re-adjustment of self-love. 
 
 No more; a need felt of another's use 
 
 To her one advantage, — as the mill wants gram, 
 
 The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey, 
 
 And none of these is more unscrupulous 
 
 Than such a charming woman when she loves. 
 
 She'll not be thwarted by an obstacle 
 
 So trifling as . . her soul is, . . much less your«i !-- 
 
 Is God a consideration ? — she loves you. 
 
 Not God ; she will not flinch for Him indeed ; 
 
 She did not for the Marchioness of Perth 
 
140 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 When wanting tickets for the fancj^-ball. 
 She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy ; 
 She loves you like her diamonds . . almost. 
 
 WeH 
 A month passed so, and then the notice came j 
 On such a day the marriage at the church. 
 I was not backward. 
 
 Half St. Giles in frieze 
 Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold. 
 And, after contract at the altar, pass 
 To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath. 
 Of course the people came in uncompelled. 
 Lame, blind, and worse — sick, sorrowful, and worse^' 
 The humours of the peccant social wound 
 All pressed out, poured down upon Pimlico, 
 Exasperating the unaccustomed air 
 With hideous interfusion : you'd suppose 
 A finished generation, dead of plague. 
 Swept outward from their graves into the sun. 
 The moil of death upon them. What a sight ! 
 A holiday of miserable men 
 Is sadder than a burial- day of kings. 
 
 They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church 
 
 In a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight, 
 
 The noble ladies stood up in their pews. 
 
 Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate. 
 
 Some simply curious, some jus-t insolent. 
 
 And some in wondering scorn, — ' What next ? what 
 
 next V 
 These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smile 
 That misbecame them in a holy place. 
 With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs; 
 
AURORA LEIGH. U' 
 
 Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes 
 And simultaneous shiver of moire silk ; 
 While all the aisles, alive and black with heads, 
 Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street, 
 As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole 
 With shuddering involutiori, swaying slow 
 From right to left, and then from left to right, 
 In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest 
 r>f faces rose upon you everywhere 
 From that crammed mass ! you did not usually 
 See faces like them bi the open day : 
 They hide in cellars, not to make you mad 
 As Romney Leigh is. — Faces ! — O my God, 
 We call those, faces 1 P'len's and women's . . ayj 
 And children's ; — ^babies, hsjaging like a rag 
 Forgotten on their mother's neck, — poor mouths, 
 Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blow 
 Before they are taught her cursing. Faces ? . pheWj 
 We'll call them vices festering to despairs, 
 Or sorrows petrifying to vices : not 
 A finger-touch of God left whole on them ; 
 A 11 ruined, lost — the countenance worn out 
 As the garment, the will dissolute as the act, 
 The passions loose and draggling in the dirt 
 To trip the foot up at the first free step ! 
 Those, faces ! 'twas as if you had stirred up hell 
 To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost 
 In fiery swirls of slime, — such strangled fronts. 
 Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly 
 To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood, 
 And grind to devilish colours all your dreams 
 Henceforth, . . though, haply, you should drop 
 ftiileep 
 
U2 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 By clink of silver waters, in a muse 
 On RaffaePs mild Madonna of the Bird. 
 
 I've waked and slept through many nights and dayi 
 iJjince then, — but still that day will catch my breath 
 Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed, 
 In which the fibrous years have taken root 
 So deeply, that they quiver to their tops 
 Whene'er you stir the dust of such a day. 
 
 My cousin met me with his eyes and hand, 
 And then, with just a word, . . that * Marian Erie 
 Was coming with her bridesmaids presently,' 
 Made haste to place me by the altar-stair, 
 Where he and other noble gentlemen 
 And high-born ladies, waited for the bride. 
 
 We waited, it was early : there was time 
 
 For greeting, and the morning's compliment ; 
 
 And gradually a ripple of women's talk 
 
 Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray 
 
 Of English ss, soft as a silent hush. 
 
 And, notwithstanding, quite as audible 
 
 As louder phrases thrown out by the men. 
 
 — ' Yes, really, if we need to wait in church, 
 
 We need to talk there.'—' She ? 'Tis Lady Ayr, 
 
 In blue — not purple ! that's the dowager.' 
 
 — * She looks as young.' — * She flirts as young, yc* 
 
 mean. 
 Why if you had seen her upon Tliursday night. 
 You'd call Miss Norris modest.' — ' You again { 
 I waltzed with you three hours back. Up at six. 
 Up still at ten : scarce time to change one's shoes. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 14; 
 
 [ feel as white and sulky as a ghost, 
 
 So pray donh; speak to me, Lord Belcher.'—* No, 
 
 I'll look at you instead, and it's enough 
 
 While you have that faoe.' ' In church, my lord ' 
 
 fie, fie !' ■ 
 
 —* Adair, you stayed for the Division ?'—' Lost 
 By one.' ' The devil it is ! I'm sorry for't. 
 And if I had not promised Mistress Grove'. . 
 —' You might have kept your word to Liverpool.' 
 ' Constituents must remember, after all. 
 We're mortal.'—' We remind them of it.'—' Hark, 
 The bride comes ! Here she comes, in a stream of 
 milk !' 
 
 —* There ? Dear, you are asleep still ; don't you 
 
 know 
 The five Mi«s Granvilles ? always dressed in white 
 To show they're ready to be married.'—? Lower ! 
 The aunt is at your elbow.'— Lady Maud, 
 Did Lady Waldemar tell you ^ihe had seen 
 This girl of Leigh's?' ' No,— wait ! 'twas Mistress 
 
 Brooks, 
 Who told me Lady Waldemar told her— 
 No, 'twasn't Mrs. Brookes.' — ' She's pretty?' — 
 
 'Who? 
 Mrs. Brookes ? Lady Waldenmr ?'— ' How hot ! 
 Pray is't the law to-day we're not to breathe? 
 You're treading on my shawl— I thank you, sir.' 
 —' They say the bride's a mere child, who can't read, 
 But knows the things she shouldn't, with vide-aA^ake' 
 Great eyes. I'd go through fire to look at her.' 
 — * You do, I think.'— 'And Lady Waldemar 
 (You see her ; sitting close to Romney Leigh ; 
 flow beautiful she looks, a little flushed !) 
 
144 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Has taken up the girl, and metliodisod 
 
 Leigh's folly. Should I have come here, you sup 
 
 pose, 
 Except she'd asked me V — * She'd have served him 
 
 more 
 By marrying him herself.' 
 
 * Ah — there she comes, 
 The bride, at last !' 
 
 ' Indeed, no. Past eleven. 
 She puts off her patched petticoat to-day 
 And puts on May-fair manners, so begins 
 By setting us to wait.' — ' Yes, yes, this Leigh 
 Was always odd ; it's in the blood, I think ; 
 His father's uncle's cousin's second son 
 Was, was . . you understand me — and for him, 
 He's stark ! — has turned quite lunatic upon 
 This modern .question of the poor — the poor : 
 An excellent subject when you're moderate ; 
 You've seen Prince Albert's model lodging-house ? 
 Does honour to his royal highness. Good ! 
 But would he stop his carriage in Cheapside 
 To shake a common fellow by the fist 
 Whose name was . . Shakspeare ? no. We draw a 
 
 line. 
 And if we stand not by our order, we 
 In England, we fall headlong. Here's a sight, — 
 A hideous sight, a most indecent sight ! 
 My wife would ecme, sir, or I had kept her back. 
 By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens' trunk and limbs 
 Were torn by horses, women of the court 
 Stood by and stared, exactly as to-day 
 On this dismembering of society, 
 With pretty troubled faces,' 
 
AURORA LEI Gli. 14f 
 
 ' Now, at last. 
 She comes now.* 
 
 ' Where 1 who sees 1 you push me, sir, 
 Beyond the pohit of what is mannerly. 
 You're standing, madam, on my second flounce 
 I do beseech you.' 
 
 'No — it's not the bride. 
 Half-past eleven. How late. The bridegroom, mark| 
 Gets anxious and goes out.' 
 
 * And as I said 
 These Leighs ! our best blood running in the rut ! 
 It's something awful. We had pardoned him 
 A simple misalliance, got up aside 
 For a pair of sky-blue eyes ; our House of Lords 
 Has winked at such things,^ and we've all been young. 
 But here's an inter-marriage reasoned out, 
 A contract (carried boldly to the light 
 To challenge observation, pioneer 
 Good acts by a great example) 'twixt the extremea 
 Of martyrised society, — on the left 
 The well-born, — on the right the merest mob, 
 To treat as equals ! — 'tis anarchical ! 
 It means more than it says — 'tis damnable. 
 Why, sir, we can't have even our coffee good, 
 Unless we strain it.' 
 
 * Here, Miss Leigh !' 
 
 ' Lord Howe, 
 You're Romney's friend. What's all this waiting 
 forr 
 
 * I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head 
 (And way, perhaps !) to prove her sympathy 
 
 With the bridegroom.' 
 
 13 
 
i46 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 ' What, — you also, disapprove f 
 
 Oh, /approve of nothing in the world,' 
 lie answered ; ' not of you, still less of me. 
 Nor even of Romney — though he's worth us lK)th, 
 We're all gone wrong. The tune in us is lost : 
 And whistling down back alleys to the moon, 
 Will never catch it.' 
 
 Let me draw Lord Howe j 
 A born aristocrat, bred radical, 
 And educated socialist, who still 
 Goes floating, on traditions of his kind, 
 Across the theoretic flood from France, 
 Though, like a drenched Noah on a rotten deck, 
 Scarce safer for his place there. He, at least, 
 Will never land on Ararat, he knows. 
 To recommence the world on the new plan : 
 Indeed, he thinks, said world had better end ; 
 He sympathises rather with the fish 
 Outside, than with the drowned paired beasts withii 
 Who cannot couple again or multiply : 
 And that's the sort of Noah he is, Lord Howe. 
 He never could be anything complete, 
 Except a loyal, upright gentleman, 
 A liberal landlord, graceful diner-out, 
 And entertainer more than hospitable. 
 Whom authors dine with and forget the hock 
 Whatever he believes, and it is much, 
 But no-wise certain . . now here and now there, 
 He still has sympathies beyond his creed 
 Diverting him from action. In the House, 
 No party couuts upon him, while for all 
 His speeches have a noticeable weight. 
 Men like his books too, (he has written books») 
 
AUKORA LEIGH. U" 
 
 Which, safe to lio beside a bishop's chair, 
 At times outreach themselves with j.ets of fire 
 At which the foremost of the progressists 
 May warm audacious hands in passing by. 
 — Of stature over-tall, lounging for ease ; 
 Light hair, that seems to carry a wind in it. 
 And eyes that, when they look on you, will lean 
 Their whole weight half in indolence and half 
 In wishing you unmitigated good. 
 Until yoH know not if to flinch from him 
 Or thank him. — 'Tis Lord Howe. 
 
 ' We're all gone wrong, 
 Said he, 'and Romney, that dear friend of ours, 
 Is no-wise ri^ht, There's one true thing on earth ; 
 That's love ! He takes it up, and dresses it, 
 And acts a play with it, as Hamlet did, 
 To show what cruel uncles we have been, 
 And how wo should be uneasy in our minds 
 While he. Prince Hamlet, weds a pretty maid 
 (Who keeps us too long waiting, we'll confess) 
 By symbol, to instruct us formally 
 To fill the ditches up 'twixt class and class, 
 And live together in phalansteries. 
 What then 1 — he's mad, our Hamlet ! clap his play, 
 And bind him.' 
 
 ' Ah Lord Howe, this spectacle 
 Pulls stronger at us than the Dane's. See there ! 
 The crammed aisles heave and strain and steam with 
 
 life- 
 Dear Heaven, what life !' 
 
 ' Why, yes, — a poet seea ; 
 Which makes him different from a common man 
 /, too, see somewhat, though I cannot sing -, 
 
148 AURORA LEIGH, 
 
 I should have been a poet, only that 
 
 My mother took fright at the ugly world, 
 
 And bore me tongue-tied. If you'll grant me now 
 
 That Romney gives us a fine actor-piece 
 
 To make us merry on his marriage-morn, 
 
 The fable's worse than Hamlet's I'll concede. 
 
 The terrible people, old and poor and bliiid, 
 
 Their eyes eat out with plague and poverty 
 
 From seeing beautiful and cheerful sights, 
 
 We'll liken to a brutaiised King Lear, 
 
 Led out, — by no means to clear scores with wrongs— 
 
 His wrongs are so far back, . . he has forgot ; 
 
 All's past like youth ; but just to witness here 
 
 A simple contract, — he, upon his side, 
 
 And Regan with her sister Goneril 
 
 And all the dappled courtiers and court-fools. 
 
 On their side. Not that any of these would say 
 
 They're sorry, neither. What is done, is done. 
 
 And violence is now turned privilege. 
 
 As cream turns cheese, if buried long enough. 
 
 What could such lovely ladies have to do 
 
 With the old man there, in those ill-odorous rags, 
 
 Except to keep the wind-side of him 1 Lear 
 
 Is flat and quiet, as a decent grave ; 
 
 He does not curse his daughters in the least. 
 
 Be these his daughters 1 Lear is thinking of 
 
 His porridge chiefly . . is it getting cold 
 
 At Hampstead? will the ale be served in pots? 
 
 Poor Lear, poor daughters ! Bravo, Romney's play !' 
 
 A murmur and a movement drew around ; 
 
 A naked whisper touched us. Something wrong ! 
 
 What's wrong 1 The black crowd, as an overstrained 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 141 
 
 Oord, quivered in vibration, and I saw . . 
 
 Was that his face I saw 1 . . his . . Romney Leigh's , 
 
 Which tossed a sudden horror like a sponge 
 
 /nto all eyes, — while himself stood white upon 
 
 The topmost altar-stair, and tried to speak, 
 
 And failed, and lifled higher above his head 
 
 A letter, . . as a man who drowns and gasps. 
 
 * My brothers, bear with me ! I am very weak. 
 I meant but only good. Perhaps I meant 
 
 Too proudly, — and God snatched the circumstance 
 And changed it therefore. There's no marriage — 
 
 . none. 
 She leaves me, — she departs, — she disappears, 
 I lose her. Yet I never forced her ' ay,' 
 To have her ' no' so cast into my teeth. 
 In manner of an accusation, thus. 
 My friends, you are dismissed. Go, eat and drink 
 According to the programme, — and farewell !' 
 
 He ended. There was silence in the church ; 
 
 We heard a baby sucking in its sleep 
 
 At the farthest end of the aisle. Then spoke a man. 
 
 • Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink 
 Be not filched from us like the other fun ; 
 
 For beer's spilt easier than a woman 's lost ! 
 Q'his gentry is not Lonest with the poor ; 
 They bring us up, to trick us.' — ' Go it, Jim,' 
 A woman screamed back, — ' I'm a tender soul , 
 I never banged a child at two years old 
 And drew blood from him, but I sobbed for it 
 Next moment, — and I've had a plague of seven, 
 I'm tender ; I've no stomach evp.a for beef,- 
 
150 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Until I know about the girl that's lost, 
 
 That's killed, mayhap. I did misdoubt, at first, 
 
 The fine lord meant no good by her or us. 
 
 He, maybe, got the upper hand of her 
 
 By holding up a wedding-ring, and then . . 
 
 A choking finger on her throat last night, 
 
 And just a clever tale to keep us still, 
 
 As she is, poor lost innocent. ' Disappear !' 
 
 Who ever disappears except a ghost ? 
 
 And who believes a story of a ghost 1 
 
 I ask you, — would a girl go off", instead 
 
 Of staying to be married 1 a fine tale ! 
 
 A wicked man, I say, a wicked man ! 
 
 For my part I would rather starve on gin 
 
 Than make my dinner on his beef and beer.' — 
 
 At which a cry rose up — ' We'll have our rights. 
 
 We'll have the girl, the girl ! Your ladies there 
 
 Are married safely and smoothly every day, 
 
 And she shall not drop through into a trap 
 
 Because she's poor and of the people : shame ! 
 
 We'll have no tricks played ofi*by gentlefolks; • 
 
 We'll see her righted.' 
 
 Through the rage and ro« 
 I heard the broken words which Romney flung 
 Among the turbulent masses, from the ground 
 He held still with his masterful pale face — 
 Ag huntsmen throw the ration to the pack. 
 Who, falling on it headlong, dog on dog 
 In heaps of fury, rend it, swallow it up 
 With yelling hound-jaws, — his indignant words, 
 His suppliant words, his most pathetic words, 
 Whereof I caught the meaning here and there 
 By his gesture . torn in morsels, yelled across, 
 
AURORA LEIGH 161 
 
 And so de\oured. From end to end, the church 
 Rocked round us like the sea in storm, and then 
 Broke up like the earth in earthquake. Men cried 
 
 out 
 ' Police' — and women stood and shrieked for God, 
 Or dropt and swooned ; or, like a herd of deer, 
 (For whom the black woods suddenly grow alive, 
 Unleashing their wild shadows down the wind 
 To hunt the creatures into corners, back 
 And forward) madly fled, or blindly fell, 
 Trod screeching underneath the feet of those 
 Who fled and screeched. 
 
 Tne last sight left to me 
 Was Romney's terrible calm face above 
 The tumult.! — the last sound was ' Pull him down ! 
 Strike — kill him !' Stretching my unreasoning arms, 
 As men in dreams, who vainly interpose 
 'Twixt gods and their undoing, with a cry 
 I struggled to precipitate myself 
 Ilead-foremost to the rescue of my soul 
 In that white face, . . till some one caught ine back, 
 And so the world went out, — I felt no more. 
 
 What followed, was told after by Lord Howe, 
 Who bore me senseless from the strangling crowd 
 [n church and street, and then returned alone 
 To see the tumult quelled. The men of law 
 Had fallen as thunder on a roaring fire. 
 And made all silent, — while the people's smoke 
 Passed eddying slowly from the emptied aisles. 
 
 Here's Marian's letter, which a ragged child 
 Brought running, just as Romney at the porch 
 
152 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Looked out expectenl of the bride. He sent 
 The letter to me by his friend Lord Howe 
 Some two hours after, folded in a sheet 
 On which his well-known hand had left a word. 
 Here's Marian's letter. 
 
 ' Noble fri-end, dear sainfe, 
 Be patient with me. Never think me vile, 
 Who might to-morrow morning be your wife 
 But that 1 loved you more than such a name. 
 Fai ewell, my Romney. Let me write it once, — 
 My Romney. 
 
 ' 'Tis so pretty a coupled word, 
 I have no heaa't to pluck it with a blot. 
 We say * my God' sometimes, upon our knees, 
 Who is not therefore vexed : so bear with it . . 
 And me. I know I'm foolish, weak, and vain j 
 Yet most of all I'm angry with myself 
 For losing your last footstep on the stair 
 The last time of your coming, — yesterday ! 
 The very first time I lost step of yours, 
 (Its sweetness comes the next to what you speak) 
 But yesterday sobs took me by the throat 
 And cut me off from music. 
 
 * Mister Leigh, 
 You'll set me down as wrong in many things. 
 You've praised me, sir, for truth, — and now you'll 
 
 learn 
 I had not courage to be rightly true. 
 I once began to tell you how she came, 
 The woman . . and you stared upon the floor 
 In one of your fixed thoughts . . which put me out 
 For that day. After, some one spoke of me, 
 So wisely, and of you, so tenderly, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. l« 
 
 Persuading me to silence for your sake . . . 
 Well, well ! it seems this moment I was wrong 
 In keeping back from telling you the truth : 
 There might be truth betwixt us two, at least. 
 If nothing else. And yet 'twas dangerous. 
 Suppose a real angel came from heaven 
 To live with men and women ! he'd go mad, 
 If no considerate hand should tie a blind 
 Across his piercing eyes. 'Tis thus with you : 
 You see us too much in your heavenly light ; - 
 I always thought sc, angel, — and indeed 
 There's danger that you beat yourself to death 
 Against the edges of this alien world. 
 In some divine and fluttering pity. 
 
 ' Yes, 
 It would be dreadful for a friend of yours. 
 To see all England thrust you out of doors 
 And mock you from the windows. You might say, 
 Or think (that's worse), * Tliere's some one in the 
 
 house 
 I miss and love still.' Dreadful ! 
 
 ' Very kind, 
 I pray you mark, was Lady Waldemar. 
 She came to see me nine times, rather ten — 
 So beautiful, she hurts one like the day 
 Let suddenly on sick eyes. 
 
 ' Most kind of all. 
 Your cousin ! — ah, most like you ! Ere you came 
 She kissed me mouth to mouth : I felt her houI 
 Dip through her serious lips in holy fire. 
 God help me, but it made me arrogant ; 
 I almost told her that you would not lose 
 By taking me to wife : though ever since 
 
164 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I've pondered much a certain thing she askod 
 * He loves you, Marian V . . in a sort of mild 
 Derisive sadness . . as a mother asks 
 Her babe, ' You'll touch that star, you think V 
 
 * Farewell ! 
 I know I never touched it. 
 
 ' This is worst : 
 Babes grow, and lose the hope of things abo've ; 
 A silver threepence sets them leaping high — 
 But no more stars! mark that. 
 
 ' I've writ all night. 
 Yet told you nothing. God, if I could die. 
 And let this letter break off innocent 
 Just here ! But no — for your sake . . 
 
 ' Here's the last 
 1 never could be happy as your wife, 
 I never could be harmless as your friend, 
 I never will look more into your face 
 Till God says, * Look !' I charge you, seek me not, 
 Nor vex yourself with lamentable thoughts 
 That peradventure I have come to grief; 
 Be sure I'm well, I'm merry, I'm at ease, 
 But such a long way, long way, long way off, 
 I think you'll find me sooner in my grave ; 
 And that's my choice, observe. For what remains, 
 An over-generous friend will care for me 
 And keep me happy . . happier . . 
 
 'There's a blot ^ 
 This ink runs thick . . we light girls lightly weep , . 
 And keep me happier . . was the thing to say, 
 Than as your wife I could be ! — O, my star, 
 My saint, my soul ! for surely you're my soul, 
 Through whom God touched me ! I am net so lo%t 
 
AUROllA LEIGH. 15« 
 
 I cannot thank you for the good you did, 
 
 The tears you stopped, which fell down bitterly, 
 
 Like these— the times you made me weep for joy 
 
 At hoping I should learn to write your notes 
 
 And save the tiring of your eyes, at night ; 
 
 And most for that sweet thrice you kissed my lips 
 
 And said ' Dear Marian.' 
 
 * 'Twould be hard to read. 
 This letter, for a reader half as learn'd, 
 But you'll be sure to master it in spite 
 Of upa and downs. My hand shakes, I am blind, 
 I'm poor at writing at the best, — and yet 
 I -tried to make my ^s the way you showed. 
 Farewell— Christ love you.— Say ' Poor Marian' now. 
 
 Poor Marian ! — wanton Marian ! — was it so, 
 
 Or so ?• For days, her touching, foolish lines 
 
 We mused on with conjectural fantasy, 
 
 Aj3 if some riddle of a summer-cloud 
 
 On which one tries unlike similitudes 
 
 Of now a spotted Hydra-skin cast off, 
 
 And now a screen of carven ivory 
 
 That shuts the heavens' conventual secrets up 
 
 From mortals over-bold. We sought the sense : 
 
 She loved him so perhaps (such words mean love,] 
 
 That, worked on by some shrcM'd perfidious tongue, 
 
 (And then I thought of Lady Waldemar) 
 
 She left him, not to hurt him ; or perhaps 
 
 She loved one in her class, — or did not love, 
 
 But mused upon her wild bad tramping life 
 
 Until the free blood fluttered at her heart, 
 
 And black bread eaten by the road-side hedge 
 
 Seemed sweeter than being put to Romncy's school 
 
16« AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of philanthropical self-sacrifice, 
 
 Irrevocably. — Girls are girls, beside. 
 
 Thought I, and like a wedding by one rule. 
 
 You seldom catch these birds except with chaff: 
 
 They feel it almost an immoral thing 
 
 To go out and be married in broad day. 
 
 Unless some winning special flattery should 
 
 Excuse them to themselves for't, . . ' No one parH 
 
 Her hair with such a silver line as you, 
 
 One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown !* 
 
 Or else . . ' You bite your lip in such a way, 
 
 It spoils me for the smiling of the rest' — 
 
 And so on. Then a worthless gaud or two 
 
 To keep for love, — a ribbon for the neck. 
 
 Or some glass pin, — they have their weight with girls 
 
 And Romney sought her many days and weeks : 
 
 He sifted all the refuse of the town. 
 
 Explored the trains, inquired among the ships. 
 
 And felt the country through from end to end ; 
 
 No Marian ! — ^Though I hinted what I knew, — 
 
 A friend of his had reasons of her own 
 
 For throwing back the match — he would not hear : 
 
 The lady had been ailing ever since. 
 
 The shock had harmed her. Something in his tone 
 
 Repressed me ; something in me shamed my doubt 
 
 To a sigh repressed too. He went on to say 
 
 That, putting questions where his Marian lodged, 
 
 He found she had received for visitors. 
 
 Besides himself and Lady Waldcmar 
 
 And, that once, me — a dubious woman dressed 
 
 Beyond us both. The rings upon her hands 
 
 Had dazed the children when she threw them pence ; 
 
AUUORA LEIGH. 151 
 
 ' She wore her bonnet as the queen might hers, 
 To show the crown,' they said,—' a scarlet crown 
 Of roses that had nevei been in bud.' 
 
 When Romney told me that, — for now and then 
 Ele came to tell me how the search advanced. 
 His voice dropped : I bent forward for the rest : 
 The woman had been with her, it appeared. 
 At first from week to week, then day by day. 
 And last, 'twas sure . . 
 
 I looked upon the ground 
 To escape the anguish of his eyes, and asked 
 As low as when you speak to mourners new 
 Of those they cannot bear yet to call dead, 
 
 * If Marian had as much as named to him 
 A certain Rose, an early friend of hers, 
 A ruined creature.' 
 
 * Never.' — Starting up 
 He strode from side to side about the room, 
 Most like some prisoned lion sprung awake. 
 Who has felt the desert stmg him through his dream* 
 
 * What was I to her, that she should tell me aught 1 
 A friend ! was / a friend ? I see all clear. 
 
 Such devils would pull angels out of heaven. 
 Provided they could reach them ; 'tis their pride ; 
 And that's the odds 'twixt soul and body-plague ! 
 The veriest slave who drops in Cairo's street, 
 Cries, ' Stand off from me,' to the passengers ; 
 While these blotched souls are eager to infect, 
 And blow their bad breath in a sister's face 
 As if they got some ease by it.' 
 
 I broke through. 
 
 * Some natures catch no plagues. I've read of babes 
 14 
 
168 AURORA LEI Gtl. 
 
 Found whole and yleeping by the spotted breast 
 Of one a full day dead. I hold it true, 
 As I'm a woman and know womanhood, 
 That Marian Erie, however lured from place, 
 Deceived in way, keeps pure in aim and heart 
 As snow that's drifted from the garden-bank 
 To the open road.' 
 
 'Twas hard to hear him laugh, 
 * The figure's happy. Well — a dozen carts 
 And trampers will secure you presently 
 A fine white snow-di'ifl. Leave it there, your snow ' 
 'Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim ? 
 She's pure in aim, I grant you, — like myself, 
 Who thought to take the world upon my back 
 To carry it o'er a chasm of social ill, 
 And end by letting slip through impotence 
 A single soul, a child's weight in a soul. 
 Straight down the pit of hell ! yes, I and she 
 Have reason to be proud of our pure aims.' 
 Then softly, as the last repenting drops 
 Of a thunder-shower, he added, ' The poor child , 
 Poor Marian ! 'twas a luckless day for her, 
 When first she chanced on my philanthropy.' 
 
 He drew a chair beside me, and sate down ; 
 
 And I, instinctively, as women use 
 
 Before a sweet friend's grief, — when, in his ear. 
 
 They hum the tune of comfort though themselves 
 
 Most ignorant of the special words of such, 
 
 And quiet so and fortify his brain 
 
 And give it time and strength for feeling out 
 
 To reach the availing sense beyond that sound,— 
 
 Went murmuring to him what, if written here. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. IM 
 
 Would seem not much, yet fetched him better help 
 Than, peradventure, if it had been more. 
 
 I've known the pregnant thinkers of our time, 
 
 And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips. 
 
 When some chromatic sequence of fine thought 
 
 In learned modulation phrased itself 
 
 To an unconjectured harmony of truth. 
 
 And yet I've been more moved, more raised, I say, 
 
 By a simple word . . a broken easy thing 
 
 A three-years infant might at need repeat, 
 
 A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm, 
 
 Which meant less than ' I love you' . . than by all 
 
 The full-voiced rhetoric of those master-mouths. 
 
 * Ah dear Aurora,' he began at last, 
 His pale lips fumbling for a sort of smile, 
 'Your printer's devils have not spoilt your heart: 
 That's well. And who knows but, long years ago, 
 When you and I talked, you were somewhat right 
 In being so peevish with me 1 You, at least, 
 Have ruined no one through your dreams. Instetid 
 You've helped the facile youth to live youth's day 
 With innocent distraction, still perhaps 
 Suggestive of things better than your rhymes. 
 The little shepherd-maiden, eight years old, 
 I've seen upon ths mountains of Vaucluse, 
 Asleep 1' the sun, her head upon her knees, 
 The flocks all scattered, — is more laudable 
 Than any sheep-dog trained imperfectly. 
 Who bites the kids through too much zeal.' 
 
 ♦Hook 
 As if 1 had slept, then V 
 
160 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 lie was touched at on«» 
 By something m my face. Indeed 'twas sure 
 That he and I, — despite a year or two 
 Of younger life on my side, and on his 
 The heaping of the years' work on the days, 
 The three-hour speeches from the member's seal. 
 The hot committees in and out of doors, 
 The pamphlets, ' Arguments,' ' Collective Views, 
 Tossed out as straw before sick houses, just 
 To show one's sick and so be trod to dirt 
 And no more use, — through this world's underground 
 The burrowing, groping effort, whence the arm 
 And heart come torn,-'t was sure that he and 1 
 Were, after all, unequally fatigued ! 
 That he, in his developed manhood, stood 
 A little sunburnt by the glare of life ; 
 While I . . it seemed no sun had shone on me. 
 So many seasons I had missed my Springs : 
 My cheeks had pined and perished from their orbs, 
 And all the youth-blood in them had grown v»\ite 
 As dew on autumn cyclamens : alone 
 My eyes and forehead answered for my face. 
 
 He said, * Aurora, you are changed — are ill !' 
 
 * Not so, my cousin, — only not asleep, ' 
 I answered, smiling gently. ' Let it be. 
 You scarcely found the poet of Vaucluse 
 As drowsy as the shepherds. What is art 
 But life upon the larger scale, the higher, 
 When, graduating up in a spiral line 
 Of still expanding and ascending gyres, 
 It pushes toward the intense significance 
 
A.URORA LEIGH. 16' 
 
 Of all thmgs, hungry for the Infinite 1 
 
 Art's life,— and where we live, we sufTer and toil.' 
 
 He seemed to sift me with his painful eyes. 
 
 You take it gravely, cousin ; you refuse 
 
 Your dreamland's right of common, and green rest. 
 
 You break the mythi<5 turf where danced ths nymphs 
 
 With crooked ploughs of actual life, — let in 
 
 The axes to the legendary woods, 
 
 To pay the head-tax. You are fallen indeed 
 
 On evil days, you poets, if ^ ourselves 
 
 Can praise that art of yours no otherwise ; 
 
 And, if you cannot, . . better take a trade 
 
 And be of use : 'twere cheaper for your youth ' 
 
 * Of use !' I softly echoed, ' there's the point 
 We sweep about for ever in an argument ; 
 Like swallows which the exasperate, dying year 
 Sets spinning in black circles, round and round, 
 Preparing for far flights o'er unknown seas. 
 And we . . where tend we V 
 
 ' Where V he said, and sighed, 
 
 * The whole creation, from the hour we are born. 
 Perplexes us with questions. Not a stone 
 
 But cries behind us, every weary step, 
 
 * Where, where V I leave stones to reply to stones. 
 Enough for me and for my fleshly heart 
 
 To harken the invocations of my kind, 
 
 When men catch hold upon my shuddering nerves 
 
 And shriek, ' What help 1 what hope 1 what bread i' 
 
 the house. 
 What fire i' the frost V There must be some ro 
 
 sponse, 
 
 14* 
 
t62 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Though mine fail utterly. Tliis social Sphinx 
 Who sits between the sepulchres and stews, 
 Makes mock and mow against the crystal heavens, 
 A.nd bullies God, — exacts a word at least 
 From each man standing on the side of God, 
 However paying a sphinx-price for it. 
 We pay it also if we hold our peace, 
 In pangs and pity. Let me speak and die. 
 Alas ! you'll say I speak and kill instead.* 
 
 I pressed in there. ' The best men, doing their best, 
 Know peradventure least of what they do : 
 Men usefullest i' the world, are simply used ; 
 The nail that holds the wood, must pierce it first, 
 And He alone who wields the liammer, sees 
 The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take 
 
 heart.' 
 ' Ah, if I could have token yours !' he said, 
 ' But that's past now.' Then rising . . ' I will take 
 At least your kindness and encouragement. 
 I thank you. Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, 
 If that's your way ! but sometimes slumber too, 
 Nor tire too much with following, out of breath. 
 The rhymres upon yo-ur mountains of Delight. 
 Reflect, if Art be in truth the higher life. 
 You need the lower life to stand upon 
 [n order to reach up unto that higher : 
 And none can stand a- tiptoe in the place 
 He cannot stand in with two stable feet. 
 Remiember then !— for Art's sake, hold your life.' 
 
 We parted so. I held him in respect. 
 I comprehended what he was in heart 
 
AURORA LEIGH 
 
 1C8 
 
 And sacrificial greatness. Ay, but he 
 
 Supposed me a thing too small to deign to know ; 
 
 He blew me, plainly, from the crucible, 
 
 As some intruding, interrupting fly 
 
 Nut worth the pains of his analysis 
 
 Absorbed on nobler subjects. Hurt a fly ! 
 
 He would not for the world : he's pitiful 
 
 To flies even. ' Sing,' says he, ' and teaze me still, 
 
 If that's your way, poor insect.' That's your way 
 
FIFTH BOOK 
 
 A URORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall 1 hope 
 
 To speak my poems in mysterious tune 
 With man and nature, — with the lava-lymph 
 That trickles from successive galaxies 
 Still drop by drop adown the finger of God 
 In still new worlds 1 — with summer-days in this, 
 That scarce dare breathe they are so beautiful'? 
 With spring's delicious trouble in the ground 
 Tormented by the quickened blood of roots, 
 And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves 
 In token of the harvest-time of flowers? 
 With winters and with autumns, — and beyond 
 With the human heart's large seasons, whcii it 
 
 hopes 
 And fears, joys, grieves, and loves 1 — with all that 
 
 strain 
 Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh 
 In a sacrament of souls 1 with mother's breasts 
 Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there, 
 Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres ? — 
 With multitudinous life, and finally 
 With the great escapiugs of ecstatic souls. 
 Who, in a rush of too lung prisoned flame, 
 Their radiant faces upward, burn away 
 
AURORA LEIGH 
 
 \9b 
 
 This dark of the body, issuing on a world 
 
 Deyond our mortal ?-can I speak my verse 
 
 So plamly in tune to these things and the rest, 
 
 That men shall feel it catch them on the quick, 
 
 As having the same warrant over them 
 
 To hold and move them if they will or no, 
 
 Alike imperious as the primal rhythm 
 
 Of that theurgic nature 1 I must fail, 
 
 Who fail at the beginning to hold and move 
 
 One man,-and he my cousin, and he my friend. 
 
 And he born tender, made intelligent. 
 
 Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides 
 
 Of difficult questions •, yet, obtuse to me, 
 
 Of me, incurious! likes me very well. 
 
 And wishev me a paradise of good. 
 
 Good looks, good means, and good digestion. 
 
 But otherwise evades me, puts me off 
 
 With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,— 
 
 Too light a book for a grave man's readmg ! Oo, 
 
 Aurora Leigh : be humble. 
 
 There it is, 
 
 We women are too apt to look to one, 
 
 Which proves a certain impotence in art. 
 
 We strain our natures at doing something great, 
 
 Far less because it's something great to do. 
 
 Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves 
 
 As being not small, and more appreciable 
 
 To some one friend. We must have mediators 
 
 Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ; 
 
 Some sweet saint's blood must quicken in our palma 
 
 Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold : 
 
 Good only being perceived as the end of good 
 
 And God alone pleased, -that's too poor, we think, 
 
166 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 And not enough for us by any means. 
 Ay — Romney, I remember, told me once 
 We miss the abstract, when we comprehend. 
 We miss it most when we aspire, . . and fail. 
 
 Y"et, so, I will not. — This vile w^oman's way 
 Of trailing garments, shall not trip me up. 
 I'll have no traffic with the personal thought 
 In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain, 
 Without the approbation of a man ? 
 It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself, 
 That approbation of the general race, 
 Presents a poor end, (though the arrow speed. 
 Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,) 
 And the highest fame was never reached except 
 By what was pimed above it. Art for art. 
 And good for God Himself, the essential Good ! 
 We'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect. 
 Although our wom^n-hands should shake and fail? 
 And if we fail . . But must we ? — 
 
 Shall I fain • 
 The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 
 ' Let no one be called happy till his death.' 
 To which I add, — Let no one till his death 
 Be called unhappy. Measure not the work 
 Until the day's out and the labour done ; 
 Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scanty 
 Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ; 
 And, in that we have nobly striven at least. 
 Deal with us nobly, women though we be, 
 And honour us with truth if not with praise. 
 
 My ballads prospered ; but the ballad's race 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 1«1 
 
 fa rapid for a poet who bears weights 
 
 Of thought and golden image. He can stand 
 
 Like Atlas, in the sonnet, — and support 
 
 His own heavens pregnant with dynastic stars ; 
 
 But then he must stand still, nor take a step. 
 
 In that descriptive poem called ' The Hills,' 
 
 The prospects were too far and indistinct. 
 
 'Tis true my critics said, ' A fine view, that !' 
 
 The public scarcely cared to climb the book 
 
 For even the finest ; and the public's right, 
 
 A tree's mere firewood, unless humanised ; 
 
 Which well the Greeks knew when they stirred its 
 
 bark 
 With close-pressed bosoms of subsiding nymphs, 
 And made the forest-rivers garrulous 
 With babble of gods. For us, we are called to mark 
 A still more intimate humanity 
 In this inferior nature, — or, ourselves, 
 Must fall like dead leaves trodden underfoot 
 By veritable artists. Earth, shut up 
 By Adam, like a fakir in a box 
 Left too long buried, remained stiff and dry, 
 A mere dumb corpse, till Christ the Lord came-dovifn. 
 Unlocked the doors, forced open the blank eyes. 
 And used his kingly chrism to straighten out 
 The leathery tongue turned back into. the throat* 
 Since when, she lives, remembers, palpitates 
 In every limb, aspires in every breath, 
 Embraces infinite relations. Now 
 We want no half gods, Panomph{3eixn Joves, 
 Fauns, Naiads, Tritons, Oreads and the rest, 
 To take possession of a senseles>^ world 
 
168 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To unnatural vanipire-usea. See the earth, 
 
 The body of our-body, the green earth, 
 
 Indubitably human like this flesh 
 
 And these articulated veins through which 
 
 Our heart drives blood ! there's not a flower of spring 
 
 That dres ere June, but vaunts itself allied 
 
 By issue and symbol, by significance 
 
 And correspondence, to that spirit-world 
 
 Outside the limits of our space and time, 
 
 Whereto we are bound. Let poets give it voi^e 
 
 With human meanings ; else they miss the thought, 
 
 And henceforth step down lower, stand confessei 
 
 Instructed poorly for interpreters, 
 
 Thrown out by an easy cowslip in the text. 
 
 Even so m.y pastoral failed : it was a book 
 Of surface-pictures — pretty, cold, and flilse 
 With literal transcript, — the worse done, I think, 
 For being not ill-done. Let me set my mark 
 Against such doings, and do otherwise. 
 This strikes me. — If the public whom we know, 
 Could catch me at such admissions, I should pass 
 For being right modest. Yet how proud we are, 
 In daring to look down upon ourselves ! 
 
 The critics say that epics have died out 
 With Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods — 
 I'll not believe it. I could never deem 
 As Payne Knight did, (the mythic mountaineer 
 Who travelled higher than he was born to live, 
 And showed sometimes the goitre in hi^ throat 
 Discoursing of an image seen through fog,) 
 That Homer's heroes measured twelve feet hiffh, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. »«! 
 
 Iney weie but men :— his Helen's hair turned gmj 
 
 Like any plain Miss Smith's, who wears a front ; 
 
 And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume 
 
 All actual heroes are essential men, 
 
 And all men possible heroes : every age, 
 
 Heroic in proportions, double-faced, 
 
 Looks backward and before, expects a mom 
 
 And claims an epos. 
 
 Ay, but every age 
 Appears to souls who live in 't, (ask Carlyle) 
 Most unheroic. Ours, for instance, ours : 
 The thinkers scout it, and the poets abound 
 Who scorn to touch it wdth a finger-tip : 
 A pewter age,— mixed metal, silver-washed ; 
 An age of scum, spooned off the richer past, 
 An age of patches for old gaberdines, 
 An age of mere tran-sition, meaning nought 
 Except that w^hat succeeds must shame it quite 
 If God please. That's wrong thinking, to my mind, 
 And wrong thoughts make poor poems. 
 
 Every ago, 
 Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned 
 By those who have not lived past it. We'll suppose 
 Mount Athos carved, as Alexander schemed, 
 •j'o some colo'-sal statue of a man : 
 The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear. 
 Had guessed as little as the browsing goats 
 Of form or feature of humanity 
 Up there,— in fact, had travelled five miles oflf 
 Or ere the giant image broke on them, 
 Full human profile, nose and chin distinct. 
 Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky 
 And fed at evening with the l)lood of suns • 
 15 
 
170 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Grand torso, — haiid, that flung perpetually 
 The largesse of a silver river down 
 To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus 
 With times we live in, — evermore too great 
 To be apprehended near. 
 
 But poets should 
 Exert a double vision ; should have eyes 
 To see near things as comprehensively 
 As if afar they took their point of sight, 
 And distant things as intimately deep 
 As if they touched them. Let us strive for thia 
 I do distrust the poet who discerns 
 No character or glory in his times. 
 And trundles back his soul five hu^idred years, 
 Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court, 
 To sing — oh not of lizard or of toad 
 Alive i' the ditch there, — 'twere excusable ; 
 But of some black chief, half knight, half sheep-liftei 
 Some beauteous dame, half cliattel and half q\ieen, 
 As dead as must be, for the greater part. 
 The poems made on th^iir chivalric bones. 
 And that's no wonder : death inherits death. 
 
 Nay, if there's room for poets in this world 
 
 A little overgrown, (I think there is) 
 
 Their sole work is to represent the age. 
 
 Their age, not Charlemagne's, — this live, throbbmg 
 
 age, 
 That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires. 
 And spends more passion, naore heroic heat, 
 Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms, 
 Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles. 
 To flinch from modern varnish, coat or flounceu 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 17J 
 
 Cry out for togas and the picturesque, 
 Is fatal, — foolish too. King Arthur's self 
 Was commonplace to Lady Guenever ; 
 And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat, 
 As Fleet Street to our poets. 
 
 Never flinch, 
 But still, unscrupulously epic, catch 
 Upon the burning lava of a song 
 The fuil- veined, heaving, double-breasted Age : 
 That, when the next shall come, the men of that 
 May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say 
 * Behold, — behold the paps we all have sucked ! 
 This bosom seems to beat still, or at least 
 It sets ours beating. This is living art. 
 Which thus presents and thus records true life.* 
 
 What form is best for poems ? Let me think 
 Of forms less, and the external. Trust the spirit, 
 As sovran nature does, to make the form ; 
 For otherwise we only imprison spirit 
 And not embody. Inward evermore 
 To outward, — so in life, and so in art, 
 Which still is life. 
 
 Five acts to make a play. 
 And why not fifteen *? why not ten 1 or seven \ 
 What matter for the number of the leaves, 
 Supposing the tree lives and grows 1 exact 
 The literal unities of time and place, 
 When 'tis the essence of passion to ignore 
 Both time and place 1 Absurd. Keep up the fire. 
 And leave the generous flames to shape themsclvesi. 
 
 TTis true the stage requires obsequiousness 
 
172 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To this or that convention ; ' exit' here 
 
 And ' enter' there ; the points for clapping, fixed, 
 
 Like Jacob's white-peeled rods before the rams : 
 
 And all the close-curled imagery clipped 
 
 In manner of their fleece at shearing-time. 
 
 Forget to prick the galleries to the heart 
 
 Precisely at the fourth act, — culminate 
 
 Our five pyramidal acts with one act more, — 
 
 We're lost so ! Shakspeare's ghost could scarcely 
 
 plead 
 Against our just damnation. Stand aside ; 
 We'll muse for comfort that, last century, 
 On this same tragic stage on which we have failo-^., 
 A wigless Hamlet would have failed the same. 
 
 And whosoever writes good poetry, 
 
 Looks just to art. He does not write for you 
 
 Or me, — for London or for Edinburgh ; 
 
 He will not suffer the best critic known 
 
 To step into his sunshine of free thought 
 
 And self absorbed conception, and exact 
 
 An inch-long swerving of the holy lines. 
 
 If virtue done for popularity 
 
 Defiles like vice, can art for praise or hire 
 
 Still keep its splendor, and remain pure art "? 
 
 Eschew such serfdom. What the poet writes, 
 
 lie writes : mankind accepts it if it suits, 
 
 And that's success : if not, the poem's passed 
 
 From hand to hand, and yet from hand to hand 
 
 Until the unborn snatch it, crying out 
 
 In pity on their fathers' being so dull. 
 
 And that's success too. 
 
 I will write no plays; 
 
AURORA LEIGH. Ha 
 
 Because the drama, less sublime in this, 
 Makes lower appeals, defends more meniaily. 
 Adopts the standard of the public taste 
 To chalk its height on, wears a dog-cha^n round 
 Its regal neck, and learns to carry and fetch 
 The fashions of the day to please the day ; 
 Fawns close on pit and boxes, who clap hands, 
 Commending chiefly its docility 
 And humour in stage-tricks ; or else indeed 
 Gets hissed at, howled at, stamped at like a dog, 
 Or worse, we'll say. For dogs, unjustly kicked, 
 Yell, bite at need ; but if your dramatist 
 (Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies 
 Because their grosser brains most naturally 
 Misjudge the fineness of his subtle wit) 
 Shows teeth an almond's breadth, protests the length 
 Of a m.odest phrase, — ' My gentle countrymen, 
 'There's something in it haply of your fault,'- - 
 Why then, besides five hundred nobodies, 
 He'll have five thousand and five thousand more 
 Against him, — the whole public, — all the hoofs 
 Of King Saul's father's asses, in full drove, 
 And obviously deserve it. He appealed 
 To these, — and why say more if they condemn. 
 Than if they praise him ?— Weep, my iEschylua, 
 But low and far, upon Sicilian shores ! 
 For since 'twas Athens (so I read the myth) 
 Who gave commission to that fatal weight 
 The tortoise, cold and hard, to drop on thee 
 And crush thee,— better cover thy bald head ; 
 She'll hear the softest hum of Hyblan bee ^ 
 Before thy loudest protestation ! Then 
 The risk's still worse upon the modern stage ; 
 15* 
 
174 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I could not, for so little, accept success, 
 Nor would I risk so much, in ease and calm, 
 For manifester gains ; let those who prize. 
 Pursue them : /stand off. 
 
 And yet, forbid, 
 Tliat any irreverent fancy or conceit 
 Should litter in the Drama's throne-room where 
 The rulers of our art, in whose full vehis 
 Dynastic glories mingle, sit in strength 
 And do their kingly work, — conceive, command, 
 And, from the imagination's crucial heat, 
 Catch up their rhen and women all a-flame 
 For action, all alive and forced to prove 
 Their life by living out heart, brain, and nerve, 
 Until mankind makes witness, ' These be men 
 As we are,' and vouchsafes the greeting due 
 To Imogen and Juliet — sweetest kin 
 On art's side. 
 
 'Tis that, honouring to its worth 
 The drama, I would fear to keep it down 
 To the level of the footlights. Dies no more 
 The sacrificial goat, for Bacchus slainj 
 His filmed eyes fluttered by the whirlmg white 
 Of choral vestures, — troubled in his blood, 
 While tragic voices that clanged keen as swords, 
 Leapt high together with the altar-flame 
 And made the blue air wink. The waxen mask, 
 Which set the grand still front of Themis' son 
 Upon the puckered visage of a player ; — 
 The buskin, which he rose upon and moved, 
 As some tall ship first conscious of the wind 
 Sweeps slowly past the piers; — the mouthpiece., 
 where 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 175 
 
 The mere man's voice with all its breaths and breaks 
 
 Went sheathed in brass, and clashed on even heights 
 
 [ts phrased thunders ; — these things are no more, 
 
 Which once were. And concluding, which is clear 
 
 The growing drama has outgrown such toys 
 
 Of simulated stature, face, and speech, 
 
 It also peradventure may outgrow 
 
 The simulation of the painted scene, 
 
 Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume; 
 
 And take for a worthier stage the soul itself 
 
 Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, 
 
 With all its grand orchestral silences 
 
 To keep the pauses of the rhythmic sounds. 
 
 Alas, I still see something tobe done, 
 
 And what I do falls short' of what I see 
 
 Though I waste myself on doing. Long green days, 
 
 Worn bare of grass and sunshine, — long calm nights 
 
 Fi'om which the silken sleeps were fretted out, 
 
 Be witness for me, with no amateur's 
 
 Irreverent haste and busy idleness 
 
 I set myself to art I What then ? what's done ? 
 
 What's done, at last ? 
 
 Behold, at last, a book. 
 If life-blood's necessary, — which it is, 
 (By that blue vein athrob on Mahomet's brow, 
 Each prophet-poet's book must show man's blood !) 
 If .ifoblood's fertilising, I wrung mine 
 Ot. every leaf of this, — unless the drop? 
 Slid heavily on one side and left it dry. 
 Tliat'chances often : many a fervid man 
 Writes books as cold and flat as grave-yard stones 
 From which the lichc-n's scraped ; and if St. Prcux 
 
176 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Had written his own letters, as he might, 
 We had never wept to think of the little mole 
 'Neath Julie's drooping eyelid. Passion is 
 But something suffered, after all. 
 
 While art 
 Sets action on the top of suflfering : 
 The artist's part is both to be and do, 
 Transfixing with a special, central power 
 The flat experience of the common man. 
 And turning outward, with a sudden wrench^ 
 Half agony, half ecstasy, the thing 
 He feels the inmost : never felt the less 
 Because he sings it. Does a torch less burn 
 For burning next reflectors of blue steel. 
 That he should be the colder for his place 
 'Twixt two incessant fires, — ^his personal life's, 
 And that intense refraction which burns back 
 Perpetually against him from the round 
 Of crystal conscience he was born into 
 If artist-born % O sorrowful great gift 
 Conferred on poets, of a twofold life. 
 When one life has been found enough for pain ! 
 We staggering 'neath our burden as mere men, 
 Being called to stand up straight as demi-gods, 
 Support the intolerable strain and stress 
 Of the universal, and send clearly up 
 With voices broken by the human sob. 
 Our poems to find rhymes among the stars ! 
 But soft ! — a ' poet' is a word soon said ; 
 A book's a thing soon written. Nay, indeed^ 
 The more the poet shall be questionable, 
 The more unquestionably comes his book. 
 And this of mine — well, granting to myself 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 177 
 
 Borne passion in it, furrowing up the flats, 
 Mere passion will not prove a volume worth 
 Its gall and rags even. Bubbles round a keel 
 Mean nought, excepting that the vessel moves. 
 There's more than passion goes to make a mAn 
 Or book, which is a man too. 
 
 I am sad, 
 1 wonder if Pygmalion had these doubts. 
 And, feeling the hard marble first relent, 
 Grow supple to the straining of his arm.5, 
 And tingle through its cold to his burning lip, 
 Supposed his senses mocked, and that the toil 
 Of stretching past the known and seen to reach 
 The archetypal Beauty out of sight. 
 Had made his heart beat fast enough for two. 
 And with his own life dazed and blinded him ! 
 Not so ; Pygmalion loved, — and whoso loves 
 Believes the impossible. 
 
 And I am sad : 
 I cannot thoroughly love a work of mine, 
 Since none seems worthy of my thought and hope 
 More highly mated. lie has shot them down, 
 My Phoebus Apollo, soul within my soul. 
 Who judges by the attempted, what's attained, 
 And with the silver arrow from his height 
 Has struck down all my works before my face 
 While /said nothing. Is there aught to say ? 
 I called the artist but a greatei 3d man : 
 He may be childless also, like a man. 
 
 I laboured on alone. The wind and dust 
 
 And sun of tlte world beat blistering in my face ; 
 
 And hope, now for me, now against me, dragged 
 
 M 
 
178 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 My spirits onward, — -us some fallen balloon, 
 
 Which, whether caught by blossoming tree or bare, 
 
 Is torn alike. I sometijnes touched my aim. 
 
 Or seemed, — and generous souls cried out, ' Be strong. 
 
 Take courage ; now you're on our level, — now ' 
 
 The next step saves you !' I was flushed with praisft, 
 
 But, pausing just a moment to draw breath, 
 
 I could not choose but murmur to myself 
 
 ' Is this all ? all that's done ? and all that's gained? 
 
 If this then be success, 'tis dismaller 
 
 Than any failure.' 
 
 O my God, my God, 
 O supreme Artist, who as sole return 
 For all the cosmic wonder of Thy work, 
 Demandest of us just a word . . a name, 
 ' My Father !' — thou hast knowledge, only thou, 
 How dreary 'tis for women to sit still 
 On winter nights by solitary fires. 
 And hear the nations praising them far off. 
 Too far ! ay, praising our quick sense of love. 
 Our very heart of passionate womanhood, 
 Which could not beat so in the verse without 
 Being present also in the unkissed lips. 
 And eyes undried because there's none to ask 
 The reason they grew moist. 
 
 To sit alone. 
 And think for comfort hov\', that very nighty 
 Affianced lovers, leaning face to face 
 With sweet half listenings for each other's breath. 
 Are reading haply from a page of ours. 
 To pause with a thrill, as if their cheeks had touched 
 When such a stanza, level to their mood. 
 Seems floating their own thoucrhts (/ut — ' So I feel 
 
AURORA LEIGH. m 
 
 For thee,'—* And I, for thee • this poet knows 
 What everlasting love is '.'—now, that night, 
 A father, issuing from the misty roads 
 Upon the luminous round of lamp and hearth 
 And happy children, having caught up first 
 The youngest there until it shrink and shricK 
 To feel the cold chin prick its dimples th.vagh 
 With winter from the hills, may throw i' the lap 
 Of the eldest, (who has learnt to drop her lids 
 To hide some sweetness newer than last year's) 
 Our book and cry, . . * Ah you, you care for rhymes 
 So here be rhymes to pore on under trees. 
 When April comes to let you ! I've been told 
 They are not idle as so many are, 
 But set hearts bea^ng pure as well as fast : 
 'Tis yours, the book; I'll write your name in it, 
 That so you may notlose, however lost 
 In poet's lore and charming revevie, 
 The thought of how your father thought of you 
 In riding from the town.' 
 
 To have our books 
 Appraised by love, associated with love, 
 While we sit loveless! is it hard, you think *? 
 At least 'tis mournful. Fame, indeed, 'twas said. 
 Means simply love. It was a man said that. 
 And then, there's love and love : the love of all 
 (To risk in turn a woman's paradox,) 
 Is but a small thing to the love of one. 
 You bid a hungry child be satisfied 
 With a heritage of many corn-fields : nay, 
 He says he's hungry, — he would rather have 
 That little barley-cake you keep from him 
 While reckoning up his harvests. So with us; 
 
180 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 (Here, Romney, too, we fail to generalise !) 
 We're hungry. 
 
 Hungry ! but it's pitiful 
 To wail like unweaned babes and suck our thumbs 
 Because we're hungry. Who, in all this world, 
 (Wherein we are haply set to pray and fast, 
 And learn what good is by its opposite) 
 Has never hungered ? Woe to him who has found 
 The meal enough : if Ugolino's full, 
 His teeth have crunched some foul unnatural thing 
 For here satiety proves penury 
 More utterly irremediable. And since 
 We needs must hunger, — better, for man's love, 
 Than God's truth ! better, for companions sweet, 
 Than great convictions ! let us bear our weights, 
 Preferring dreary hearths to desert souls. 
 Well, well, they say we're envious, we who rhyme; 
 But I, beciiuse 1 am a woman perhaps. 
 And so rhyme ill, am ill at envying. 
 I never envied Graham his breadth of style. 
 Which gives you, with a random smutch or two, 
 (Near-sighted critics analyse to smutch) 
 Such delicate perspectives of full life ; 
 Nor Belmore, for the unity of aim 
 To which he cuts his cedarn poems, fine 
 As sketchers do their pencils ; nor Mark Gage, 
 For that caressing colour and trancing tone 
 Whereby you're swept away and melted in 
 The sensual element, which with a back wave 
 Restores you to the level of pure souls 
 And leaves you with Plotinus. None of these. 
 For native gifls or popular applause, 
 I've envied ; but for this, — that when by chancse 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 181 
 
 Says some c le, — ' There goes Belmore, a great man 
 
 He leaves aean work behind hVii, and requires 
 
 No sweeper up of the chips,' , . a gir. T know. 
 
 Who answers nothing, save with her brown eyes, 
 
 Smiles unaware as if a guardian saint 
 
 Smiled in her : — for this, too, — that Gage comes home 
 
 And lays his last book's prodigal review 
 
 Upon his mother's knees, where, years ago, 
 
 He laid his childish spelling-book and learned 
 
 To chirp and peck the letters from her mouth, 
 
 As young birds must. * Well done,' she murmured 
 
 then, 
 She will not say it now more wonderingly ; 
 And yet the last ' Well done' will touch him more. 
 As catching up to-day and yesterday 
 In a perfect chord of love ; and so, Mark Gage, 
 I envy you your mother ! — and you, Graham, 
 Because you have a wife who loves you so. 
 She half foi-gets, at moments, to be proud 
 Of being Graham's wife, until a friend observes, 
 * The boy here, has his father's massive brow. 
 Done small in wax . . if we push back the curls.* 
 
 Who loves me? Dearest father, — mother sweet,— 
 I speak the names out sometimes by myself. 
 And make the silence shiver : they sound strange, 
 As Hindostanee to an Ind-born man 
 Accustomed many years to English speech ; 
 Or lovely poet-words grown obsolete. 
 Which will not leave off singjng. Up in heaven 
 I have my father, — with my mother's fao^ 
 Beside him in a blotch of heavenly light ; 
 No more for earth's familiar household use, 
 IP 
 
182 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 No more ! The best verse written by this hand 
 Can never reach them where they sit, to seem 
 Well-done to them. Death quite unfellows us, 
 Sets dreadful odds betwixt the live and dead, 
 And makes us part as those at Babel did, 
 Through sudden ignorance of a common tongue. 
 A living Caesar would not dare to play 
 At bowls with such as my dead father is. 
 
 And yet this may be less so than appears. 
 
 This change and separation. Sparrows five 
 
 For just two farthings, and God cares for each. 
 
 If God is not too great for Jittle cares. 
 
 Is any creature, because gone to God ? 
 
 I've seen some men, veracious, nowise mad. 
 
 Who have thought or dreamed, declared and testified 
 
 They heard the Dead a-t^cking like a clock 
 
 Which strikes the hours of the eternities, 
 
 Beside them, with their natural ears, and known 
 
 That human spirits feel the human way. 
 
 And hate the unreasoning awe which waves them ofl 
 
 From possible communion. It may be. 
 
 At least, earth separates as well as heaven. 
 For instance, I have not seen Romney Leigh 
 Full eighteen months . . add six, you get two yeara 
 They say he's very busy with good works, — 
 Has parted Leigh Hall into almshouses. 
 lie made an almshouse of his heart one day, 
 Which ever since is loose upon the latch 
 For those who pull the string. — I never did. 
 
 it always makes me sad to go abroad j 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 183 
 
 And now I'm sadder that T went to-night 
 Among the lights and talket^ at Lord Howe's. 
 His wife is gracious,* with her glossy braids, 
 And even voice, and gorgeous eyeballs, calm 
 As her other jewels. W she's somewhat cold, 
 Who wonders, when her blood has stood so long 
 In the ducal reservoir she calls her line 
 By no means arrogantly 1 she's not proud ; 
 Not prouder than the swan is of the lake 
 He has always swum in ; — 'tis her element, 
 And so she takes it with a natural grace, 
 Ignoring tadpoles. She just knows perhaps 
 There are who travel without outriders. 
 Which isn't her fault. Ah, to watch her face, 
 When good Lord Howe expounds his theories 
 Of social justice and equality — 
 'Tis curious, what a tender, tolerant bend 
 Her neck takes : for she loves him, likes his talk, 
 ' Such clever talk — that dear, odd Algernon !' 
 She listens on, exactly as if he talked 
 Some Scandinavian myth of Lemures, 
 Too pretty to dispute, and too absurd. 
 
 She's gracious to me as her husband's friend. 
 And would be gracious, were I not "a Leigh, 
 Being used to smile just so, without her eyes, 
 On Joseph Strangways, the Leeds mesmerist, 
 And Delia Dobbs, the lecturer from ' the States' 
 Upon the ' Woman's question.' Then, for him, 
 I like him . . he's my friend. And all the ro\..m£ 
 Were full of crinkling silks that swept about 
 The fine dust of most subtle courtesies. 
 VVluit then '? — why then, we come home to be sad 
 
184 AIJ RORA LEIGH. 
 
 How lovely One 1 love not looked to-night ! 
 
 She's very pretty, Lady Waldemar, 
 
 Her maid must use both hands to twist that coil 
 
 Of tresses, then be careful lest the rich 
 
 Bronze rounds should slip : — she missed, though, t 
 
 gray hair, 
 A single one, — I saw it ; otherwise 
 The woman looked immortal. How they told, 
 Those alabaster shoulders and bare breasts. 
 On which the pearls, drowned out of sight in milk. 
 Were lost, excepting for the ruby-clasp ! 
 They split the amaranth velvet-boddice down 
 To the waist or nearly, with the audacious press 
 Of full -breathed beauty. If the heart within 
 Were half as white ! — but, if it were, perhaps 
 The breast were closer covered, and the sight 
 Less aspectable, by half, too. 
 
 I heard 
 The young man with the German student's look — 
 A sharp face, like a knife in a cleft stick. 
 Which shot up straight against the parting line 
 So equally dividing the long hair, — 
 Say softly to his neighbour, (thirty-five 
 And mediaeval) ' Look that way. Sir Blaise 
 She's Lady Waldemar — to the left, — in red — 
 Whom Romney Leigh, our ablest man just now, 
 Is soon about to marry.' 
 
 Then replied 
 Sir Blaise Delorme, with quiet, priestlike voice, 
 Too used to syllable damnations round 
 To make a natural emphasis worth vrhile : 
 * Is Leigh your ablest man ? the same, I think. 
 Once jilted bv a recreant pretty maid 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 186 
 
 A^dopted from the people 1 Now, in change, 
 
 He seems to have plucked a flower from the otlier 
 
 side 
 Of the social hedge.' 
 
 * A flower, a flower,' exclaimed 
 My German student, — his own eyes full-blown 
 Bent on her. He was twenty, certainly. 
 
 Sir Blaise resumed with gentle arrogance. 
 
 As if he had dropped his alms i.nto a hat 
 
 And gained the right to counsel, — * My young friend, 
 
 I doubt your ablest man's ability 
 
 To get the least good or help meet for him, 
 
 For pagan phalanstery or Christian home, 
 
 From such a flowery creature.' 
 
 ' Beautiful !' 
 My student murmured, rapt, — ' Mark how she stirs ! 
 Just waves her head, as if a flower indeed, 
 Touched far ofl* by the vain breath af our talk.' 
 
 At which that bilious Grimwdld, (he who writes 
 
 For the Renovator) who had seemed absorbed 
 
 Upon the table-book of autographs, 
 
 (I dare say mentally he crunched the bones 
 
 Of all those writers, wishing them alive 
 
 To feel his tooth in earnest) turned short round 
 
 With low carnivorous laugh, — ' A flower, of course ! 
 
 She neither sews nor spins, — and takes no thought 
 
 Of her garments . . falling ofl^.' 
 
 The student flinched, 
 Sir Blaise, the same ; then both, drawing bacK their 
 
 chairs 
 As if they spied black-beetles on the floor, 
 
 16* 
 
lt« AURORA LEIGxi. 
 
 Pursued their talk, without a word being throvm 
 To the critic. 
 
 Good Sir Blaise's brow is high 
 And noticeably narrow : a strong wind, 
 You fancy, might unroof him suddenly. 
 And blow that great top attic off his head 
 So piled with feudal relics. You admire 
 I lis nose in profile, though you miss his chin ; 
 But, though you miss his chin, you seldom miss 
 His ebon cross worn innermostly, (carved 
 For penance by a saintly Styrian monk 
 Whose flesh was too much with him,) slipping through 
 Some unaware unbuttoned casualty 
 Of the under- waistcoat. With an absent air 
 Sir Blaise sate fingering it and speaking low, 
 While I, upon the sofa, heard it all. 
 
 * My dear young friend, if we could bear our eyos 
 Like blessedest St. Lucy, on a plate. 
 
 They would not trick us into choosing wives, 
 
 As doublets, by the colour. Otherwise 
 
 Our fathers chose, — and therefore, when they had 
 
 hung 
 Their household keys about a lady's waist, 
 The sense of duty gave her dignity : 
 Siie kept her bosom holy to her babes ; 
 And, if a moralist reproved her dress, 
 *lVas, *Too much starch!' — and not, 'Too little 
 
 law !' ' 
 
 * Now, pshaw !' returned the other in a heat, 
 
 A little fretted by being called ' young friend,* 
 It so I took it, — ' for St. Lucy's sake, 
 
AUROllA LEIG H. 187 
 
 f she's the saint to swear by, let us leave 
 Our fhthers, — plagued enough about our sons !' 
 (He stroked his beardless chin) 'yes, plagued, sir- 
 
 plagued : 
 The future generations lie on us 
 As heavy as the nightmare of a seer ; 
 Our meat and drink grow painful prophecy : 
 I ask you, — have we leisure, if we liked, 
 To hollow out our weary hands to keep 
 Your intermittent rushlight of the past 
 From draughts in lobbies ? Prejudice of sex 
 And marriage-law . . the socket drops them through 
 While we two speak, — however may protest 
 Some over-delicate nostrils, like your own, 
 'Gainst odours thence arising.' 
 
 ' You are young,' 
 Sir Blaise objected. 
 
 ' If I am,' he said 
 With fire, — ' though somewhat less so than I set/n, 
 The young run on before, and see the thing 
 That's coming. Reverence for the young, I c^y. 
 In that new church for whicli the world's near ripe. 
 You'll have the younger in the Elder's chair, 
 Presiding with his ivory front of hope 
 O'er foreheads clarwed by cruel carrion- birds 
 Of life's experience.' 
 
 ' Pray your blessing, sir,' 
 Sir Blaise replied good-humouredly, — ' I plucked 
 A silver hair this morning from my beard, 
 Which lefl me your inferior. Would I were 
 Eighteen and worthy to admonish you ! 
 If young men of your order run before 
 To see such sights as sexual prejudice 
 
188 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 A.iid marriage-law dissolved, — in plainer words, 
 
 A general concubinage expressed 
 
 In a universal pruriency, — the thing 
 
 Is scarce worth running fast for, and you'd gain 
 
 By loitering with your elders.' 
 
 ' Ah,' he said, 
 ' Who, getting to the top of Pisgah-hill, 
 Can talk with one at bottom of the view, 
 To make it comprehensible 1 Why, Leigh 
 Himself, although our ablest man, I said, 
 Is scarce advanced to see as far as this. 
 Which some are : he takes up imperfectly 
 The social question — by one handle — leaves 
 The rest to trail. A Christian socialist, 
 Is Romney Leigh, you understand.' 
 
 ' Not r. 
 
 I disbelieve in Christian -pagans, much 
 
 As you in women-fishes. If we mix 
 
 Two colours, we lose both, and make a third 
 
 Distinct from either. Mark you ! to mistake 
 
 A coloar is the sign of a sick brain. 
 
 And mine, I thank the saints, is clear and cool : 
 
 A neutral tint is here impossible. 
 
 The church, — and by the church, I mean of course 
 
 The catholic, apostolic, mother-church, — 
 
 Draws lines as plain and straight as her own wall ; 
 
 Inside of which, are Christians, obviously. 
 
 And outside . . dogs.' 
 
 ' We thank you. Well I kno\» 
 The ancient mother-church would fain still bite, 
 For all her toothless gums, — as Leigh himself 
 Would fain be a Christian still, for all his wit ; 
 Pass that ; you two may settle it, Cov me. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 18ft 
 
 fou're slow iv. England. In a month I learnt 
 
 At Gottingen enough philosophy 
 
 To stock your English schools for fifty years ; 
 
 Pass that, too. Here alone, I stop you short, 
 
 — Supposing a true man like Leigh could stand 
 
 Unequal in the stature of his life 
 
 To the height of his opinions. Choose a wife 
 
 Because of a smooth skin ? — not he, not he ! 
 
 He'd rail at Venus' self for creaking shoes, 
 
 Unless she walked his way of righteousness : 
 
 And if he takes a Venus Meretrix, 
 
 (No imputation on the lady there) 
 
 Be sure that, by some sleight of Christian art, 
 
 He has metamorphosed and converted her 
 
 To a Blessed Virgin.' 
 
 'Soft !' Sir Blaise drew breath 
 As if it hurt him, — ' Soft ! no blasphemy, 
 I pray you !' 
 
 ' The first Christians did the thing ; 
 Why not the last V asked he of Gottingen, 
 With just that shade of sneering on the lip. 
 Compensates for the lagging of the beard, — 
 ' And so the case is. If that foirest fair 
 Is talked of as the future wife of Leigh, 
 She's talked of too, at least as certainly. 
 As Leigh's disciple. You may find her name 
 On all his missions and commissions, schools. 
 Asylums, hospitals, — he had her down, 
 With other ladies whom her starry lead 
 Persuaded from their spheres, to his country -placw 
 In Shropshire, to the famed phalanstery 
 At Leigh Hall, christianised from Fourier's own, 
 (In which he has planted out his sapling stocks 
 
190 AURORA LEIGU 
 
 Of knowledge into social ni.rseries) 
 
 And there, they say, she has tarried half a week, 
 
 And milked the cows, and churned, and pressed tJw 
 
 curd. 
 And said 'my sister' to the lowest drab 
 Of all the assembled Citstaways ; such girls ! 
 Ay, sided with them at the washing-tub — 
 Conceive, Sir Blaise, those naked perfect arms-. 
 Round glittering arms, plunged elbow-deep in suds, 
 Like wild swans hid in lilies all a-shake.' 
 
 Lord Howe came up. ' What, talking poetry 
 So near the image of the unfavouring Muse ? 
 That's you. Miss- Leigh : I've watched you half ao 
 
 hour. 
 Precisely as I watched the statue called 
 A Pallas in the Vatican ; — you mind 
 The face. Sir Blaise ? — intensely calm and sad. 
 As wisdom cut it off from fellowship, — 
 But that spoke louder. Not a woid from you I 
 And these two gentlemen were bold, I marked, . 
 And unabashed by even your silence.'* 
 
 'Ah,' 
 Said I, ' my dear Lord Howe, you shall not speak 
 To a printing woman who has lost her place, 
 (The sweet safe corner of the household fire 
 Behind the heads of children) compliments 
 As if she were a woman. We who have dipt 
 The curls before our eyes, may see at least 
 As plain as men do : speak out, man to man ; 
 No compliments, beseech you.' 
 
 ' Friend to friend, 
 [.et that he. We are sad to-night, J saw, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 191 
 
 (—Good night, Sir Blaise! Ah, Smith— he hw 
 slipped away) 
 
 I saw you across the room, and stayed, Miss Leigh, 
 
 To keep a crowd of lion-hmiters off. 
 
 With flices toward your jungle. There were three, 
 
 A spacious lady, five feet ten and fat, 
 
 Who has the devil in her (and there's room) 
 
 For walking to and fro upon the earth, 
 
 From Chipewa to China ; she requires 
 
 Your autograph upon a tinted leaf 
 
 Twixt Queen Pomare's and Emperor Soulouque'a; 
 Pray give it ; she has energies, though fat : 
 For me, I'd rather see a rick on fire 
 
 Than such a woman angry. Then a youth 
 
 Fresh from the backwoods, green as the uudcrboughs, 
 
 Asks modestly. Miss Leigh', to kiss your shoe, 
 
 And adds, he has an epic in twelve parts, 
 
 Which when you've read, you'll do it for his boot,— 
 
 All which 1 saved you, and absoi'b next week 
 
 Both manuscript and man, — because a lord 
 
 Is still more potent than a poetess 
 
 With any extreme republican. Ah, ah, 
 
 You smile at last, then.' 
 
 ' Thank you.' 
 
 * Leave th« smile. 
 I'll lose the thanks for't,— ay, and throw you in 
 My transatlantic girl, with golden eyes, 
 That draw you to her splendid whiteness as 
 The pistil of a water-lily draws. 
 Adust with gold. Those girls across the sea 
 Are tyrannously pretty,— and I swore 
 (She seemed to me an innocent, frank girl) 
 To bring her to you for a woman's kiss. 
 
192 AfJROKA LEIGH 
 
 Not now, but on some other day or week : 
 — We'll call it perjury ; I give her up.' 
 
 No, bring her.' 
 
 ' Now, said he, ' You make i ihard 
 To touch such goodness with a grimy palm. 
 I thought to tease you well, and fret you cross. 
 And steel myself, when rightly vexed with you. 
 For telling you a thing to tease you more.' 
 
 ^OfRomneyr 
 
 ' No, no ; nothing worse,' he cried, 
 
 * Of Romney Leigh than what is buzzed about, — 
 That he is taken in an eye-trap too. 
 
 Like many half as wise. The thing I mear^ 
 Refers to you, not him.' 
 
 ' Refers to me.' 
 He echoed, — ' Me ! You sound it like a stone 
 Dropped down a dry well very listlessly 
 By one who never thinks about the toad 
 Alive at the ^bottom. Presently perhaps 
 You'll sound your ' me' more proudly — till I shrink. 
 
 * Lord Howe's the toad, then, in this question 1' 
 
 ' Brief 
 We'll take it graver. Give me sofa-room. 
 And quiet hearing. You know Eglinton, 
 John Eglinton, of Eglinton in Kentf 
 
 * Is he the toad ? — he's rather like the snail ; 
 Known chiefly for the house upon his back : 
 Divide the man and house — you kill the man ; 
 That's Eglinton of Eglinton, Lord Howe.' 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 198 
 
 He answered grave. ' A reputable man, 
 
 An excellent landlord of the olden stamp, 
 
 If somewhat slack in new philanthropies ; 
 
 Who keeps his birthdays with a tenants' dance, 
 
 Is hard upon them when they miss the church 
 
 Or hold their children back from catechism, 
 
 But not ungentle when the aged poor 
 
 Pick sticks at hedge-sides ; nay, I've heard him say 
 
 ' The old dame has a twinge because she stoops : 
 
 ' That's punishment enough for felony.' ' 
 
 ' O tender-hearted landlord ! May I take 
 My long lease with him, when the time arrives 
 For gathering winter-faggots !' 
 
 ' He likes art, 
 Buy-s books and pictures . . of a certain kind ; 
 Neglects no patent duty ; a good son' . . . 
 
 ' To a most obedient mother. Born to wear 
 His father's shoes, he wears her husband's too : 
 Indeed, I've heard it's touching. Dear Lord Howe, 
 You shall not praise me so against your heart, 
 When I'm at worst for praise and faggots.' 
 
 *Be 
 Less bitter with me, for . . in short,' he said, 
 * I have a letter, which he urged me so 
 To bring you . . I could scarcely choose but y'eld j 
 Insisting that a new love passing through 
 The hand of an old friendship, caught from it 
 Some reconciling odour.' 
 
 ' Love, you say ] 
 My lord, I cannot love. I only find 
 The rhyme for love, — and that's not love, my lord, 
 
 ir H 
 
194 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Take ba/^k your letter.' 
 
 * Pause: you'll read it first T 
 
 * I will not read it : it is stereotyped ; 
 The same he wrote to, — anybody's name, 
 Anne Blythe the actress, when she died so true, 
 A duchess fainted in a private box : 
 Pauline the dancer, after the great pas 
 In which her little feet winked overhead 
 Like other fire-flies, and amazed the pit : 
 Or Baldinacci, when her F in alt 
 Had touched the silver tops of heaven itself 
 With such a pungent spirit-dart, the Queen • 
 Laid softly, each to each, her white-gloved palms, 
 And sighed for joy : or else (I thank your friend) 
 Aurora Leigh, — when some indiiferent rhymes. 
 Like those the boys sang round the holy ox 
 On Memphis-highway, chance perhaps to set 
 Our Apis-public lowing. Oh, he wants, 
 Instead of any worthy wife at home, 
 A star upon his stage of Eglinton ! 
 Advise him that he is not overshrewd 
 In being so little modest : a dropped star 
 Makes bitter waters, says a Book I've read, — 
 And there's his unread letter.' 
 
 * My dear friend,* 
 Lord Howe began . . 
 
 In haste I tore the phrase. 
 You mean your friend of Eglinton, or me V 
 
 I mean you, you,' he answered with some fire. 
 ' A happy life means prudent compromise j 
 
AUKOllA LEIGH. ipfi 
 
 The tan*, runs through the farmer's garnered sheaves •, 
 
 But though the gleaner's apron holds pure wheat, 
 
 We count her poorer. Tare with wheat, we cry, 
 
 And good with drawbacks. You, you love your art^ 
 
 And, certain of vocation, set your soul 
 
 On utterance. Only, . . in this world we have made, 
 
 (They say God made it first, but if lie did 
 
 'Twas so long since, . . and, since, we have spoiled it so, 
 
 He scarce would know it, if He looked this way. 
 
 From hells we preach of, with the flames blown out,) 
 
 In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world, 
 
 Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost, — 
 
 In this uneven, unfostering England here. 
 
 Where ledger-strokes and sword-strokes count indeed. 
 
 But soul-strokes merely tell upon the flesh 
 
 They strike from, — it is hard to stand for art. 
 
 Unless some golden tripod from the sea 
 
 Be fished up, by Apollo's divine chance, 
 
 To throne such feet as yours, my pi-ophetess. 
 
 At Delphi. Think, — the god comes down as fierce 
 
 As twenty bloodhoujids ! shakes you, strangles you, 
 
 Until the oracular shriek shall ooze in froth! 
 
 At best 't is not all ease, — at worst too hard : 
 
 A place to stand on is a 'vantage gained. 
 
 And here's your tripod. To be plain, dear friend, 
 
 You're poor, except in what you richly give ; 
 
 You labour for your own bread painfully. 
 
 Or ere you pour our wine. For art's sake, pause.' 
 
 I answered slow, — as some wayfaring man. 
 Who feels himself at night too far from home, 
 Makes stedfast face against the bitter wind.^ 
 Is art so less a thing than virue is, 
 
1»6 A U R R A L K 1 G H . 
 
 That artists first mi'st cater for their ease 
 
 Or ever they make issue past themselves 
 
 To generous use 1 alas, and is it so, 
 
 That we, who would be somewhat clean, must sweep 
 
 Our ways as well as walk them, and no friend 
 
 Confirm us nobly, — ' Leave results to God, 
 
 But you, be clean V What ! ' prudent compromise 
 
 Makes acceptable life,' you say instead. 
 
 You, you. Lord Howe ? — in things indifferent, well. 
 
 Fur instance, compromise the wheaten bread 
 
 For rye, the meat for lentils, silk for serge, 
 
 And sleep on dowTi, if needs, for sleep on straw ; ■ 
 
 But there, end compromise. I will not bate 
 
 One artist-dream on straw or down, my lord. 
 
 Nor pinch my liberal soul, though I be poor, 
 
 Nor cease to love high, though I live thus low.' 
 
 So speaking, with less anger in my voice 
 
 Than sorrow, 1 rose quickly to depart ; 
 
 While he, thrown back upon the noble shame 
 
 Of such high-stumbling natures, murmured words, " 
 
 The right words after wrong ones. Ah, the man 
 
 Is worthy, but so given to entertain 
 
 Impossible plans of superhuman life, — • 
 
 He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf. 
 
 To keep them at the grand millennial height, 
 
 He has to mount a stool to get at them ; 
 
 And meantime, lives on quite tlie common way, 
 
 With everybody's morals. 
 
 As we passed, 
 Lord Howe insisting that his friendly arm 
 Should oar me across the sparkling brawling stream 
 Which swept from room to room, we fell at once 
 
AURORA LEI u!Il. IM 
 
 On Lady Waldemar. ' Miss Leigh,' she said, 
 A.nd gave me such a smile, so cold and bright, 
 As if she tried it in a 'tiring glass 
 And liked it ; * all to-night I've strained at you, 
 As babes at baubles held up out of reach 
 By spiteful nurses, (' Never snatch,' they say,) 
 And there you sate, most perfectly shut in 
 By good Sir Blaise and clever Mister Smith, 
 And then our dear Lord Howe ! at last indeed 
 ] almost snaitched. I have a world to speak 
 About your cousin's place in Shropshire, where 
 I've been to see his work . . our work, — you heard 
 I went ? . . and of a letter yesterday. 
 In which, if 1 should read a page or two. 
 You might feel interest, though you're locked of course 
 In literary toil. — You'll like to hear 
 Your last book lies at the phalanstery. 
 As judged innocuous for the elder girls 
 And younger women who still care for books. 
 We all must read, you see, before we live : 
 But slowly the ineffable light comes up. 
 And, as it deepens, drowns the written word, — 
 So said your cousin, while we stood and felt 
 A sunset from his favourite beech-tree seat : 
 lie might have been a poet if he would. 
 But then he saw tho higher thing at once 
 And climbed to it. I think he looks well now, 
 lias quite got over that unfortunate . . 
 Ah, ah . . I know it moved you. Tender-heart ! 
 You took a liking to the wretched girl. 
 Perhaps you thought the marriage suitable, 
 Who knows ? a poet hankers for romance, 
 And so on. As for I^omney Licigh, 'tis sure 
 :7? 
 
198 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 He never loved her, — never. By the way, 
 
 You have not heard of her . . % quite out of sigh^ 
 
 And out of saving 1 lost in every sense V 
 
 She might have gone on talking half an-hour, 
 And I stood still, and cold, and pale, I think, 
 As a garden-statue a child pelts with snow 
 For pretty pastime. Every now and then 
 I put in ' yes' or ' no,' I scarce knew why ; 
 The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls. 
 And so I answered. Till Lord Howe broke in; 
 * What penance takes the wretch who interrupts 
 
 Ana loyally I've promised she shall say 
 
 Nor harder word this evening, than . . goodnight , 
 
 The rest her face speaks for her.' — Then we went. 
 
 And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak. 
 Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties 
 My hair . . now could I but unloose my soul ! 
 We are sepulchred alive in this close world, 
 And want more room. 
 
 The charming woman there—* 
 Till 3 reckoning up and writing down her talk 
 Affects me singularly. How she talked 
 To pain me ! woman's spite ! — You wear steel-mail ; 
 A woman takes a housewife from her breast, 
 And plueks the delicatest needle out 
 As 'twere a rose, and pricks you carefully 
 Neath nails, 'neath eyelids, in your nostrils, — say, 
 A beast would roar so tortured, — but a man, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. i99 
 
 A human creature, must not, shall not flinch, 
 No, not for shame. 
 
 What vexes after all, 
 Is just that such as she, with such as I, 
 Knows how to vex. Sweet heaven, she takes me up 
 As if she had fingered me and dog-eared me 
 And spelled me by the fireside half a life ! 
 She knows my turns, my feeble points. — What thou 1 
 The knowledge of a thing implies the thing ; 
 Of course, she found ikat in me, she saw thai, 
 Her pencil underscored this for a fault. 
 And 1, still ignorant. Shut the book up — close ! 
 And crush that beetle in the leaves. 
 
 O heart. 
 At last we shall grow hard too, like the rest, 
 And call it self defence because we are soft. 
 
 And after all, now, . . why should I be pained 
 That Romney Leigh, my cousin, should espouse 
 This Lady Waldemar ? And, say, she held 
 Her newly-blossomed gladness in my fae-e, . . 
 'Twas natural surely, if not generous. 
 Considering how, when winter held her fast, 
 1 helped the frost with mine, and pained her more 
 Than she pains me. Pains me ! — but wherefore 
 
 pained 1 
 Tis clear my cousin Romney wants a wife, — 
 So, good! — The man's need of the woman, here, 
 Is greater than the woman's of the man. 
 And easier served ; for where the man discerns 
 A sex, (ah, ah, the man can generalise. 
 Said he) we see but one, ideally 
 And really : where we yearn to lose ourselves 
 
800 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 And melt like white pearls in another's wine, 
 
 He seeks to double himself by what he loves, 
 
 And make his drink more costly by our pearls. 
 
 At board, at bed, at work and holiday, 
 
 It is not good for man to be alone. 
 
 And that's his way of thinking, first and last j 
 
 And thus my cousin Romnoy wants a wife. 
 
 But then my cousin sets his dignity 
 
 On personal virtue. If he understands 
 
 By love, like others, self-aggrandisement. 
 
 It is that he may verily be great 
 
 By doing rightly and kindly. Once he thought. 
 
 For charitable ends set duly forth 
 
 In heaven's white judgment-book, to marry . . ah, 
 
 We'll call her name Aurora Leigh, although 
 
 She's changed since then ! — and once, for social ends 
 
 Poor Marian Erie, my sister Marian Erie, 
 
 My woodland sister, sweet Maid Marian, 
 
 Whose memory moans on in me like the wind 
 
 Through Ul-shut casements, making me more sad 
 
 Than ever I find reasons for. Alas, 
 
 Poor pretty plaintive face, embodied ghost. 
 
 He finds it easy then, to clap thee ofi* 
 
 From pulling at his sleeve and book and pen, — 
 
 He locks thee out at night into the cold. 
 
 Away from butting with thy horny eyes 
 
 Against his crystal dreams, — that now he's strong 
 
 To love anew 1 that Lady Waldemar 
 
 Succeeds my Marian 1 
 
 After all, why net 1 
 He loved not Marian, more than once he loved 
 Aurora. If he loves at last that Third, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 201 
 
 A-lbeit she prove as slippery as spilt oil 
 
 On marble floors, I will not augur him 
 
 111 luck for that. Good love, howe'er ill-placed. 
 
 Is better for a man's soul in the end. 
 
 Than if he loved ill what deserves love well. 
 
 A pagan, kissing for a step of Pan 
 
 The wild-goat's hoof-print on the loamy down, 
 
 Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back 
 
 The strata . . granite, limestone, coal, and clay, 
 
 Concluding coldly with, ' Here's law ! Where's God?, 
 
 And then at worse, — if Romney loves her not, — 
 
 At worst, — if he's incapable of love, 
 
 Which may be — then indeed, for such a man 
 
 Incapable of love, she's good enough ; 
 
 For she, at worst too, is a woman still 
 
 And loves him . . as the sort of woman can. 
 
 My loose long hair began to burn and creep, 
 
 Alive to the very ends, about my knees : 
 
 I swept it backward as the wind sweeps flame. 
 
 With the passion of my hands. Ah, Romney laughed 
 
 One day. . (how full the memories come up !) 
 
 ' — Your Florence fire-flies live on in your hair,' 
 
 He said, ' it gleams so.' Well, I wrung them out, 
 
 My fire-flies ; made a knot as hard as life 
 
 Of those loose, soft, impracticable curls. 
 
 And then sat down and thought . . ' She shall not think 
 
 Her thoughts of me,' — and drew my desk and wrote. 
 
 * Dear Lady Waldemar, I could not speak 
 With people round me, nor can sleep to-night 
 A.nd not speak, after the great news I heard 
 Of you and of my cousin. May you be 
 
202 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Most happ3' ; and the good he meant the world. 
 Replenish his own life. Say what I say, 
 And let my word be sweeter for your mouth, 
 As you are you . . I only Aurora Leigh.' 
 
 That's quiet, guarded. Though she hold it up 
 Against the light, she'll not see through it more 
 Than lies there to be seen. So much for pride ; 
 And now for peace, a little ! Let me stop 
 All writing back . . 'Sweet thanks, my sweeteal 
 
 friend, 
 ' You've made more joyful my great joy itself.' 
 — ^No, that's too simple ! she would twist it thus, 
 ' My joy would still be as sweet as thyme in drawers 
 However shut up in the dark and dry ; 
 But violets, aired and dewed by love like yours. 
 Out-smell all thyme : we keep that in our clothes, 
 But drop the other down our bosoms till 
 They smell like' . . ah, I see her writing back 
 Just so. She'll make a nosegay of her words. 
 And tie it with blue ribbons at the end 
 To suit a poet ; — pshaw ! 
 
 And then we'll have 
 The call to church ; the broken, sad, bad dream 
 Dreamed out at last ; the marriage- vow complete 
 With the marriage-breakfast ; praying in whiti 
 
 gloves, 
 Drawn off in haste for drinking pagan toasts 
 li somewhat stronger wine than any sipped 
 By gods since Bacchus had his way with grapes. 
 
 A postscript stops all that and rescues me. 
 
 ' You need not write. I have been overworked. 
 
aUEOUA LEIGH. Ut 
 
 And think of leaving London, England even, 
 And hastening to get nearer to the sun 
 Where men sleep better. So, adieu.' — I fold 
 
 And seal, and now I'm out of all the coil ; 
 
 I breathe now ; I spring upward like a branch 
 
 A ten-years school-boy with a crooked stick 
 
 May pull down to his level in search of nuts, 
 
 But camiot hold a moment. How we twang 
 
 Back on the blue sky, and assert our height, 
 
 While he stares after ! Now, the wonder seems 
 
 That 1 could wrong myself by such a doubt. 
 
 We poets always have uneasy hearts ; 
 
 Because our hearts, large-rounded as the globe, 
 
 Can turn but one side to the sun at once. 
 
 We are used to dip our artist-hands in gall 
 
 And potash, trying potentialities 
 
 Of alternated colour, till at last 
 
 We get confused, and wonder for our skin 
 
 How nature tinged it first. Well — here's the true 
 
 Good flesh-colour ; I recognise my hand, 
 
 Which Romney Leigh may clasp as just a friend's, 
 
 And keep his clean. 
 
 And now, my Italy. 
 Alas, if we could ride with naked souls 
 And make no noise and pay no price at all. 
 1 would have seen thee sooner, Italy, — 
 For still I have heard thee crying through my life, 
 Thou piercing silence of ecstatic graves. 
 Men call that name ! 
 
 But even a witch to-day 
 Must melt down golden pieces in the nard 
 Wherewith to anoint her broomstick ere she rides j 
 
204 AURORA LEIGU. 
 
 And poets evermore are scant of gold, 
 
 And if they find a piece behind the door 
 
 It turns by sunset to a withered leaf. 
 
 The Devil himself scarce trusts his patented 
 
 Gold-making art to any who make rhymes, 
 
 But culls his Faustus from philosophers 
 
 And not from poets. * Leave my Job,' said God ■ 
 
 And so the Devil leaves him without pence. 
 
 And poverty proves plainly special grace. 
 
 In these new, just, administrative times 
 
 Men clamour for an order of merit. Why ? 
 
 Here's black bread on the table, and no wine ! 
 
 At least I am a poet in being poor ; 
 
 Thank God. I wonder if the manuscript 
 
 Of my long poem, if 'twere sold outright, 
 
 Would fetch enough to buy me shoes, to go 
 
 A-foot, (thrown in, the necessary patch 
 
 For the other side the Alps) ? it cannot be : 
 
 I fear that I must sell this residue 
 
 Of my father's books ; although the Elzevirs 
 
 Have fly-leaves over-written by his hand 
 
 In faded notes as thick and fine and brown 
 
 As cobwebs on a tawny monument 
 
 Of the Old Greeks — conferenda hocc cum hia-*^ 
 
 Corrupte citat — lege potius, 
 
 And so on, in the scholar's regal way 
 
 Of giving judgment on the parts of speech. 
 
 As if he sate on all twelve thrones up-piled, 
 
 Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes 
 
 Must go together. And this Proclus too 
 
 In these dear quaint contracted Grecian types, 
 
 Fantastically crumpled, like his thoughts 
 
 Which would not seem too plain; you go round twice 
 
AURORA LEIGH 20A 
 
 For one siep forward, then you take it back 
 
 Because you're somewhat giddy ; there's the rule 
 
 For Proclus. Ah, I stained this middle leaf 
 
 With pressing in't my Florence iris-beil, 
 
 Long stalk and all ; my father chided me 
 
 For that stain of blue blc^d, — I recollect 
 
 The peevish turn his voice took, — ' Silly girls, 
 
 Who plant their flowers in our philosophy 
 
 To make it fine, and only spoil the book ! 
 
 No more of it, Aurora.' Yes — no more ! 
 
 Ah, blame of love, that's sweeter than all praise 
 
 Of those who love not ! 'tis so lost to me, 
 
 I cannot, in such beggared life, afford 
 
 To lose my Proclus. Not for Florence even. 
 
 The kissing Judas, Wolff*, shall go instead. 
 Who builds us such a royal book as this 
 To honour a chief-poet, folio-built, 
 And writes above, ' The house of Nobody :' 
 Who floats in cream, as rich as any sucked 
 From Juno's breasts, the broad Homeric linei) 
 And, while with their spondaic prodigious moutfw 
 They lap the lucent margins as babe-gods, 
 Proclaims them bastards. Wolff" 's an atheist ; 
 And if the Iliad fell out, as he says. 
 By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs, 
 Conclude as much too for the universe 
 
 That Wolff", those Platos : sweep the upper shelvea 
 As clean as this, and so I am almost rich, 
 Which means, not forced to think of being poor 
 In sight of ends. To-morrow : no delay, 
 I'll wait in Paris till good Carrington 
 18 
 
206 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Dispose of such, and, having chaffered for 
 My book's price with the publisher, direct 
 All proceeds to me. Just a line to ask 
 His help. 
 
 And now I come, my Italy, 
 My own hills ! Are you 'ware of me, my hills, 
 How I burn toward you 1 So you feel to-night 
 The urgency and yearning of my soul. 
 As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe 
 And smile ? — Nay, not so much as when in heat 
 Vain lightnings catch at your inviolate tops 
 And tremble while ye are stedfast. Still, ye go 
 Your own determined, calm, indifferent w-ay 
 Toward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by light 
 Of all the grand progression nought left out ; 
 As if God verily made you for yourselves, 
 And would not interrupt your life with ours. 
 
SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 T^HE English have a scornful insular way 
 Of calling the French light. The levity- 
 Is in the judgment only, which yet stands ; 
 For say a foolish thing but oft enough 
 (And here's the secret of a hundred creeds, 
 Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, 
 By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing 
 Shall pass at last for absolutely wise, 
 And not with fools exclusively. And so 
 We say the French are light, as if we said 
 The cat mew's or the milch-cow gives us milk : 
 Say rather, cats are milked and milch-cows mew ; 
 For what is lightness but inconsequence, 
 V^ague fluctuation 'twixt eflTect and cause, 
 Compelled by neither 1 Is a bullet light. 
 That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye 
 Winks and the heart beats one, to flatten itself 
 To a wafer on the white speck on a wall 
 A hundred paces ofl''? Even so direct, 
 So sternly undivertible of aim, 
 Is this French people. 
 
 All idealists 
 Too absolute and earnest, with them ali 
 The idea of a knife cuts real flesh ; 
 
908 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 And still, devouring the safe interval 
 
 Which Nature placed between the thought and act 
 
 With those too fiery and impatient souls, 
 
 They threaten conflagration to the world 
 
 And rush with most unscrupulous logic on 
 
 Impossible practice. Set your orators 
 
 To blow upon them with loud windy mouths 
 
 Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment, 
 
 Which drive our burley brutal English mobs 
 
 Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow, — 
 
 This light French people will not thus be driven 
 
 They turn indeed ; but then they turn upon 
 
 Some central pivot of their thought and choice, 
 
 And veer out by the force of holding fast. 
 
 — That's hard to understand, for Englishmen 
 
 Unused to abstract questions, and untrained 
 
 To trace the involutions, valve by valve, 
 
 In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth, 
 
 And mark what subtly fine integument 
 
 Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self 
 
 Comes concrete to us, to be understood. 
 
 Fixed in a feudal form incarnately 
 
 To suit our ways of thought and reverence, 
 
 The special form, with us, being still the thing. 
 
 With us, I say, though I'm of Italy 
 
 By mother's birth and grave, by father's grave 
 
 And memory ; let it be, — a poet's heart 
 
 < ^an swell to a pair of nationalities, 
 
 However ill-lodged in a woman's breast. 
 
 And so I am strong to love this nobie Frarce, 
 
 This poet of the nations, who dreams on 
 
 And wails on (while the household goes to wrecf/. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. Ju» 
 
 For ever, after some ideal good, — 
 
 Some equal poise of sex, some unvowed love 
 
 Inviolate, some spontaneous bi^otherhood. 
 
 Some wealth, that leaves none poor and finds none 
 
 tired, 
 Some freedom of the many, that respects 
 The wisdom of the few. Heroic dreams ! 
 Sublime, to dream so ; natural, to wake : 
 And sad, to use such lofty scaffoldings. 
 Erected for the building of a church. 
 To build instead a brothel . . or a prison — 
 May God save France ! 
 
 And if at last she sighs 
 Her great soul up into a great man's face. 
 To flush his temples out s'o gloriously 
 That few dare carp at Caesar for being bald, 
 What then 1 — this Csesar represents, not reigns, 
 And is no despot, though twice absolute : 
 This Head has all the people for a heart ; 
 This purple's lined with the democracy, — 
 Now let him see_to it ! for a rent within 
 Must leave irreparable rags without. 
 
 A serious riddle ; find such anywhere 
 Except in France ; and when 't is found in France, 
 Be sure to read it rightly. So, 1 mused 
 Up and down, up and down, the terraced streets. 
 The glittering Boulevards, the white colonades 
 Of lair fantastic Paris who wears trees 
 Like plumes, as if man made them, spire and tower 
 As if they had grown by nature, tossing up 
 Her fountains in the sunshine of the squares, 
 As if in beauty's game she tossed the dice, 
 Orblew the silver down-balls of her dreams 
 18* o 
 
210 AUilORA LEIGH. . 
 
 To sow futurity with the seeds of thought 
 And count the passage of her festive hours. 
 
 The city swims in verdure, beautiful 
 
 As Venice on the waters, the sesrswan. 
 
 What bosky gardens dropped in close- walled court* 
 
 As plums in ladies' laps, who start and laugh : 
 
 What miles of streets that run on after trees. 
 
 Still carrying all the necessary shops, 
 
 Those open caskets with the jewels seen ! 
 
 And trade is art, and art's philosophy, 
 
 hi Paris. Tliere's a silk, for instance, there. 
 
 As worth an artist's study for the folds, 
 
 As that bronze opposite ! nay, the bronze has faults 
 
 Art's here too artful, — conscious as a maid 
 
 Who leans to mark her shadow^ oil the wall 
 
 Until she lose a 'vantage in her step. 
 
 Yet Art walks forward, and knows where to walk : 
 
 The artists also are idealists. 
 
 Too absolute for nature, logical 
 
 To austerity in the applicsition of 
 
 The special theory : not a soul content 
 
 To paint a crooked pollard and an ass, 
 
 As the English will, because they find it so 
 
 And like it somehow. — There the old Tuileries 
 
 Is pulling its high cap dowui on its eyes. 
 
 Confounded, conscience-stricken, and amazed 
 
 By the apparition of a new fair face 
 
 hi those devouring mirrors. Through the grato 
 
 Within the gardens, what a heap of babes. 
 
 Swept up like leaves beneath the chesnut-trees 
 
 From every street and alley of the town, 
 
 J Jy ghosts perhaps tliat blow too bleak this way 
 
A-URORA LEIGH. 21J 
 
 A.-lookiiig for their heads ! Dear pretty babes, 
 1 wish them luck to have their ball-play out 
 Before the next change. Here the air is thronged 
 With statues poised upon their columns fine, 
 As if to stand a moment were a feat, 
 Against that blue ! What squares ! what breathing- 
 room 
 For a nation that runs fast, — ay, runs against 
 The dentist's teeth at the corner in pale rows, 
 Which grin at progress in an epigram. 
 
 1 walked the day out, listening to the chink 
 
 Of the first Napoleon's dry bones in his second grave 
 
 By victories guarded 'neath the golden dome 
 
 That caps all Paris like a'biibble. * Shall 
 
 These dry bones live,' thought Louis Philippe once, 
 
 And lived to know. Herein is argument 
 
 For kings and politicians, but still more 
 
 For poets, who bear buckets to the well 
 
 Of ampler draught. 
 
 These crowds are very good 
 For meditation, (when we are very strong) 
 Though love of beauty makes us timorous. 
 And draws us backward from the coarse town-sighti 
 To count the daisies upon dappled fields, 
 And hear the streams bleat on among the hills 
 In innocent and indolent repose ; 
 While still with silken elegiac thoughts 
 We wind out from us the distracting world 
 And die into the chrysalis of a man. 
 And leave the best that may, to come of us 
 In some brown moth. I would be bold and beai 
 To look into the swarthiest face of things, 
 
212 AURORA LEIGH, 
 
 f'or (Trofl'a sake who has made them. 
 
 Six days' work ; 
 
 Tlie last day shutting 'twixt its dawn and eve, 
 The whole work bettered of the previous five [ 
 Since God collected and resumed in man 
 The firmaments, the strata, and the lights, 
 Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect, — all their trains 
 Of various life caught back upon His arm, 
 Reorganised, and constituted man. 
 The microcosm, the adding up of works ; 
 Within whose fluttermg nostrils, then, at last 
 Consummating Himself the Maker sighed, 
 As some strong winner at the foot race sighs 
 Touching the goal. 
 
 Humanity is great ; 
 And, if I would not rather pore upon 
 An ounce of common, ugly, human dust, 
 An artisan's palm or a peasant's brow, 
 Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God, 
 Than track old Nilus to his silver roots. 
 And wait on all the changes of the moon 
 Among the mountain-peaks of Thessaly, 
 (Until her magic crystal round itself 
 For many a witch to see in) — set it down 
 As weakness, — strength by no means. How Is thii 
 That men of science, osteologists 
 And surgeons, beat some poets in respect 
 For nature, — count nought common or unclean, 
 Spend raptures upon perfect specimens 
 Of indurated veins, distorted joints. 
 Or beautiful new cases of curved spine ; 
 WhiJft we, we are shocked at nature's falling ofl^ 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 218 
 
 We dare to shrink back from hir warts and blains, 
 
 We will not, when she sneezes, look at her. 
 
 Not even to say * God bless her' ? That's our wrong ^ 
 
 For that, she will not trust us often with 
 
 Her larger sense of beauty and desire, 
 
 But tethers us to a lily or a rose 
 
 And bids us diet on the dew inside, 
 
 Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy 
 
 (Who stares unseen against our absent eyes, 
 
 And wonders at the gods that we must be. 
 
 To pass so careless for the oranges !) 
 
 Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world 
 
 To this world, undisparaged, undespoiled, 
 
 And (while we scorn him for a flower or two, 
 
 As being, Heaven help us, less poetical) 
 
 Contains himself both flowers and firmaments 
 
 And surging seas and aspectable stars 
 
 And all that we would push him out of sight 
 
 In order to see nearer. Let us pray 
 
 God's grace to keep God's image in repute ; 
 
 That so, the poet and philanthropist 
 
 (Even I and Romney) may stand side by side, 
 
 Because we both stand face to face with men 
 
 Contemplating the people in the rough, 
 
 Yet each so follow a vocation, — his 
 
 And mine. 
 
 I walked on, musing with myself 
 On life and art, and whether after all 
 A larger metaphysics might not help 
 Our physics, a completer poetry 
 Adjust our daily life and vulgar wants 
 More fully than the special outside plana, 
 Phalansteries, material institutes, 
 
214 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The civil conscriptions and lay monasteries 
 
 Preferred by modern thinkers, as they thought 
 
 The bread of man indeed made all his life, 
 
 And washing seven times in the ' People's Baths' 
 
 Were sovereign for a people's leprosy, 
 
 Still leaving out the essential prophet's word 
 
 That comes in power. On which, we thunder down 
 
 We prophets, poets, — Virtue's in the word ! 
 
 The maker burnt the darkness up with His, 
 
 To inaugurate the use of vocal life; 
 
 And, plant a poet's word even, deep enough 
 
 In any man's breast, looking presently 
 
 For offshoots, you have done more for the man 
 
 Than if you dressed him in a broad-cloth coat 
 
 And warmed his Sunday potage at your fire. 
 
 Yet Ronmey leaves me . . . 
 
 God ! what face is that 1 
 O Romney, O Marian ! 
 
 Walking on the quays 
 And pulling thoughts to pieces leisurely, 
 As if I caught at grasses in a field 
 And bit them slow between my absent lips. 
 And shred them with my hands . . 
 
 What face is thatt 
 What a face, what a look, what a likeness ! Full on mine 
 ITie sudden blow of it came down, till all 
 My blood swam, my eyes dazzled. Then J sprang— 
 
 It was as if a meditative man 
 Were dreaming out a summer afternoon 
 And watching gnats a-prick upon a pond, 
 When something floats up suddenly, out there, 
 Turns over . . a dead face, known once aUve — 
 
AURORA LEIGH. tlM 
 
 So old, so new ! It would be dreadful now 
 To lose the sight and keep the doubt of this. 
 He plunges — ha ! he has lost it in the splash. 
 
 I plunged — I tore the crowd up, either side, 
 And rushed on, — forward, forward . . after her. 
 Tier? whom? 
 
 A woman sauntered slow in front, 
 Munching an apple, — she left off amazed 
 As if I had snatched it : that's not she, at least. 
 A man walked arm-linked with a lady veiled, 
 Both heads dropped closer than the need of talk : 
 They started ; he forgot her with his face. 
 And she, herself, — and clung to him as if 
 My look were fatal. Such- a stream of folk, 
 And all with cares and business of their own ! 
 I ran the whole quay down against their eyes ; 
 No Marian ; nowhere Marian. Almost, now, 
 I could call Marian, Marian, with the shriek 
 Of desperate creatures calling for the Dead. 
 Where is she, was she ? was she anywhere ? 
 I stood still, breathless, gazing, straining out 
 In every uncertain distance, till at last, 
 A gentleman abstracted as myself 
 Came full against me, then resolved the clash 
 In voluble excuses, — obviously 
 Some learned member of the Institute 
 Upon his way there, walking, for his health, 
 While meditating on the last ' Discourse ;' 
 Pinching the empty air 'twixt finger and thumb, 
 From which the snuff being ousted by that shock, 
 Defiled his snow-white waistcoat duly pricked 
 At the button-hole with honourable red ; 
 
216 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 * Madame, your pardon,'— there he swerved from mt 
 
 A metre, as confounded as he had heard 
 
 That Dumas would be chosen to fill up 
 
 The next chair vacant, by his ' men in W5,* 
 
 Since when was genius found respectable ? 
 
 It passes in its place, indeed, — which means 
 
 The seventh floor back, or else the hospital : 
 
 Revolving pistols are ingenious things. 
 
 But prudent men (Academicians are) 
 
 Scarce keep them in the cupboard next the prunefib 
 
 And so, abandoned to a bitter mirth, - 
 
 I loitered to my inn. O world, O w^orld, 
 
 O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, 
 
 We play a weary game of hide and seek ! 
 
 We shape a figure of our fantasy, 
 
 Call nothing something, and run after it 
 
 And lose it, lose ourselves too in the search. 
 
 Till clash against us, comes a somebody 
 
 Who also has lost something and is lost. 
 
 Philosopher against philanthropist. 
 
 Academician against poet, man 
 
 Against woman, against the living the dead, — 
 
 Then home, with a bad ieadache and worse jest ! 
 
 To change the water for my heliotropes 
 And yellow roses. Paris has such flowers. 
 But England, also. 'Twas a yellow^ rose, 
 By that south window of the little house, 
 My cousin Romney gathered with his hand 
 On all my birthdays for me, save the last ; 
 And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, 
 For roses to stay after. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. Ml 
 
 Now, my maps. 
 I must not linger here from Italy- 
 Till the last nightingale is tired of song, 
 And the last fire-fly dies off in the maize. 
 My soul's in haste to leap into the sun 
 And scorch and seethe itself to a finer mood, 
 Which here, in this chill north, is apt to stand 
 Too stiflly in former moulds. 
 
 That face persist*, 
 It floats up, it turns over in my mind. 
 As like to Marian, as one dead is like 
 The same alive. In very deed a face 
 And not a fancy, though it vanished so ; 
 The small fair face between the darks of hair, 
 I used to liken, when I saw her first, 
 To a point of moonlit water down a well : 
 The low brow, the frank space between the eyes 
 Which always had the brown pathetic look 
 Of a dumb creature who had been beaten once 
 And never since was easy with the world. 
 Ah, ah — now I remember perfectly 
 Those eyes to-day, — how overlarge they seemed. 
 As if some patient passionate despair 
 (Liiiie a coal dropt and forgot on tapestry, 
 Which slowly burns a widenmg circle out) 
 Had burnt them larger, larger. And those eye* 
 To-day, I do remember, saw me too. 
 As I saw them, with conscious lids astrain 
 In recognition. Now a fantasy, 
 A simple shade or image of the brain, 
 Is merely passive, does not retro-act. 
 Is seen, but sees not. 
 
 'Twas a real face, 
 19 
 
218 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Perhaps a real Marian. 
 
 Which being so, 
 I ought to write to Romney, ' Marian's here. 
 Be comforted for Marian.' 
 
 My pen fell, 
 My hands struck sharp together, as hands do 
 Which hold at nothing. Can I write to him 
 A half truth % can I keep my own soul blind 
 To the other half, . . the worse 1 What are our soulii 
 i? still, to run on straight a sober pace 
 Nor start at every pebble or dead leaf. 
 They must wear blinkers, ignore facts, suppress 
 Six tenths of the road % Confront the truth, my soul * 
 And oh, as truly as that was Marian's face. 
 The arms of that same Marian clasped a thing 
 . . Not hid so well beneath the scanty shawl, 
 I cannot name it now for what it was. 
 
 A child. Small business has a cast-aw^a}' 
 
 Like Marian with that crown of prosperous wives, 
 
 At which the gentlest she grows arrogant 
 
 And says, ' my child.' Who'll find an emerald ring 
 
 On a beggar's middle finger, and require 
 
 More testimony to convict a thief? 
 
 A child's too costly for so mere a wretch ; 
 
 She filched it somewhere ; and it means, with her, 
 
 Instead of honour, blessing, . . merely shame. 
 
 I cannot write to Romney, ' Here she is. 
 
 Here's Marian found ! I'll set you on her track : 
 
 I saw her here, in Paris, . . and her child. 
 
 She put away your love two years ago. 
 
 But, plainly, not to starve. You suffered then ; 
 
 And, now that you've forgot her utterly 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 219 
 
 As any last year's annual in whose place 
 You've planted a thick flowering evergnien, 
 I cnoose, being kind, to write and tell you this 
 To make you wholly easy — she's not dead, 
 But only . . damned.' 
 
 Stop there : I go too fast , 
 I'm cruel like the rest, — in haste to take 
 The first stir in the arras for a rat, 
 And set my barking, biting thoughts upon't. 
 — A child ! what then ? Suppose a neighbour's sick 
 And asked her, ' Marian, carry out my child 
 In this Spring air,' — I punish her for that ? 
 Or say, the child should hold her round the neck 
 For good child-reasons, that he liked it so 
 And would not leave her — she had winning ways — 
 I brand her therefore that she took the child ? 
 Not so. 
 
 I will not write to Romney Leigh. 
 For now he's happy, — and she may indeed 
 Be guilty, — and the knowledge of her fault 
 Would draggle his smooth time. But I, whose days 
 Are not so fine they cannot bear the rain, 
 And who moreover having seen her face 
 Must see it again, . . will see it, by my hopes 
 Of one day seeing heaven too. The police 
 Shall track her, hound her, ferret their owa soil \ 
 We'll dig this Paris to its catacombs 
 But certainly we'll find her, have her out. 
 And save her, if she will or will not — child 
 Or no child, — if a child, then one to save ! 
 
 The long weeks passed on without consequence. 
 As easy find a footstep on the sand 
 
220 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The morning after spring-tide, as the trace 
 
 Of Marian's feet between the incessant surfs 
 
 Of this live flood. She may have moved this way,- 
 
 But so the star-fish does, and crosses out 
 
 The dent of her small shoe. The foiled police 
 
 Renounced me; ' Could they find a girl and child, 
 
 No other signalment but girl and child ? 
 
 No data shown but noticeable eyes 
 
 And hair in masses, low upon the brow. 
 
 As if it were an iron crown and pressed 1 
 
 Friends heighten, and suppose they, specify : 
 
 Why, girls with hair and eyes, are everywhere 
 
 In Paris ; they had turned me up in vain 
 
 No Marian Erie indeed, but certainly 
 
 Mathildes, Justines, Victoires, . . or, if I sought 
 
 The English, Betsis, Saras, by the score. 
 
 They might as well go out into the fields 
 
 To find a speckled bean, that's somehow specked, 
 
 And somewhere in the pod.' — They left me so. 
 
 Shall / leave Marian 1 have I dreamed a dream ?• 
 
 — I thank God I have found her ! I must say 
 
 * Thank God,' for finding her, although 'tis true 
 
 I find the world more sad and wicked for't. 
 
 But she — 
 
 I'll write about her, presently ; 
 My hand's a-tremble as I had just caught up 
 My heart to write with, in the place of it. 
 At least you'd take these letters to be writ 
 At sea, in storm ! — wait now . . 
 
 A simple chance 
 Did all. I could not sleep last night, and tired 
 Of turning on my pillow and harder thoughts, 
 Went out at early morning, when the air 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 2%\ 
 
 Is delicate with some last starry touch, 
 
 To wander through the Market-place of Flowert 
 
 (The prettiest haunt ih Paris), and make sure 
 
 At worst that there were roses in the world. 
 
 So wandering, musing with the artist's eye, 
 
 That keeps the shade-side of the thing it loves^ 
 
 Half-absent, whole-observing, while the crowd 
 
 Of young vivacious and black-braided heads 
 
 Dipped, quick as finches in a«blossoraed tree. 
 
 Among the nosegays, cheapening this and that 
 
 In such a cheerful twitter of rapid speech, — 
 
 My heart leapt in me, startled by a voice 
 
 That slowly, faintly, with long breaths that marked 
 
 The interval between the wish and word. 
 
 Inquired in stranger's French, ' Would that be much, 
 
 Tliat branch of flowering mountain-gorse ]' — 'So 
 
 much 1 
 Too much for me then !' turning the face round 
 So close upon me, that I felt the sigh 
 It turned with. 
 
 ' Marian, Marian !' — face to face-—' 
 
 * Marian ! I find you. Shall I let you go V 
 
 I held her two slight wrists with both my 'hands ; 
 
 * Ah Marian, Marian, can I let you go V 
 —She fluttered from me like a cyclamen, 
 As white, which taken in a sudden wind 
 Beats on against the palisade. — ' Let pass,' 
 She said at last. ' I will not,' I replied ; 
 
 * I lost my sister Marian many days. 
 
 And sought her ever in my walks and prayers. 
 And, now I find her ... do we throw away 
 The bread we worked and prayed for, — crumble it 
 And drop it, . . to do even so by thee 
 19* 
 
222 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Whom still I've hungered after more than bread, 
 My sister Marian ? — can I hurt thee, dear ? 
 Then why distrust me 1 Never tremble so. 
 Come with me rather where we'll talk and live 
 And none shall vex us. I've a home for you 
 And me and no one else' . . , 
 
 She shook her head. 
 * A home for you and me and no one else 
 Ill-suits one of us : L prefer to such, 
 A roof of grass on which a flower might spring, 
 Less costly to me than the cheapest here ; 
 And yet I could not, at this hour, afford 
 A like home even. That you offer yours, 
 I thank you. You are good as heaven itself— 
 As good as one I knew before . . Farewell.' 
 I loosed her hands. — ' In his name, no farewell !' 
 (She stood as if I held her.) ' for his sake, 
 For his sake, Romney's ! by the good he meant, 
 Ay, always ! by the love he pressed for once,— 
 And by the grief, reproach, abandonment, 
 Ele took in change' . . 
 
 * He, Romney ! who grieved him f 
 Who had the heart for't % what reproach touched him ' 
 Be merciful, — speak quickly.' 
 
 * Therefore come.' 
 1 answered with authority, — ' I think 
 We dare to speak such things and name such names 
 In the open squares of Paris !' 
 
 Not a word 
 She said, but, in a gentle humbled way, 
 (As one who had forgot herself in grief) 
 Turned round and followed closely where I went, 
 A.8 if I led her by a narrow plank 
 
AURORA LEIQH. 228 
 
 Across devouring waters, step by step, — 
 And so in silence we walked on a mile. 
 
 And then she stopped : her face was white as ^ax. 
 
 • We go much further V 
 
 * You are ill,* I asked, 
 •Or tired 1' 
 
 She looked the whiter for her smile. 
 'There's one at home,' she said, ' has need of me 
 By this time, — and I must not let him wait.' 
 
 'Not even,' I asked, 'to hear of Romney Leigh '^' 
 ' Not even,' she said, ' to hear of Mister Leigh.' 
 
 • In that case,' I resumed, 'J go with you, 
 And we can talk the same thing there as here. 
 None waits for me : I have my day to spend.' 
 
 Her lips moved in a spasm without a sound, — 
 But then she spoke. ' It shall be as you please , 
 And better so — 'tis shorter seep than told. 
 And though you will not find me worth your pains, 
 That even, may be worth some pains to know 
 For one as good as you are.' 
 
 Then she led 
 The way, and I, as by a narrow plank 
 Across devouring waters, followed her, 
 Stepping by her footsteps, breathing by her breath, 
 And holding her with eyes that would not slip ; 
 And so, without a word, we walked a mile, 
 And so, another mile, without a word. 
 
 Until the peopled streets being all dismissed. 
 
224 AURORA LEIGIJ. 
 
 fl(mse-rows and groups all scattered like a flock, 
 
 ITie market-gardens thickened, and the long 
 
 White walls beyond, like spiders' outside threads, 
 
 Stretched, feeling blindly toward the country-fields 
 
 Thiough half-built habitations and half-dug 
 
 Foundations, — intervals of trenchant chalk, 
 
 That bit betwixt the grassy uneven turfs 
 
 Where goats (vine tendrils trailing from their mouth'^) 
 
 Stood perched on edges of the cellarage 
 
 Which should be, staring as about to leap 
 
 To find their coming Bacchus. All the place 
 
 Seemed less a cultivation than a waste : 
 
 Men work here, only, — scarce begin to live : 
 
 All's sad, the country struggling with the town, 
 
 Like an untamed hawk upon a strong man's fist, 
 
 lliat beats its wings and tries to get away, 
 
 And cannot choose be satisfied so soon 
 
 To hop through court>-yards with its rightfoot tied 
 
 The vintage plains and pastoral hills in sight. 
 
 We stopped beside a house too high and slim 
 To stand there by itself, but waiting till 
 Five others, two on this side, three on that, 
 Should grow up from the sullen second floor 
 They pause at now, to build it to a row. 
 The upper windows partly were unglazed 
 Meantime, — a meagre, unripe house : a line 
 Of rigid poplars elbowed it behind. 
 And just in front, beyond the lime and bricks 
 That wronged the grass between it and the road, 
 A great acacia with its slender trunk 
 And overpoise of multitudincus leaves, 
 (In which a hundred fields might spill their dew 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 2'26 
 
 And intense Terdure, yet find room enough) 
 Stood reconciling all the place with green. 
 
 I followed np the stair upon her step. 
 
 She hurrried upward, shot across a face, 
 
 A woman's on the landing, — ' How now, now ! 
 
 Ts no one to have holidays but you 1 
 
 You said an hour, and stay three hours, I think, 
 
 And Julie waiting for your betters here*? 
 
 Why if he had waked, he might have waked, for me. 
 
 — Just murmuring an excusing word she passed 
 
 And shut the rest out with the chambcr-dooi-. 
 
 Myself shut in beside her. 
 
 'Twas a room 
 Scarce larger than a grave, and near as bare ; 
 Two stools, a pallet-bed ; I saw the room : 
 A mouse could find no sort of shelter in't. 
 Much less a greater secret ; curtainless, — 
 The window fixed you with its torturing eye. 
 Defying you to take a step apart 
 If perad venture you would hide a thing. 
 I saw the whole room, I and Marian there 
 Alone. 
 
 Alone ? She threw her bonnet off, 
 Tlien sighing as 'twere sighing the last time, 
 Approached the bed, and drew a shawl away : 
 You could not peel a fruit you fear to bruise 
 More calmly and more carefully than so, — 
 Nor would you find within, a rosier flushed 
 Pomegranate — 
 
 There he lay upon his back, 
 The yearling creature, warm and moist with life 
 To the bottom of his dimples, — to the ends 
 
226 AURORA LEIGH, 
 
 Of the lovely tumbled curls about his fhce ; 
 For since he had been covered over-much 
 To keep him from the light glare, both his cheeks 
 Were hot and scarlet as the first live rose 
 The shepherd's heart-blood ebbed away into, 
 Tlie faster for his love. And love was here 
 As instant : in the pretty baby-mouth, 
 Shut close as if for dreaming that it sucked ; 
 The little naked feet drawn up the way 
 Of nestled birdlings ; everything so soft 
 And tender, — to the tiny holdfast hands, 
 Which, closing on a finger into sleep, 
 Had kept the mould oft. 
 
 While we stood there dumb, 
 For oh, that it should take such innocence 
 To prove just guilt, I thought, and stood th?re dumb ; 
 The light upon his eyelids pricked them wide, 
 And, staring out at us with all their blue. 
 As half perplexed between the angelhood 
 He had been away to visit in his sleep, 
 And our most mortal presence, — gradually 
 He saw his mother's face, accepting it 
 In change for heaven itself, with such a smile 
 As might have well been learnt there, — never moved. 
 But smiled on, in a drowse of ecstasy. 
 So happy (half with her and half with heaven) 
 He could not have the trouble to be stirred, 
 But smiled and lay there. Like a rose, I said ; 
 As red and still indeed as any rose. 
 That blows in all the silence of its leaves. 
 Content, in blowing, to fulfil its life. 
 
 She leaned above him (drinking him as wine) 
 
AURORA LEian 221 
 
 111 that extremity of love, *twill pass 
 
 For agony or rapture, seeing that love 
 
 Includes the whole of nature, rounding it 
 
 To love . . no more, — since more can never be 
 
 Tlian just love. Self-forgot, cast out of self, 
 
 And drowning in the transport of the sight, 
 
 Iler whole pale passionate face, mouth, forehead, e} es. 
 
 One gaze, she stood : then, slowly as he smiled, 
 
 She smiled too, slowly, smiling unaware, 
 
 And drawing from his countenance to hers 
 
 A fainter red, as if she watched a flame 
 
 And stood in it a-glow. * IIow beautiful,' 
 
 Said she. 
 
 I answered,, trying to be cold. 
 (Must sin have compensations, was my thought, 
 As if it were a holy thing like grief? 
 And is a woman to be fooled aside 
 From putting vice down, with that woman's toy 
 
 A baby ?) ' Ay ! the child is well enough,' 
 
 I answered. ' If his mother's palms are clean 
 They need be glad of course in clasping such : 
 But if not, — I would rather lay my hand, 
 Were I she, — on God's brazen altar-bars 
 Red-hot with burning sacrificial lambs. 
 Than touch the sacred curls of such a child.' 
 
 Sh'j plunged her fingers in his clustering locks, 
 As one who would not be afraid of fire; 
 And then with indrawn steady utterance said, 
 'My lamb, my lamb! although, through such as 
 
 thou, 
 The most unclean got courage and approach 
 To God, once, — now they cannot, even with men, 
 
2:28 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Find grace enough for pity and gentle words.* 
 
 * My Marian,' I made answer, grave and sad, 
 
 ' The priest who stole a lamb to offer him, 
 
 Was still a thief. And if a woman steals 
 
 (Through God's own barrier-hedges of true love. 
 
 Which fence out licence in securing love) 
 
 A child like this, that smiles so in her face, 
 
 She is no mother but a kidnapper, 
 
 And he's a dismal orphan . . not a son ; 
 
 Whom all her kisses cannot feed so full 
 
 lie will not miss hereafter a pure home 
 
 To live in, a pure heart to lean against, 
 
 A pure good mother's name and memory 
 
 To hope by, when the world grows thick and })ad. 
 
 And he feels out for virtue.' 
 
 * Oh,' she smiled 
 With bitter patience, ' the child takes his chance, 
 Not much worse off in being fatherless 
 Than I was, fathered. He will say, belike, 
 His mother was the saddest creature born ; 
 He'll say his mother lived so contrary 
 To joy, that even the kindest, seeing her, 
 Grew sometimes almost cruel : he'll not say 
 She flew contrarious in the face of God 
 With bat-wings of her vices. Stole my child, — 
 My flower of earth, my only flower on earth. 
 My sweet, my beauty !' . . Up she snatched liu 
 
 child. 
 And, breaking on him in a storm of tears, 
 Drew out her long sobs from their shivering roots, 
 Until he took it for a game, and stretched 
 His feet and flapped his eager arms like wings 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 229 
 
 And crowed and gurgled through his infant laugh i 
 
 ' Mine, mine,' she said ; ' I have as sure a right 
 
 As any glad proud mother in the world, 
 
 Who sets her darling down to cut his teeth 
 
 Upon her church-ring. If she talks of law, 
 
 I talk of law ! 1 claim my mother-dues 
 
 By law, — the law which now is paramount ; 
 
 The common law, by which the poor and weak 
 
 Are trodden underfoot by vicious men, 
 
 And loathed for ever after by the good. 
 
 Let pass ! I did not filch . . I found the child.' 
 
 You found him, Marian?' 
 
 ' Ay, I found him where 
 I found my curse, — in the gutter, with my shame ! 
 What have you, any of you, to say to that. 
 Who all are happy, and sit safa and high. 
 And never spoke before to arraign my right 
 To grief itself? What, what, . . being beaten down 
 By hoofs of maddened oxen into a ditch, 
 Half-dead, whole mangled . . when a girl at last, 
 Breathes, sees . . and finds there, bedded in her flesh, 
 Because of the extremity of the shock, 
 Some coin of price I '. . and when a good man coracs 
 (That's God ! the best men are not quite as good) 
 And says, ' I dropped the coin there : take it you. 
 And keep it, — it shall pay you for the loss,' — 
 You all put up your finger — 'See the thief! 
 
 Obsei've that precious thing she has come to filch : 
 ' How bad those girls are !' Oh, my flower, my pet, 
 I dare forget I have you in my arms. 
 And fly oflf to be angry with the worU, 
 And fright you, hurt you with my tempers, till 
 
 20 
 
MO AURORA LKIGH. 
 
 You double up your lip ? AVhy, that indeed 
 Is bad : a naughty mother !' 
 
 ' * You mistake,* 
 I Interrupted, ' If I loved you not, 
 I should not, Marian, certamly be heit.' 
 
 ' Alas,' she said, ' you are so very good ; 
 
 And yet I wish indeed you had never ct md 
 
 To make me sob until I vex the child. 
 
 It is not wholesome for these pleasure-plats 
 
 To be so early watered by our brine. 
 
 And then, who knows] he may not like me now 
 
 As well, perhaps, as ere he saw me fret, — 
 
 One's ugly fretting ! he has eyes the same 
 
 As angels, but he cannot see as deep, 
 
 And so I've kept for ever In his sight 
 
 A sort of smile to please him, as you place 
 
 A green thing fi om the garden in a cup, 
 
 To make believe it grows there. Look, my sweet, 
 
 My cowslip-ball ! we've done with that cross face. 
 
 And here's the face come back you used to like. 
 
 Ah, ah ! he laughs ! he likes me. Ah, Miss Leigh, 
 
 You're great and pure; but were you purer still, — 
 
 As if you had walked, we'll say, no otherwhere 
 
 Than up and dowTi the new Jerusalem, 
 
 And held your trailing lutestring up yourself 
 
 F'rom brushing the twelve stones, for fear of some 
 
 Small speck as little as a needle-prick, 
 
 White stitched on white, — the child would keep to mi 
 
 Would choose his poor lost Marian, like me best, 
 
 ^ud, though you stretched your arms, cry back ar.d 
 
 cling, 
 As wc do when God says it's t.me to die 
 
AUIlOPwV LEIGH 231 
 
 And bids us go up higher. Leave us, ihen ; 
 Wc two are happy. Does he push me off] 
 lie's satisfied with me, as I with him.' 
 
 So soft to one, so hard to others ! Nay,* 
 I cried, more angry that she melted me, 
 ' We make henceforth a cushion of our faults 
 To sit and practise easy virtues on 1 
 1 thought a child was given to sanctify 
 A woman, — set her in the sight of all 
 The clear-eyed heavens, a chosen minister 
 To do their business and lead spirits up 
 The difficult blue heights. A woman lives, 
 Not bettered, quickened toward the truth and good 
 Fhrough being a mother? . . then she's none 
 
 although 
 She damps her baby's cheeks by kissing their', 
 As we kill roses.' 
 
 ' Kill ! Christ,' she said, 
 And turned her wild sad face from side to side 
 With most despairing wonder in it — ' What, 
 What have you in your souls against me then, 
 All of you ? am I wicked, do you think 1 
 God knows me, trusts me with a child : but you, 
 Vou think me really wicked V 
 
 ' Complaisant' 
 I answered softly, ' to a wrong you've done. 
 Because of certain profits, — which is wrong 
 Beyond the first wrong, Marian. When you left 
 The pure place and the noble heart, to take 
 The hand of a seducer ' . . 
 
 ' Whom 1 whose hand ? 
 I took the hand of ' . . 
 
2Sa AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Spi'inging up erect 
 And lilliiig up the child at full arm's length, 
 As if to bear him like an oriflamme 
 Unconquerable to armies of reproach, — 
 ' By him^^ she said, ' my child's head and its curls. 
 Ry those blue eyes no woman born could dare 
 A perjury on, I make my mother's oath, 
 That if I left that Heart, to lighten it, 
 The blood of mine was still, except for grief! 
 No cleaner maid than I was, took a step 
 To a sadder end, — no matron-mother now 
 Looks backward to her early maidenhood 
 Through chaster pulses. 1 speak steadily : 
 And if 1 lie so, . . if, being fouled in will 
 And paltered with in soul by devil's lust, 
 1 dared to bid this angel take my part, . . 
 Would God sit quiet, let us think, in heaven, 
 Nor strike me dumb with thunder 1 Yet I speak : 
 lie clears me therefore. What, 'seduced' 's youi 
 
 word 1 
 Do wolves seduce a wandering fawn in France? 
 Do eagles, who have pinched a lamb with claws, 
 Seduce it into carrion? So with me. 
 I was not ever, as you say, seduced, 
 Kut simply, murdered.' 
 
 There she paused, and sighed 
 With such a sigh as drops ft-om agony 
 To exhaustion, — sighing while she let the balje 
 Slide down upon her bosom from her arms, 
 And all her face's light fell after him, 
 Like a torch quenched in falling. Down slie sank, 
 And sate upon the bedside with the cliiM. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 238 
 
 But I, convicted, broken utterly, 
 
 With woman's passion clung about her waist, 
 
 And kissed her hair and eyes, — ' I have been w rong 
 
 Sweet Marian' . . (weeping in a tender rage) 
 
 ' Sweet holy Marian ! And now, ]\Lirian, now, 
 
 ril use your oath although my lips are hard, 
 
 And by the child, my Marian, by the child, 
 
 ril swear his mother shall be innocent 
 
 Before my conscience, as in the open Book 
 
 Of Ilim who reads for judgement. Innocent, 
 
 My sister ! let the night be ne'er so dark. 
 
 The moon is surely somewhere in the sky : 
 
 So surely is your whiteness to be found 
 
 Through all dark facts. But pardon, pardon me, 
 
 And smile a little, Marian,' — for the child. 
 
 If not for me, my sister.' 
 
 The poor lip 
 Just motioned for the smile and let it go • 
 And then, with scarce a stirring of the mouth, 
 As if a statue spoke that could not breathe, 
 But spoke on calm between its 'marble lips, — 
 ' I'm glad, I'm very glad you clear me so. 
 I should be sorry that you set me down 
 With harlots, or with even a better name 
 Which misbecomes his mother. For the rest 
 1 am not on a level with your love. 
 Nor ever was, you know, — but now am worse, 
 Because that world of yours has dealt with me 
 As when the hard sea bites and chews a stone 
 And changes the first form of it. I've marked 
 A shore of pebbles bitten to one shape 
 From all the various life of madrepores ; 
 And so, that little stone, called Marian Erie, 
 20* 
 
284 AURORA LEI Gil 
 
 Picked up and dropped by you and another friend, 
 Was ground and tortured by the incessant sea 
 A.nd bruised from what she was, — changed ! death's 
 
 a change, 
 And she, I said, was murdered ; Marian's dead. 
 What can you do with people when they are dead. 
 But, if you are pious, sing a hymn and go. 
 Or, if you are tender, heave a sigh and go, 
 But go by all means, — and permit the grass 
 To keep its green feud up 'twixt them and you ? 
 Then leave me, — let me rest. I'm dead, I say. 
 And if, to save the child from death as well. 
 The mother in me has survived the rest. 
 Why, that's God's miracle you must not tax, 
 I'm not less dead fur that : I'm nothing more 
 But just a mother. Only for the child, 
 I'm warm, and cold, and hungry, and afraid. 
 And smell the flowers a little, and see the sun. 
 And speak still, and am silent, — just for him ! 
 I pray you therefore to mistake me not, 
 And treat me haply as I were alive; 
 For though you ran a pin into my soul, 
 I think it would not hurt nor trouble me. 
 Here's proof, dear lady, — in the market-place 
 But now, you promised me to say a word 
 About . . n friend, who once, long years ago, 
 Took God's place toward me, when He leans and 
 
 loves 
 And does not thunder, . . whom at last I left, 
 As all of us leave God. You thought perhaps 
 I seemed to care for hearing of thai friend 1 
 Now, judge me! we have sate here half an hour 
 And talked together of the child and me, 
 
AURORA LEIGH 23a 
 
 And I not nsked as much as, ' What's the thing 
 You had to tell me of the friend . . the friend?' 
 FTe's sad, I think you said, — he's sick perhaps? 
 'Tis nought to Marian if he's sad or sick. 
 Another would have crawled beside your foot 
 And prayed your words out. Why, a beast, a dog 
 A starved cat, if he had fed it once with milk, 
 Would show less hardness. But I'm dead, you see, 
 And that explains it.' 
 
 Poor, poor thing, she spoke 
 And shook her head, as white and calm as frost 
 Or days too cold for raining any more, 
 But still with such a face, so much alive, 
 I could not choose but take it on my arm 
 And stroke the placid patience of its cheeks, — 
 Then told my story out, of Romney Leigh, 
 How, having lost her, sought her, missed her still, 
 ITe, broken-hearted for himself and her, 
 Had drawn the curtains of the world awhile 
 As if he had done with morning. There I stopped, 
 For when she gasped, and pressed me with her eyes, 
 ' And now . . how is it with him ? tell me now,' 
 I felt the shame of compensated grief. 
 And chose my words with scruple — slowly stepped 
 Upon the slippery stones set here and there 
 Across the sliding water. ' Certainly, 
 As evening empties morning into night. 
 Another morning takes the evening up 
 With healthful, providential interchange ; 
 And, though he thought still of her,' — 
 
 * Yes, she krevr 
 Bhe understood : she had supposed indeed, 
 That, as one stops a hole upon a flute, 
 
286 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 At whk'h a new note comes and sliapes the time, 
 Excluding her would bring a worthier in, 
 And, long ere this, that Lady Waldemar 
 lie loved so' . . 
 
 ' Loved,' I started, — ' loved hor so * 
 Now tell mo' . . 
 
 * 1 will tell you,' she replied : 
 ' But since we're taking oaths, you'll promise fiiet 
 That he in England, he, shall never learn 
 In what a dreadful trap his creature here, 
 Round whose unworthy neck he had meant to tie 
 The honourable ribbon of his name, 
 Fell unaware and came to butchery : 
 Because, — I know him, — as he takes to heart 
 ITie grief of every stranger, he's not like 
 To banish mine as far as I should choose 
 In wishing him most happy. Now he leaves 
 To think of me, perverse, who went my way. 
 Unkind, and left him, — but if once he knew . . 
 Ah, then, the sharp nail of my cruel wrong 
 Would fasten me for ever in his siaht. 
 Like some poor curious bird, through each spread 
 
 wing 
 Nailed high up over a fierce hunter's fire. 
 To spoil the dinner of all tenderer folk 
 Come in by chance. Nay, since your Marian's dead 
 You shall not hang her up, but dig a hole 
 And bury her in silence ! ring no bells.' 
 
 ' answered gaily, though my whole voice wept , 
 * We'll ring the joy-bells, not the funeral-bells, 
 Because we have her back, dead or alive.' 
 
AURORA LEI G II. 281 
 
 She never answered that, but sliook h-er head •, 
 Then K)w and calm, as one who, safe in heaven, 
 Shall tell a story of his, lower life. 
 Unmoved by shame or anger, — so slie spoke. 
 She told me she had loved upon her knees. 
 As others pray, more perfectly absorbed 
 In the act and inspiration. She felt his 
 J^'or just his uses, not her own at all, 
 liis stool, to sit on or put up his foot, 
 J lis cup, to fill with wine or vinegar, 
 Whichever drink might please him at the chance, 
 For that should please her always: let him write 
 His name upon her . . it seemed natural ; 
 It was most precious, standing on his shelf. 
 To wait uLtil he chose to lift his hand. 
 Well, well, — I saw her then, and must have seen 
 How bright her life went floating on her love. 
 Like wicks the housewives send afloat on oil 
 Which feeds them to a flame that lasts the night. 
 
 To do good seemed so much his business, 
 
 That, having done it, she was fain to think. 
 
 Must fill up his capacity for joy. 
 
 At first she never mooted with herself 
 
 IHie was happy, since he made her so, 
 
 Or iHie loved her, being so much beloved : 
 
 Who thinks of asking if the sun is light, 
 
 Observing that it lightens \ who's so bold, 
 
 To question God of His felicity? 
 
 Still less. And thus she took for granted first, 
 
 What first of all she should have put to proof, 
 
 And sinned against him so, but only so. 
 
 'What could you hope,' she said, 'of such as shi ' 
 
«88 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 You take a kid you like, and turn it out 
 
 .n some fair garden ; though the creature's fond 
 
 And gentle, it will leap upon the beds 
 
 And break your tulips, bite your tender trees : 
 
 The wonder would be if such innocence 
 
 Spoiled less. A garden is no place for kids.' 
 
 And, by degrees, when he who had chosen hei, 
 Brought in his courteous and benignant friends 
 To spend their goodness on her, which she took 
 So very gladly, as a part of his, — 
 By slow degrees it broke on her slow sense, 
 That she too in that Eden of delight 
 Was out of place, and like the silly kid. 
 Still did most mischief where she meant most love. 
 A thought enough to make a woman mad, 
 (No beast in this but she may well go mad) 
 That saying *I am thine to love and use' 
 May blow the plague in her protesting breath 
 To the very man for whom she claims to die, — 
 lliat, clinging round his neck, she pulls him down 
 And drowns him, — and that, lavishing her soul, 
 She hales perdition on him. * So, being mad,' 
 Said Marian . . 
 
 ' Ah — who stirred such thoughts, you ask 1 
 Whose fault it was, that she should have such 
 
 thoughts 1 
 None's fault, none's fault. The light comes, and w© 
 
 see: 
 But if it were not truly for our eyes, 
 There would be nothing seen, for all the light; 
 And so with Marian. If she saw at last, 
 The sense was in her, — Lady Waldemar 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 288 
 
 Had spoken all in vain else.' 
 
 ' O my heart, 
 O prophet in my heart,' I cried aloud, 
 ''Then Lady Waldemar spoke !' 
 
 * Did she speak,* 
 Mused Marian softly — ' or did she only sign ? 
 Or did she put a word into her face 
 And look, and so impress you with the word 1 
 Or leave it in the foldings of her gown. 
 Like rosemary smells, a movement will shake out 
 When no one's conscious ? who shall say, or guess '. 
 One thing alone was certain, — from the day 
 The gracious lady paid a visit first. 
 She, Marian, saw things different, — felt distrust 
 Of all that sheltering roof of circumstance 
 Her hopes were building into with clay nests : 
 Her heart was restless, pacing up and down 
 And fluttering, like dumb creatures before storms, 
 Not knowing wherefore she was ill at ease.' 
 
 * And still the lady came,' said Marian Eric, 
 
 * Much oftener than he knew it. Mister Leigh. 
 Sh« bade me never tell him she had come. 
 She liked to love me better than he knew, 
 
 So very kind was Lady Waldemar : 
 And every time she brought with her more light, 
 And every light made sorrow clearer . . Well, 
 Ah, well! we cannot give her blame for that; 
 'Twould be the same thing if an angel came, 
 Whose right should prove our wrong. And ever> 
 
 time 
 The lady came, she looked more beautiful, 
 And spoke more lik^ a flute among gieen trees, 
 
240 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Until at Jast, as one, whose heart being sad 
 
 On hearing lovely music, suddenly 
 
 Dissolves in weeping, I brake out in tears 
 
 IJefore her . . asked her counsel . . ' had I erred 
 
 ' In being too happy *? would she set me straight 1 
 
 ' For she, being wise and good and born above 
 
 ' The flats I had never climbed from, could perccivu 
 
 * If such as I, might grow upon the hills ; 
 
 ' And whether such poor herb sufficed to grow 
 
 ' For Romney Leigh to break his fast upon't, — 
 
 ' Or would he pine on such, or haply starve V 
 
 She wrapt me in her generous arms at once,- 
 
 And let me dream a moment how it feels 
 
 To have a real mother, like some girls : 
 
 But when I looked, her fac<> was younger . . aj, 
 
 Youth's too bright not to be a little hard, 
 
 And beauty keeps itself still uppermost, 
 
 That's true ! — though Lady Waldemar was kind, 
 
 She hurt me, hurt, as if the morning-sun 
 
 Should smite us on the eyelids when we sleep, 
 
 And wake us up with headache. Ay, and soon 
 
 Was light enough to make my heart ache too : 
 
 She told me truths I asked for . . 'twas my fault . . 
 
 * That Romney could not love me, if he would, 
 
 ' As men call loving ; there are bloods that flow 
 
 * Together like some rivers and not mix, 
 
 ' Through contraries of nature. lie indeed 
 ' Was set to wed me, to espouse my "class, 
 ' Act out a rash opinion, — and, once wed, 
 
 * So just a man and gentle could not choose 
 
 * But make my life as smooth as marriage-ring, 
 
 * Bespeak me mildly, keep me a cheerful house, 
 
 * With servants, brooches, all the flow ers I liked^ 
 
ATTUORA LEIGH. 2iJ 
 
 And pretty dresses, silk the whole year round' . . 
 At which 1 stopped her, — 'This for me. And nosv 
 
 * For him."* — She hesitated, — truth grew hard ; 
 
 She owned, ' 'Twas plain a man like Romney Leigh 
 
 * Required a wife more level to himself. 
 
 ' If day by day he had to bend his height 
 ' To pick up sympathies, opinions, thoughts, 
 ' And interchange the common talk of life 
 
 * Which helps a man to live as well talk, 
 
 ' His days were heavily taxed. Who buys a staff 
 
 ' To fit the hand, that reaches but the knee 1 
 
 ' He'd feel it bitter to be forced to Tni«!<? 
 
 ' The perfect joy of married suited pairs, 
 
 ' Who bursting through the separating hedge 
 
 ' Of personal dues with that sweet eglantine 
 
 * Of equal love, keep saying, 'So we think, 
 
 ' ' It strikes ?/5, — that's our fancy.' ' — When I asked 
 
 If earnest will, devoted love, employed 
 
 In youth like mine, would fail to raise me up, 
 
 As two strong arms will always raise a child 
 
 To a fruit hung overhead V she sighed and sighed . . 
 
 * That could not be,' she feared. ' You tiike a pink, 
 
 * You dig about its roots and water it, 
 ' And so improve it to a garden-pink, 
 
 * But will not change it to a heliotrope, 
 
 ' The kind remains. And then, the harder truth — 
 ' This Romney Leigh, so rash to leap a pale, 
 ' So bold for conscience, quick for martyrdom, 
 
 * Would sufier steadily and never flinch, 
 
 * But sufier surely and keenly, when his class 
 
 * Turned shoulder 017 him for a shameful match, 
 
 * And set him up as nine-pin in their talk, 
 
 *To bowl him down with jestings.'- -There she paused; 
 21 Q 
 
242 AUr.ORA LEIGH. 
 
 And when I used the pause in doubting that 
 
 We wronged him after all in what we feared — 
 
 ' Suppose such things should never touch him more 
 
 * In his high conscience (if the thing should be,) 
 ' Than, when the queen sits in an upper room, 
 'The horses in the street can spatter her !' — 
 
 A moment, hope came, — but the lady closed 
 
 That door and nicked the lock and shut it out, 
 
 Observing wisely that, 'the tender heart 
 
 ' Which made him over-soft to a lower class, 
 
 'AN'ould scarcely fail to make him sensitive 
 
 'To a higher,— how they thought and wliat they felt* 
 
 ' Alas, alas,' said Marian, rocking slow 
 The pretty baby who was near asleep, 
 Tlie eyelids creeping over the blue balls, — 
 She made it clear, too clear — I saw the whole! 
 And yet who knows if I had seen my way 
 Straight out of it by looking, though 'twas clear. 
 Unless the generous lady, 'ware of this. 
 Had set her own house all a-fire for me. 
 To light me foi-wards 1 Leaning on my face 
 Her heavy agate eyes which crushed my will, 
 She told me tenderly, (as when men come 
 To a bedside to tell people they must die) 
 ' She knew of knowledge, — ay, of knowledge knew 
 ' That Romney Leigh had loved her formerly ; 
 
 * And she loved Am, she might say, now the chance 
 
 ' Was past . . but that, of course, he never guessed, — • 
 ' For something came between them . . something thin 
 ' As a cobweb . . catching every fly of doubt 
 
 * To hold it buzzing at the window-pane 
 
 *Aud help to dim the daylight. Ah, man's pride 
 
A U R R A L E I G II . 248 
 
 Of woman's — which is greatest 1 most averse 
 'To brushing cobwebs 1 Well, but she and he 
 
 * Remained fast friends ; it seemed not more than so. 
 Because he had bound his hands and could not stir 
 
 * An honourable man, if somewhat rash ; 
 
 * And she, not even for Romney, would she spill 
 
 * A blot . . as little even as a tear . . 
 
 * Upon his marriage-contract, — not to gain 
 
 * A better joy for two than came by that : 
 
 ' For, though I stood between her heart and heaven, 
 
 * She loved me wholly.' ' 
 
 Did I laugh or curse ] 
 I think I sate there silent, hearing all, 
 Ay, hearing double, — Marian's tale, at once, 
 And Romney's marriage-vow, ^ Til keep to 'iUEE,' 
 Which means that woman-serpent. Is it ti/no 
 For church now ? 
 
 ' Lady Waldemar sj oke moro^ 
 Continued Marian, ' but as when a soul 
 Will pass out through the sweetness of a song 
 Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road, — 
 Even so mine wandered from the things I heard 
 To those I suffered. It w^as afterward 
 I shaped the resolution to the act. 
 For many hours we talked. What need to talk ] 
 The fate was clear and close ; it touched my eyes ^ 
 But still the generous lady tried to keep 
 Tlie case afloat, and would not let it go. 
 And argued, struggled upon Marian's side, 
 Whi ih was not Romney's ! though she littL knew 
 What ugly monster would take up the end, — 
 What griping death within the drowning d'^ath 
 Was ready to complete my sum of death' 
 
«44 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I thought, — Perhaps he's sliding now the ring 
 Upon that woman's finger . . 
 
 She went on : 
 The lady, foiling to prevail her way, 
 Upgathered my torn wishes from the ground 
 And pieced them with her strong benevolence ; 
 And, as I thought J could breathe freer air 
 Away from England, going without pause. 
 Without farewell, — ^just breaking with a jerk 
 The blossomed offshoot from my thorny life, — 
 She promised kindly to provide the means. 
 With instant passage to the colonies 
 And full protection,' would commit me straight 
 
 * To one who once had been her waiting-maid 
 ' And had the customs of the world, intent 
 
 * On changing England for Australia 
 
 ' Herself, to carry out her fortune so.' 
 
 For which I thanked the Lady Waldemar, 
 
 As men upon their death-beds thank last friends 
 
 Who lay the pillow straight : it is not much. 
 
 And yet 'tis all of which they are capable, 
 
 This lying smoothly in a bed to die. 
 
 And so, 'twas fixed ; — and so, from day to day, 
 
 llio woman named came hi to visit me.' 
 
 Just then, the girl stopped speaking, — sate erect. 
 And stared at me as if I had been a ghost, 
 (Perhaps I looked as white as any ghost) 
 With large-eyed horror. * Does God make,' she said 
 
 * All sorts of creatures really, do you think ? 
 Or is it that the Devil slavers them 
 
 So excellently, that we come to doubt 
 
 Who's stronger, He who makes, or ho who niars ? 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 24fi 
 
 I never liked the woman's face or voice 
 Or ways : it made me blush to look at hor ; 
 It made me tremble if she touched my hand ; 
 And when she spoke a fondling word I shrank 
 As if one hated me who had power to hurt ; 
 And every time she came, my veir^s ran cold, 
 As somebody were walking on my grave. 
 At last I spoke to Lady Waldemar : 
 
 * Could such an one be good to trust V I asked. 
 Whereat the lady stroked my cheek and laughed 
 Iler silver-laugh — (one must be born to laugh, 
 To put such music in it) ' Foolish girl, 
 
 * Your scattered wits are gathering wool beyond 
 
 * The sheep-walk reaches ! — leave the thing to mo. 
 And therefore, half in trust, ,and half in scorn 
 Tliat 1 had heart still for another fear 
 
 In such a safe despair, I left the thing. 
 
 ' The rest is short. I was obedient : 
 1 wrote my letter which delivered him 
 From Marian to his own prosperities. 
 And follow^ed that bad guide. The lady 1 — hush, 
 I never blame the lady. Ladies who 
 Sit high, however willing to look do"s^Ti, 
 Will scarce see lower than their dainty feet : 
 And Lady Waldemar saw less than I, 
 W ith what a Devil's daughter I went forth 
 Along the swine's road, down the precipice, 
 In such a curl of hell-foam caught and choked, 
 No shriek of soul in anguish could pierce through 
 To fetch some help. They say there's help in heaver, 
 For all such cries. But if one cries from hell . . . 
 What then? — the heavens are deaf upon that side. 
 21* 
 
fi46 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 * A woman . . hear me, — let me make it plain, — 
 A woman . . not a monster . . both her breasts 
 Made right to suckle babes . . she took me off 
 A woman also, young and ignorant 
 And heavy with my grief, my two poor eyes 
 Near washed away with weeping, till the trees, 
 The blessed unaccustomed trees and fields 
 Ran either side the train like stranger dogs 
 Unworthy of any notice, — took me off. 
 So dull, so blind, so only half alive. 
 Not seeing by what road, nor by what ship, 
 Nor toward what place, nor to what end of all. 
 Men carry a corpse thus, — past the doorway, past 
 The garden-gate, the children's playground, up 
 The green lane, — then they leave it in the pit, 
 To sleep and find corruption, cheek to cheek 
 With him who stinks since Friday. 
 
 ' But suppose 
 To go down with one's soul into the grave, 
 To go down half dead, half alive, I say, 
 And wake up with corruption, . . cheek to cheek 
 With him who stinks since Friday ! There it is, 
 And that's the horror oft, Miss Leigh. 
 
 ' You feel ? 
 You understand ? — no, do not look at me. 
 But understand. The blank, blind, weary way 
 Which led . . where'er it led . . away at least ; 
 The shifted ship . . to Sydney or to France, 
 Still bound, wherever else, to another land ; 
 The swooning sickness on the dismal sea. 
 The foreign shore, the shameful house, the nignt, 
 The feeble blood, the heavy-headed grief, , , . 
 No need to bring their damnable drugged cup. 
 
A U R 11 A ]. K 1 G II . i^- 
 
 And yet they brought it. ITeirs so prodigal 
 Of devil's gifts . . hunts liberally in packs, 
 Will kill no poor small creature of the wilds 
 But fifty red wide throats must snioke at it, 
 As HIS at me . . when waking up at last . . 
 I told you that I waked up in the grave. 
 
 * Enough so ! — it is plain enough so. True, 
 
 We wretches cannot tell out all our wrong 
 
 Without olfence to decent happy folk. 
 
 I know that we must scrupulously hint 
 
 With half-words, delicate reserves, the thing 
 
 Which no one scrupled we should feel in full. 
 
 Let pass the rest, then ; only leave my oath 
 
 Upon this sleeping child, — ^;nan's violence 
 
 Not man's seduction, made me what I am, 
 
 As lost as . . I told him I should be lost : 
 
 When mothers fail us, can we help ourselves ? 
 
 That's fatal ! — And you call it being lost. 
 
 That down came next day's noon and caught ma 
 
 there 
 Half gibbering and half raving on the floor. 
 And wondering what had happened up in heaven, 
 lliat suns should dare to shine when God himself 
 Was certainly abolished. 
 
 ' I was maa. 
 How many weeks, I know not, — many weeks. 
 1 think they let me go, when I was mad, 
 They feared my eyes and loosed me, as bOys might 
 A mad dog which they had tortured. Up an-d dowD 
 I went by road and village, over tracts 
 Of open foreign country, large and strange, 
 Crossed everywhere by long thin poplar-lines 
 
248 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Like fingcis of some ghastly skeleton Hand 
 Through sunlight and through moonlight evernore 
 Pushed out from hell itself to j^luck nie back, 
 And resolute to get me, slow and sure ; 
 While every roadside Christ upon his cross 
 Hung reddening through his gory wounds at me, 
 And shook his nails in anger, and came down 
 To follow a mile after, wading up 
 The 1 3w vines and green wheat, crying ' Take the girl ■ 
 * She's none of mine from henceforth.' Then 1 knew 
 (But this is somewhat dimmer than the rest) 
 The charitable peasants gave me bread 
 And leave to sleep in straw : and twice they tied. 
 At parting, Mary's image round my neck — 
 IIow heavy it seemed ! as heavy as a stone ; 
 A woi^ian has been sti-angled with less weight : 
 1 threw it in a ditch to keep it clean 
 And ease my breath a little, when none looked ; 
 I did not need such safeguards : — brutal men 
 Stopped short. Miss Leigh, in insult, when they ha<i 
 
 seen 
 My face, — I must have had an awful look. 
 And so I lived : the weeks passed on, — 1 lived. 
 'Twas living my old tramp-life o'er again, 
 But, this time, in a dream, and hunted round 
 l>y some prodigious Dream-fear at my back, 
 Which ended yet : my brain cleared presently 
 And there I sate, one evening, by the road, 
 I, Marian Erie, myself, alone, undone, 
 Facing a sunset low upon the flats 
 As if it were the finish of all time. 
 The great red stone upon my sepulchre. 
 Which angels wero too weak to roll away. 
 
SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 ''PIIE woman's motive'? shall we daub ourselvea 
 ■^ With finding roots for nettles'? 'tis soft clay 
 And easily explored. She had the means, 
 The monies, by the lady's liberal grace, 
 \n trust for that Australian scheme and me, 
 Which so, that she might cl.utch with both her hands 
 And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed. 
 She served me (after all it was not strange ; 
 Twas only what my mother would have done) 
 A motherly, right damnable good turn. 
 
 * Well, after. There are nettles everywhere. 
 
 But smooth green grasses are more common still ; 
 
 The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud ; 
 
 A miller's wife at Clichy took me in 
 
 And spent her pity on me, — made me calm 
 
 And merely very reasonably sad. 
 
 She found me a servant's place in Paris where 
 
 I tried to take the cast-off life again. 
 
 And stood as quiet as a beaten ass 
 
 Who, having fallsn through overloads, stands up 
 
 To let them charge him with another pack. 
 
 A few months, so. My mistress, yoimg and light, 
 
260 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Was easy with me, less for kindness than 
 Because she led, herself, an easy time 
 Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass, 
 Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most 
 She felt so pretty and so pleased all day 
 She could not take the trouble to be cross, 
 But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe, 
 Would tap me softly with her slender foot 
 Still restless with the last night's dancing in't, 
 And say, ' Fie, pale-face ! are you English girls 
 'All grave and silently mass- book still, and Lent? 
 ' And first-communion pallor on your checks, 
 
 * Worn past the time for't'^ little fool, be gay !' 
 At which she vanished, like a fairy, through 
 
 A gap of silver laughter. 
 
 ' Came an hour 
 When all went otherwise. She did not speak. 
 But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her ^ycs 
 As if a viper with a pair of tongs. 
 Too far for any touch, yet near enough 
 To view the writhing creature, — then at last, 
 
 * Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name, 
 
 * Thou Marian ; thou'rt no reputable girl, 
 
 * Although sufficient dull for twenty saints ! 
 
 * I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said ; 
 
 * Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month, 
 
 * Thou mask of saintship.' 
 
 'Could I answer her ? 
 The light broke in so : it meant that then, that ? 
 I had not thought of that, in all my thoughts. 
 Through all the cold, numb aching of my brow, 
 Through all the heaving of impatient life 
 Which threw me on death at intervals, through aU 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 261 
 
 The upbreak of the fountains of ray heart 
 
 The rahis liad swelled too large : it eould mejin that f 
 
 Did God make mothers out of victims, then, 
 
 And set such pure amens to hideous deeds 1 
 
 Why not 1 lie overblows an ugly grave 
 
 With violets which blossom in the spring. 
 
 And /could be a mother in a month ! 
 
 I hope it was not wicked to be glad. 
 
 I lifted up my voice and wept, and laughed, 
 
 To heaven, not her, until it tore my throat. 
 
 'Confess, confess!' what was there to confess. 
 
 Except man's cruelty, except my wrong 1 
 
 Except this anguish, or this ecstacy 1 
 
 This shame or glory 1 The light womaji there 
 
 Was small to take it in: an, acorn-cup 
 
 Would take the sea in sooner. 
 
 ' ' Good,' she cried ; 
 ' Unmarried and a mother, and she laughs ! 
 ' These unchaste girls are always impudent. 
 ' Get out, intriguer 1 leave my house and trot : 
 ' I wonder you should look me in the face, 
 ' With such a filthy secret.' 
 
 'Then I rolled 
 My scanty bundle up and went my way. 
 Washed white with weeping, shuddering head and fool 
 With blind hysteric passion, staggering forth 
 Beyond thosie doors. 'Twas natural of course 
 She should not ask me where I meant to sleep ; 
 I might sleep well beneath the heavy Seine, 
 Like others of my sort ; the bed was laid 
 For us. But any woman, womanly, 
 TIad thought of him who should be in a month, 
 The sinless babe that should be in a month, 
 
2.'>2 AURORA LEIUH. 
 
 And if by ch.mco ho might be warmer housed 
 'i'haii undemealh SMch dreary, dripping caves. 
 
 I broke on Marian there. ' Yet she herself, 
 A wife, I think, had scandals of her own, 
 A lover not her husband.* 
 
 ' Ay,' she said, 
 ' Hut gold and meal are measured otherwise ; 
 1 learnt so much at school,' said Marian Erie. 
 
 ' crooked world,' I cried, ' ridiculous 
 If not so lamentable ! It's the way 
 With these light women of a thrifty vice, 
 My Marian, — always hard upon the rent 
 In any sister's virtue ! while they keep 
 Their own so darned and patched with \)erfidy, 
 That, though a rag itself, it looks as well 
 Across a street, in balcony or coach, 
 As any perfect stuff might. For my part, 
 I'd rather take the wind-side of the stews 
 Than touch such women with my finger-end ! 
 They top the poor street-walker by their lie. 
 And look the better for behig so much worse: 
 The devil's most devilish when respectable. 
 But you, dear, and your story.' 
 
 ' All the rest 
 Is here, ahe said, and signed upon the child. - 
 I found a mistress-sempstress who was kind 
 And let me sew in peace among her girls ; 
 And what was better than to draw the threads 
 All day and half the night for him and him? 
 And so I lived for him, and so he lives, 
 And so I know, by this time, God lives too.* 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 263 
 
 She sii iled beyond the sun and ended so, 
 
 And all my soul rose up to tike her part 
 
 Against the world's successes, virtues, fames. 
 
 ' Come with me, sweetest sister,' I returned, 
 
 ' And sit within my house, and do me good 
 
 From henceforth, thou and thine ! ye are my o^q 
 
 From henceforth. I am lonely in the world, 
 
 And thou art lonely, and the child is half 
 
 An orphan. Come, — and henceforth thou and I 
 
 Being still together will not miss a friend. 
 
 Nor he a father, since .two mothers shall 
 
 Make that up to him. 1 am journeying south. 
 
 And in my Tuscan home I'll find a niche 
 
 And set thee there, my saint, the child and thee, 
 
 And burn the lights of love before thy fice, 
 
 And ever at thy sweet look cross myself 
 
 From mixing with the world's prosperities ; 
 
 That so, in gravity and holy calm. 
 
 We two may live on toward the truer life.' 
 
 She looked me in the face and answered not, 
 
 N(»r signed she was unworthy, nor gave thanks, 
 
 But took the sleeping child and held it out 
 
 T«) meet my kiss, as if requiting me 
 
 And trusting me at once. And thus, at once, 
 
 I carried him and her to where I lived ; 
 
 She's there now, in the little room, asleep, 
 
 I hear the soft child-breathing through the door ; 
 
 And all three of us, at to-morrow's break. 
 
 Pass onward, homeward, to our Italy. 
 
 Oh, Romney Leigh, I have your debts to pay, 
 
 And I'll be just: and pay them. 
 
 But yourself! 
 2*>, 
 
W4 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 To pay your debts is scarcely difficult ; 
 
 To buy your life is nearly impossible, 
 
 IJeing sold fiway to Lamia. My head aches ; 
 
 1 cannot see my road along this dark ; 
 
 Nor can I creep and grope, as fits the dark^ 
 
 YitT those foot^catching robes of womanhood : 
 
 A man might walk a little . . but I ! — He loves 
 
 The Lami.'i- woman, — and I, write to him 
 
 AVhat stops his marriage, and destroys his peace. 
 
 Or what perhaps shall simply trouble him, 
 
 Until she only need to touch his sleeve 
 
 With just a finger's tremulous white flame, 
 
 Saying, ' Ah, — Aurora Leigh ! a pretty tale, 
 
 ' A very pretty poet ! I can guess 
 
 ' The motive' — then, to catch his eyes in hers^ 
 
 And vow she does not "wonder, — and they two 
 
 To break in laughter as the sea along 
 
 A melancholy coast, and float up higher. 
 
 In such a laugh, their fatal weeds of love ! 
 
 Ay, fatal, ay. And who shall answer me 
 
 Fate has not hurried tides ; and if to-night 
 
 My letter would not be a night too late, 
 
 An arrow shot into a man that's dead. 
 
 To prove a vain intention ; Would I show 
 
 The new wife vile, to make the husband mad? 
 
 No, Lamia ! shut the shutters, bar the doors 
 
 From cverv glimmer on thy serpent skin! 
 
 1 will not let thy hideous secret out 
 
 To agonise the man I love — I mean 
 
 The friend I love . . as friends love. 
 
 It is strange. 
 To-day while Marian told her story like 
 To absorb most listeners, how I listened chief 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 265 
 
 To a voice not hers, nor yet that enemy's, 
 
 Nor God's in wrath, . . but one that mixed with mine 
 
 Long years ago, among the garden-trees, 
 
 And said to me^ to me too, ' Be my wife, 
 
 Aurora. ' It is strange with what a swell 
 
 Of yearning passion, as a snow of ghosts 
 
 Might beat against the impervious doors of heaven, 
 
 I thought, ' Now, if I had been a woman, such 
 
 As God made women, to save men by love, — 
 
 By just my love I might have saved this man, 
 
 And made a nobler poem for the world 
 
 Than all I have failed in.' But I foiled besides 
 
 In this ; and now he's lost ! through me alone ' 
 
 And, by my only fault, his empty house 
 
 Sucks in, at this same hour, a wind from hell 
 
 To keep his hearth cold, make his casements creak 
 
 For ever to the tune of plague and sin — 
 
 O Romney, O my Romney, O my fi-icnd ! 
 
 My cousin and friend ! my helper, when I would. 
 
 My love, that might be ! mine ! 
 
 Why, how one weeps 
 When one's too weary ! Were a witness by. 
 He'd say some folly . . that I loved the man. 
 Who knows % . . and make me laugh again for scorn. 
 At strongest, women are as weak in flesh. 
 As men, at weakest, vilest, are in soul : 
 So, hard for women to keep pace with men ! 
 As well give up at once, sit down at once, 
 And weep as I do. Tears, tears ! why we weep 1 
 'Tis worth inquiry % — That we've shamed a life, 
 Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps ? 
 By no means. Simply, that we've walked too far. 
 Or talked too much, or felt the wind i' the east, — 
 
256 AtJRORA LEIGH. 
 
 And so we weep, as if both body and soul 
 Broke up in water — this way. 
 
 Poor mixed rags 
 Forsooth we're made of, like those other dolls 
 rhat lean with pretty faces into fairs. 
 It seems as if 1 had a man in me, 
 Despising such a woman. 
 
 Yet indeed. 
 To see a wrong or suffermg moves us all 
 To undo it, though we should undo ourselves ^ 
 Ay, all the more, that we undo ourselves ; 
 That's womanly, past doubt, and not ill-moved. 
 A natural movement therefore, on my part, 
 To fill the chair up of my cousin's wife. 
 And save him from a devil's company ! 
 We're all so, — made so — 'tis our woman's trade 
 To suffer- torment for another's ease. 
 The world's male chivalry has perished out, 
 But women are knights-errant to the last ; 
 And if Cervantes had been Shakspeare too, 
 He had made his Don a Donna. 
 
 So it clears, 
 And so we rain our slvies blue. 
 
 Put away 
 This weakness. If, as I have just now said, 
 A man's within me, — let him act himself, 
 Ignoring the poor conscious trouble of blood 
 That's called the woman merely. I will writ.€ 
 Plain words to England, — if too late, too late, 
 If ill-accounted, then accounted ill ; 
 We'll ti'ust the heavens with something. 
 
 ' Dear Lord Hove 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 261 
 
 You'll fihcl a story on another leaf 
 Of Marion Erie, — wliat noble friend of yours 
 She trusted once, through what flagitious means 
 To what disastrous ends; — the story's true. 
 I found her wandering on the Paris quays, 
 A babe upon her breast, — unnatural 
 Unseasonable outcast on such snow 
 Unthawed to this time. I will tax in this 
 Your friendship, friend, — if that convicted She 
 Be not his wife yet, to denounce the facts 
 To himself, — but, otherwise, to let them pass 
 On tip-toe like escaping murderers, 
 And tell my cousin merely — Marian lives, 
 Is found, and finds her home with such a friend, 
 Myself, Aurora. Which good news, ' She's found,* 
 Will help to make him merry in his love : 
 I send it, tell him, for my marriage gift. 
 As good as orange-water for the nerves, 
 Or perfumed gloves for headaches, — though aware 
 That he, except of love, is scarcely sick : 
 I mean the new love this time, . . since last year. 
 Such quick forgetting on the part of men ! 
 Is any shrewder trick upon the cards 
 To enrich them 1 pray instruct me how 't is done. 
 First, clubs, — and while you look at clubs, 't is spades; 
 That's prodigy. The lightning strikes a man. 
 And when we think to find him dead and charred . . 
 Why, there he is on a sudden, playing pipes 
 Beneath the splintered elm-tree ! Crime and shame 
 And all their hoggery trample your smooth world, 
 Nor leave more foot-marks than Apollo's kine. 
 Whose hoofs were muffled by the thieving god 
 In tamarisk-leaves and myrtle. I'm so sad, 
 22* i: 
 
258 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 So weary and sad to-night, Vm somewhat sour, — 
 Forgive me. To be blue and shrew at once, 
 Exceeds all toleration except yours ; 
 But yours, I know, is infinite. Farewell. 
 To-morrow we take train for Italy. 
 Speak gently of me to your gracious wife. 
 As one, however far, shall yet be near 
 In loving wishes to your house.' 
 
 I sign. 
 And now I loose my heart upon a page, 
 This— 
 
 * Lady Waldemar, I'm very glad 
 I never liked you ; which you knew so well 
 You spared me, in your turn, to like me much. 
 Your liking surely had done worse for me 
 Than has your loathing, though the last appears 
 Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt, 
 And not afraid of judgement. Now, there's spa<je 
 Between our faces, — I stand off, as if 
 I judged a stranger's portrait and pronounced 
 Indifferently the type was good or bad : 
 What matter to me that the lines are false, 
 I ask you ? Did I ever ink my lips 
 By drawing your name through them as a friend's, 
 Or touch your hands as lovers do 1 thank God 
 I never did : and, since you're proved so vile. 
 Ay, vile, I say, — we'll show it presently, — 
 I'm not obliged to nurse my friend in you. 
 Or wash out my own blots, in counting yours. 
 Or even excuse myself to honest souls 
 Who seek to touch my lip or clasp my palm, — 
 Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first !' 
 'TIS true, by this time you may near me so 
 
AURORA LEIGH 
 
 269 
 
 That you're my cousin's wife. You've gambled deep 
 
 As Lucifer, and won the morning-star 
 
 In that case,— and the noble house of Leigh 
 
 Must henceforth with its good roof shelter you: 
 
 I cannot speak and burn you up between 
 
 Those rafters, I who am born a Leigh,— nor speak 
 
 And pierce your breast through Romney's, I who live 
 
 His friend and cousin!— so, you 're safe. You two 
 
 Must grow together like the tares an 1 wheat 
 
 Till God's great fire.— But make the best of time 
 
 ' And hide this letter ! let it speak no more 
 Than I shall, how you tricked poor Marian Erie, 
 And set her own love digging her own grave 
 Within her green hope's pretty garden-ground; 
 Ay, sent her forth wdth some one of your sort 
 To a wicked house in France,- from which she fled 
 With curses in her eyes and ears and throat, 
 Her whole soul choked with curses, — mad in short, 
 And madly scouring up and dow^n for weeks 
 
 The foreign hedgeless country, lone and lost, 
 
 So innocent, male-fiends might slink within 
 Remote hell-corners, seeing her so defiled. 
 
 * But you,— you are a woman and more bold. 
 
 To do you justice, you'd not shrink to face . . 
 
 We'll say, the unfledged life in the other room, 
 
 Which, treading down God's corn, you trod in sight 
 
 Of all the dogs, in reach of all the guns,— 
 
 Ay, Marian's babe, her poor unfathered child, 
 
 Eler yearling babe !— you'd face him when he wakes 
 
 And opens up his wonderful blue eyes : 
 
 You'd meet them and not wink perhaps, nor fear 
 
260 AU RORA LEIGH. 
 
 God's trmmpli in them and supreme levenge, 
 Wli;3n righting His creation's balance-scale 
 (You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top 
 Of most celestial innocence. For me 
 Who am not as bold, 1 own those infant eyes 
 Have set me praying. 
 
 ' While they look at heaven, 
 No need of protestation in my words 
 Against the place you've made them ! let them look ! 
 They'll do your business with the heavens, be sure • 
 I spare you common curses. 
 
 ' Ponder this. 
 If haply you're the wife of Ronmey Leigh, 
 (For. which inheritance beyond your birth 
 You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul) 
 1 charge you, be his faithful and true wife ! 
 Keep warm his hearth and clean his board, and, when 
 He speaks, be quick with your obedience ; 
 Still grind your paltry wants and low desires 
 To dust beneath his heel ; though, even thus, 
 The ground must hurt him, — it was writ of old, 
 * Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,' 
 Tlie nobler and ignobler. Ay, but you 
 Shall do your part as well as such ill things 
 Cjin do aught good. You shall not vex him, — ma^k, 
 You shall not vex him, . . jar him when he's sad 
 Or cross him when he's eager. Uij.derstand 
 To tridv him with apparent sympathies, 
 Nor let him see thee in the face too near 
 And unlearn thy sweet seeming. Pay the price 
 Of lies, by being constrained to lie on still : 
 'Tis easy for thy sort : a million more 
 VVill scarcely damn thee deeper 
 
AURORA LEIGH. Ml 
 
 ' De ing which 
 You arc very safe from Marian and myself: 
 We'll breathe as softly as the infant here, 
 And stii no dangerous embers. Fail a point, 
 And show our Romney wounded, ill-content, 
 Tormented in his home, . . we open mouth, 
 And such a noise will folloTr, the last trump's 
 Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you ; 
 You'll have no pipers aft^r : Romney will 
 (I know him) push you forth as none of his, 
 All other men declaring it well done ; 
 While w^omen, even the worst, your like, will draw 
 Their skirts back, not to brush you in the street; 
 And so I warn you. I'm . . . Aurora Leigh.' 
 
 The letter written, I felt satisfied. 
 
 The ashes, smouldering in me, were thrown out 
 
 By handfuls from me : I had writ my heart 
 
 And wept my tears, and now was cool and calm ; 
 
 And, going straightway to the neighbouring room, 
 
 I lifted up the curtains of the bed 
 
 Where Marian Erie, the babe upon her arm, 
 
 Both faces leaned together like a pair 
 
 Of folded innocences, self-coniplete. 
 
 Each smiling from the other, smiled and slept. 
 
 There seemed no sin, no shame, no w^rath, no grief 
 
 I felt she too had spoken words that night. 
 
 But softer certainly, and said to God, 
 
 Who laughs in heaven perhaps that such as 
 
 Should make ado for such as she. — ' Defiled' 
 
 I wrote ? ' defiled' I thought her ? Stoop, 
 
 Stoop lower, Aurora ! get the angels' leave 
 
 To creep in somewhere, humbly, on your knees, 
 
262 AURORA lEIGU. 
 
 Within this round of sequestration white 
 In which they have wrapt earth's foundlings, heaven^i 
 elect. 
 
 The next day we took train to Italy 
 
 And fled on southward in the roar of steam. 
 
 Tlie marriage-bells of Romney must be loud, 
 
 To sound so clear through all. I was not well ; 
 
 And truly, though the truth is like a jest, 
 
 I could not choose but fancy, half the way, 
 
 I stood alone i' the belfry, fifty bells 
 
 Of naked iron, mad with merriment, 
 
 (As one who laughs and cannot stop himself) 
 
 All clanking at me, in me, over me, 
 
 Until I shrieked a shriek 1 could not hear. 
 
 And swooned with noise, — but still, along my swoon, 
 
 Was 'ware the baffled changes backward rang, 
 
 Prepared, at each emerging sense, to beat 
 
 And crash it out with clangour. I was weak; 
 
 I struggled for the posture of my soul 
 
 In upright consciousness of place and time, 
 
 But evermore, 'twixt waking and asleep, 
 
 Slipped somehow, staggered, caught at Marian's ey 38 
 
 A moment, (it is very good for strength 
 
 To know that some one needs you to be strong) 
 
 And so recovered what I called myself, 
 
 For that time. 
 
 I just knew it when we swept 
 Above the old roofs of Dijon. Lyons dropped 
 A spark into the night, half trodden out 
 Unseen. But presently the winding Rhone 
 Washed out the moonlight large along his banks, 
 Which strained their y iel ding curves out clear and cleas 
 
AUROJIA LEIGH. ^a 
 
 To hold it, — shadow of town and castle blurred 
 Upon the hurrying river. Such an air 
 Blew thence upon the forehead, — half an air 
 And half a water, — that 1 leaned and looked ; 
 Then, turning back on Marian, smiled to mark 
 That she looked only on her child, who slept, 
 IJis face toward the moon too. 
 
 So we passed 
 The liberal open country and the close, 
 And shot through tunnels, like a lightning- wedge 
 By great Thor-hammers driven through the rock, 
 Which, quivering through the intestine blackness, 
 
 splits, 
 And lets it in at once : the train swept in 
 Athrob with effort, trembling with resolve. 
 The fierce denouncing whistle wailing on 
 And dying off smothered in the shuddering dark, 
 While we, self-awed, drew troubled breath, oppressed 
 As other Titans underneath the pile 
 And nightmare of the mountair.s. Out, at last. 
 To catch the da^^'n afloat upon the land ! 
 — Hills, slung forth broadly and gauntly everywhere, 
 Not crampt in their foundations, pushing wide 
 Rich outspreads of the vineyards and the corn, 
 (As if they entertained i' the name of France) 
 While, down their straining sides, sti eamed manifes* 
 A soil as red as Charlemagne's knightly blood. 
 To consecrate the verdure. Some one said, 
 ' Marseilles !' And lo, the city of Marseilles, 
 With all her ships behind her, and beyond, 
 The scimitar of ever-shining sea 
 For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky I 
 
«64 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 That night we spent between the purple heaven 
 And purple water: I think Marian slept; 
 But I, as a dog a-watch for his master's foot, 
 Who caniTjot sleep or eat before he hears, 
 I sate upon the deck and watched the night, 
 And listened through the stars for Italy. 
 Those marriage-bells I spoke of, sounded far, 
 As some child's go-cart in the street beneath 
 To a dying man who will not pass the day. 
 And knows it, holding by a hand he loves. 
 I too sate quiet, satisfied with death, 
 Sate silent : I could hear my own soul speak, 
 And had my friend, — for Nature comes sometimen 
 And says, ' I am ambassador for God.' 
 I felt the wind soft from the land of souls ; 
 The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight, 
 One straining past another along the shore, 
 The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts 
 Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas 
 And stare on voyagers. Peak pushing peak 
 They stood : I watched beyond that Tyrian belt 
 Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship, 
 Down all their sides the misty olive-woods 
 Dissolving in the weak congenial moon, 
 And still disclosing some brown convent-tow^er 
 That seems as if it grew from some brown rock, 
 Or many a little lighted village, dropt 
 Like a fallen star, upon so high a point, 
 You wonder what can keep it in its place 
 From sliding headlong with the waterfalls 
 Which powder all the myrtle and orange groves 
 With spray of silver. Thus my Italy 
 Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; 
 
AURORALEIGH. 201 
 
 Die Doria's long pale palace striking out, 
 
 From green hills in advance of the white town, 
 
 A marble finger dominant to ships, 
 
 Seen glimmering through the uncertain gray of dawn 
 
 And then I did not think, ' my Italy,' 
 
 I thought, ' my father !' my father's house, 
 
 Without his preselice !— Places are too much 
 
 Or else too little, for immortal man ; 
 
 Tuo little, when love's May o'ergrows the ground,- 
 
 Too much, when that luxuarant robe of green 
 
 Is rustling to our ankles in dead leaves. 
 
 'Tis only good to be or here or there. 
 
 Because we had a dream on such a stone, 
 
 Or this or that,— but, once being wholly waked. 
 
 And come back to the stone without the dream, 
 
 We trip upon't, — alas ! and hurt ourselves ; 
 
 Or else it falls on us and grinds us flat, 
 
 The heaviest grave-stone on this burying earth. 
 
 —But while I stood and mused, a quiet touch 
 
 Fell light upon my arm, and, turning round, 
 
 A pair of moistened eyes convicted mine. 
 
 * What, Marian ! is the babe astir so soon V 
 
 ' Pie sleeps,' she answered ; ' I have crept up thrice. 
 And seen you sitting, standing, still at watch. 
 I thought it did you good till now, but now' . . . 
 'But now,' I said, 'you leave the child alone.' 
 
 * And you're alone,' she answered,~and she looked 
 As if I loo were something. Sweet the help 
 
 Of one we have helped ! Thanks, Marian, for such 
 help. 
 
 I found a house at Florence on the hill 
 23 
 
S6« AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of Bellosguardo. 'Tis a tower that keeps 
 
 A. post of double-observation o'er 
 
 The valley of Arno (holding as a hand 
 
 The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole 
 
 And Mount Morello and the setting sun, 
 
 The Vallombrosan mountains opposite, 
 
 Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups 
 
 Turned red to the brim because their wine is re<L 
 
 No sun could die nor yet be born unseen 
 
 By dwellers at my villa : morn and eve 
 
 Were magnified before us in the pure 
 
 Illimitable space and pause of sky, 
 
 Intense as angels' garments blanched with God, 
 
 Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall 
 
 Of the garden, drops the mystic floating gray 
 
 Of olive-trees, (with interruptions green 
 
 From maize and vine) until 't is caught and 
 
 torn 
 Upon the abrupt black line of cypresses 
 Which signs the way to Florence. Beautiful 
 The f'ity lies along the ample vale, 
 Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street, 
 The river trailing like a silver cord >. 
 Through all, and curling loosely, both before 
 And after, over the whole stretch of land 
 Sc^^^l whitely up and down its opposite slope;? 
 With farms and villas. 
 
 Many weeks had passed, 
 No word was granted. — Last, a letter came 
 From Vincent Carrington : — ' My dear Miss Leigb 
 You've been as silent as a poet should, 
 When any other man is sure to speak. 
 [f sick, if vexed, if dumb, a silver-piece 
 
AURORA LE IGH. 261 
 
 Will split a man's tongue, — straight he speaks and 
 
 says. 
 ' Received that cheque.' But you ! . . I send you 
 
 funds 
 To Paris, and you make no sign at all. 
 Remember I'am responsible and wait 
 A sign of you, Miss Leigh. — 
 
 * Meantime your book 
 Is eloquent as if you we«-e not dumb ; 
 And common critics, ordinarily deaf 
 To such fine meanings, and, like deaf men, loth 
 To seem deaf, answering chance-wise, yes or no. 
 * It must be,' or ' it must not,' (most pronounced 
 When least convinced) pronounce for once aright : 
 You'd think they really heard, — and so they do . . 
 The burr of three or four who really hear 
 And praise your book aright : Fame's smallest trump 
 Is a great ear-trumpet for the deaf as posts, 
 No other being effective. Fear not, friend ; 
 We think here you have written a good book, 
 And you, a woman ! It was in you — yes, 
 I felt 'twas in you : yet I doubted half 
 If that od-force of German Reichenbach 
 Which still from female finger-tips burns blue, 
 Could strike out as our masculine white heats. 
 To quicken a man. Forgive me. All my heart 
 Is quick with yours since, just a fortnight since, 
 I read your book and loved it. 
 
 * Will you love 
 My wife, too 1 Here's my secret I might keep 
 A month more from you ! but I yield it up 
 Because I know you'll write the sooner for't, 
 Most women (of your height even) counting love 
 
S68 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Life's only serious business. Who's my wife 
 
 That shall be in a month ? you ask 1 nor guess ? 
 
 Remember what a pair of topaz eyes 
 
 You once detected^ turned against the wall, 
 
 That morning in my London painting-room ; 
 
 The face half-sketched, and slurred ; the eyes alona ! 
 
 But you . . you caught them up with yours, and said 
 
 ' Kate Ward's eyes, surely.' — Now, I own the truth, 
 
 I had thrown them there to keep them safe from Jove ; 
 
 They would so naughtily find out their way 
 
 To both the heads of both my Danaes, 
 
 Where just it made me mad to look at them. 
 
 Such eyes ! I could not paint or think of eyes 
 
 But those, — and so I flung them into paint 
 
 And turned them to the wall's care. Ay, but now 
 
 I've let them out, my Kate's : I've painted her, 
 
 (I'll change my style, and leave mythologies) 
 
 The whole sweet face ; it looks upon my soul 
 
 Like a face on water, to beget itself. 
 
 A half length portrait, in a hanging cloak 
 
 Like one you wore once ; 'tis a little frayed ; 
 
 I pressed too for the nude harmonious arm — 
 
 But she . . she'd have her way, and have her cloak , 
 
 She said she could be like you only so. 
 
 And would not miss the fortune. Ah, my frienc , 
 
 You'll write and say she shall not miss your love 
 
 Through meeting mine? in faith, she would nol 
 
 change : 
 She has your books by heart more than my words, 
 And quotes you up against me till I'm pushed 
 Where, three months since, her eyes were : nay, m 
 
 fact, 
 Nought satisfied her but to make me paint 
 
. AURORA LEIGH. 269 
 
 Vour last book folded in her dimpled hands 
 Instead of my brown palette, as I wished, 
 And, grant me, the presentment had been newer; 
 She'd grant me nothing : I've compounded for 
 The naming of the wedding-day next month, 
 And gladly too. 'Tis pretty, to remark 
 How women can love women of your sort, 
 And tie their hearts with love-knots to your feet, 
 Grow insolent about you against men. 
 And put us down by putting up the lip. 
 As if a man, — there are such, let us own, 
 Who write not ill, — remains a man, poor wretch, 
 
 While you ! Write weaker than Aurora Leigh, 
 
 And there'll be women who believe of you 
 (Besides my Kate) that if you walked on sand 
 You would not leave a foot-print. 
 
 ' x\re you put 
 To wonder by my marriage, like poor Leigh 1 
 ' Kate Ward !' he said. ' Kate Ward !' he said anew. 
 ' I thought . . . ' he said, and stopped, — ' I did not 
 
 think . . . ' 
 And then he dropped to silence. 
 
 ^ * Ah, he's changed 
 
 I had not seen him, you're aware, for long, 
 But went of course. I have not touched on this 
 Through all this letter, — conscious of your heart. 
 And writing lightlier for the heavy fact. 
 As clocks are voluble with lead. 
 
 'How poor, 
 To say I'm sorry. Dear Leigh, dearest Le'gh ! 
 In those old days of Shropshire, — pardon me, — 
 When he and you fought many a field of gold 
 On what you should do, or you should not do, 
 
 23* 
 
270 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Makvi bre^d or verses, (it just came to that) 
 I thought you'd one day draw a silken peace 
 Through a golden ring. I thought so. Foolishly, 
 The event proved, — for you went more opposite 
 To each other, month by month, and year by yejvr. 
 Until this happened. God knows best, we say, 
 But hoarsely. When the fever took him first, 
 Just after I had writ to you in France, 
 They tell me Lady Waldemar mixed drinks 
 And counted grains, like any salaried nurse, 
 Excepting that she wept too. Then Lord Ilowe, 
 Yon're right about Lord Howe, Lord Howe's i 
 
 trump ; 
 And yet, with sdch in his hand, a man like Leigh 
 May lose, as he does. There's an end to all, — 
 Ves, even this letter, though this second sheet 
 May find you doubtful. Write a word for Kate : 
 She reads my letters always, like a wife, 
 And if she sees her name, I'll see her smile 
 And share the luck. So, bless you, friend of two ! 
 I will not ask you what your feeling is 
 At Florence with my pictures. I can hear 
 Your heart a-flutter over the snow-hills : 
 And, just to pace the Pitti with you once, 
 I'd give a half-hour of to-morrow's walk 
 With Kate . . I think so. Vincent Carrington. 
 
 The noon was hot ; the air scorched like the sun 
 A^nd was shut out. The closed persiani threw 
 Their long-scored shadows on my villa-floor, 
 And interlined the golden atmosphere 
 Straight, still, — across the pictures on the wall 
 The statuette on the console, (of young liove 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 21\ 
 
 And Psyche made one marble by a kiss) 
 
 The low couch where I leaned, the table near, 
 
 The vase of lilies Marian pulled last night 
 
 (Each green leaf and each white leaf ruled in black 
 
 As if for writing some new text of fate) 
 
 And the open letter, rested on my knee, 
 
 But there, the lines swerved, trembled, though I sate 
 
 Untroubled . . plainly, . . reading it again 
 
 And three times. Well, he's married ; that is clear. 
 
 No wonder that he's married, nor much more 
 
 That Vincent's therefore ' sorry.' Why, of course, 
 
 The lady nursed him when he was not well, 
 
 Mixed drinks, — unless nepenthe was the drirfk 
 
 'Twas scarce worth telling. But a man in love 
 
 Will see the whole sex in his mistress' hood, 
 
 The prettier for its lining of fair rose ; 
 
 Although he catches back and says at last, 
 
 ' I'm sorry.' Sorry. Lady Waldemar 
 
 At prettiest, under the said hood, preserved 
 
 From such a light as I could hold to her face 
 
 To flare its ugly wrinkles out to shame. 
 
 Is scarce a wife for Romncy, ;is friends judge, 
 
 Aurora Leigh, or Vincent Carringtoii, 
 
 That's plain. And if he's 'conscious of my heart*.. 
 
 It may be natural, though the phrase is strong ; 
 
 (One's apt to use strong phrases, being in love) 
 
 And even that stuff of ' fields of gold,' ' gold rings,' 
 
 And what he 'thought,' poor Vincent! what ho 
 
 * thought,' 
 May never mean enough to ruflle me. 
 —Why, this room stifles. Better burn than choke i 
 Best have air, air, although it comes with fire, 
 Throw open blinds and windows to the noon 
 
272 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And take a blister on my brow instead 
 
 Of this dead weight ! best, perfectly be stunned 
 
 By those insufferable eicale, sick 
 
 And hoarse with rapture of the summer-heat, 
 
 That sing like poets, till their hearts break, . . sing 
 
 Till men say, ' It's too tedious.' 
 
 Books succeed, 
 And lives fail. Do I feel it so, at last 1 
 Kate loves a worn-out cloak for being like mine, 
 While I live self-despised for being myself. 
 And yearn toward some one else, who yearns away 
 From what he is, in his turn. Strain a step 
 For ever, yet gain no step 1 Are we such, 
 We cannot, with our admirations even. 
 Our tip-toe aspirations, touch a thing 
 That's higher than we 1 is all a dismal flat, 
 And God alone above each, — as the sun 
 O'er level lagunes, to make them shine and stink,— - 
 Laying stress upon us with immediate flame. 
 While we respond with our miasmal fog, 
 And call it mounting higher because we grow 
 More highly fatal 1 
 
 Tush, Aurora Leigh ! 
 You wear your sackcloth looped in Caesar's way, 
 And brag your failings as mankind's. Be stilL 
 There is what's higher, in this very world, 
 Than you can live, or catch at. Stand aside, 
 And look at others — instance little Kate ! 
 She'll make a perfect wife for Carrington. 
 She always has been looking round the earth 
 For something good and green to alight upon 
 And nestle into, with those soft-winged eyes 
 Subsiding now beneath his manly hand 
 
A OR OR A LEIGH. 271 
 
 Twixt trembling lids of inexpressive joy : 
 
 I will not scorn her, after all, too much, 
 
 That so much she should love me. A wise man 
 
 Can pluck a leaf, and find a lecture in't ; 
 
 And I, too, . . God has made me, — I've a heart 
 
 That's capable of worship, love, and loss ; 
 
 We say the same of Shakspeare's. I'll be meek, 
 
 And learn to reverence, even this poor myself. 
 
 The book, too — pass it. ' A good book,' says he, 
 ' And you a woman.' I had laughed at that, 
 But long since. I'm a woman, — it is true ; 
 Alas, and woe to us, when we feel it most ! 
 Then, least care have we. for the crowns and goals 
 And compliments on writing our good books. 
 
 The book has some truth in it, I believe : 
 And truth outlives paip, as the soul does life. 
 1 know we talk our Phsedons to the end 
 Through all the dismal faces that we make, 
 O'er-wrinklcd with dishonouring agony 
 From decomposing drugs. Ihave written truth, 
 And I a woman ; feebly, partially. 
 Inaptly in presentation, Romney'll add, 
 Because a woman. For the truth itself. 
 That's neither man's nor woman's, but just God*3', 
 None else has reason to be proud of truth : 
 Himself will see it sifted, disenthralled, ' 
 And kept upon the height and in the light. 
 As far as and no farther than 'tis truth ; 
 For, — now He has left off calling firmaments 
 And strata, flowers and creatures, very good, 
 Ele says it stiJI of truth, which is His own. 
 
274 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Truth, so far, in my book ; — the truth which draws 
 
 Through all things upwards; that a twofold world 
 
 Must go to a perfect cosmos. Natural things 
 
 And spiritual, — who separates those two 
 
 In art, in morals, or the social drift, 
 
 Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, 
 
 Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse. 
 
 Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, 
 
 Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide 
 
 This apple of life, and cut it through the pips, — 
 
 The perfect round which fitted Venus' hand 
 
 Has perished as utterly as if we ate 
 
 Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe, 
 
 The natural 's impossible ; — no form. 
 
 No motion ! Without sensuous, spiritual 
 
 Is inappreciable ; — no beauty or power : 
 
 And in this twofold sphere the twofold man 
 
 (And still the artist is intensely a man) 
 
 Holds firmly by the natural, to reach 
 
 Tlie spiritual beyond it, — fixes still 
 
 The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, 
 
 With eyes immortal, to the antetype 
 
 Some call the ideal, — better called the real. 
 
 And certain to be called so presently 
 
 When things shall have their names. Look long 
 
 enough 
 On any peasant's face here, coarse and lined, 
 You'll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay, 
 As perfect featured as he yearns at Rome 
 From marble pale with beauty ; then persist, 
 And, if your apprehension 's competent, 
 You'll find s(jme fairer angel at his back, 
 A.S much exceeding him as he the boor, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 27« 
 
 And pushing him with empyreal disdain 
 
 For ever out of sight. Ay, Carrington 
 
 Is glad of such a creed : an artist must, 
 
 Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone, 
 
 With just his hand, and finds it suddenly 
 
 A-piece with and conterminous to his soul. 
 
 Why else do these things move him, leaf or stone 1 
 
 The bird's not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot ; 
 
 Nor yet the horse, before a quarry a-graze : 
 
 But man, the two-fold creature, apprehends 
 
 The two-fold manner, in and outwardly. 
 
 And nothing in the world comes single to him, 
 
 A mere itself, — cup, column, or candlestick. 
 
 All patterns of what shall be in the Mount ; 
 
 The whole temporal show related royally, 
 
 And built up to eterne significance 
 
 Through the open arms of God. ' There's nothing 
 
 great 
 Nor small,* has said a poet of our day. 
 Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve 
 And not be thrown out by the matin's bell ; 
 And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small ! 
 No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee. 
 But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ; 
 No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere; 
 No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim : 
 And, — glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, — 
 In such a little tremour of the blood 
 The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul 
 Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with 
 
 heaven. 
 And every common bush afire with God ; 
 But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, 
 
a7« AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, 
 And daub their natural faces unaware 
 More and more from the first similitude. 
 
 Truth so far, in my book ! a truth which draws 
 
 From all things upward. I, Aurora, still 
 
 Have felt it hound me through the wastes of life 
 
 As Jove did lo : and, until that Hand 
 
 Shall overtake me wholly, and on my head 
 
 Lay down its large unfluctuating peace, 
 
 The feverish gad-fly pricks me up and doAvn, 
 
 It must be. Art's the witness of what 'Is 
 
 Behind this show. If this world's show were all, 
 
 Then imitation would be all in Art ; 
 
 There, Jove's hand gripes us ! — For we stand here, we, 
 
 If genuine artists, witnessing for God's 
 
 Complete, consumate, undivided work : 
 
 — That every natural flower which grows on earth, 
 
 Implies a flower upon the spiritual side, 
 
 Substantial, archetypal, all a-glow 
 
 With blossoming causes, — not so far away, 
 
 That we, whose spirit-sense is somewhat cleared, 
 
 May catch at something of the bloom and breath,— 
 
 Too vaguely apprehended, though indeed 
 
 Still apprehended, consciously or not. 
 
 And still transferred to picture, music, verse, 
 
 For thrilling audient and beholding souls 
 
 Hy signs and touches which are known to souls. 
 
 IIow known, they know not, — why, Ihey cannot fiiid, 
 
 So straight call out on genius, say, ' A man 
 
 Produced this,' — when much rather they should sajr, 
 
 * 'Tis insight, and he saw this.' 
 
 Thus is Art 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 211 
 
 Self-magnified in magnifying a truth 
 
 Which, fully recognised, would change the world 
 
 And shift its morals. If a man could feel, 
 
 Not one day, in the artist's ecstasy, 
 
 But every day, feast, fast, or working-day, 
 
 The spiritual significance burn through 
 
 The hieroglyphic of material shows, 
 
 Henceforward he would paint the globe with winga, 
 
 And reverence fish and fowl, the bull, the tree, - 
 
 And even his very body as a man, — 
 
 Which now he counts so vile, that all the towns 
 
 Make offal of their daughters for its use 
 
 On summer-nights, when God is sad in heaven 
 
 To think what goes on in his recreant world 
 
 He made quite other ; while that moon He made 
 
 To shine there, at. the first love's covenant, 
 
 Shines still, convictive as a marriage-ring 
 
 Before adulterous eyes. 
 
 How sure it is, 
 That, if we say a true word, instantly 
 We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on 
 As bread at sacrament we taste and pass 
 Nor handle for a moment, as indeed 
 We dared to set up any claim to such ! 
 And I— my poem ;— let my readers talk. 
 I'm closer to it — I can speak as well : 
 I'll say with Romney, that the book is weak, 
 The range uneven, the points of sight obscure, 
 The music interrupted. 
 
 Let as go. 
 The end of woman (or of man, I think) 
 Is not a book. Alas, the best of books 
 (s but a word in Art, which soon grows cramped, 
 24 
 
278 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Stiff, dubious-statured with the weight of years, 
 And drops an accent or digamma down 
 Some cranny of unfathomable time, 
 Beyond the critic's reaching. Art itself, 
 We've called the higher life, must feel the soul 
 Live past it. Eor more's felt than is perceived, 
 And more's perceived than can be interpreted, 
 And Love strikes higher with his lambent flame 
 Than Art can pile the faggots. 
 
 Is it so? 
 When Jove's hand meets us with composing touch, 
 And when at last we are hushed and satisfied, 
 Then lo does not call it truth, but love ? 
 Well, well ! my father was an Englishman : 
 My mother's blood in me is not so strong 
 That I should bear this stress of Tuscan noon 
 And keep my wits. The town, there, seems to seethe 
 In this Medaean boil-pot of the sun. 
 And all the patient hills are bubbling round 
 As if a prick would leave them flat. Does heaven 
 Keep far off, not to set us in a blaze 1 
 Not so, — let drag your fiery fringes, heaven, 
 And burn us up to quiet ! Ah, we know 
 Too much here, not to know what's best for peace , 
 We have too much light here, not to want more fire 
 To purify and end us. We tallc, talk, 
 Conclude upon divine philosophies. 
 And get the thanks of men for hopeful books ; 
 Whereat we take our own life up, and . . pshaw ! 
 Unless we piece it with ancther's life, 
 (A yard of silk to carry out our lawn) 
 As well suppose my little handkerchief 
 Would cover Samminiato, church and all, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 27t 
 
 If out I threw it past the cypresses, 
 As, in this ragged, narrow life of mine, 
 Contain my own conclusions. 
 
 But at least 
 We'll shut up the persiani and sit down. 
 And when my head's done aching, in the <^ool, 
 Write just a word to Kate and Carrington. 
 May joy be with them ! she has chosen well, 
 And he not ill. 
 
 I should be glad, I think. 
 Except for Romney. Had he married Kate, 
 I surely, surely, should be very glad. 
 This Florence sits upon me easily. 
 With native air and tongue. My graves are calm. 
 And do not too much hurt me. Marian's good, 
 Gentle and loving, — lets me 'hold the child. 
 Or drags him up the hills to find me flowers 
 And fill those vases ere I'm quite awake, — 
 The grandiose red tulips, which grow wild, 
 Or Dante's purple lilies, which be blew 
 To a larger bubble with his prophet breath ; 
 Or one of those tall flowering reeds that stand 
 In Arno like a sheaf of sceptres left 
 By some remote dynasty of dead gods, 
 To suck the stream for ages and get green. 
 And blossom wheresoe'r a hand divine 
 Had warmed the place with ichor. Such I find 
 At early morning laid across my bed. 
 And woke up pelted with a childish laugh 
 Which even Marian's low precipitous ' hush' 
 Had vainly interposed to put away, — 
 While I, with shut eyes, smile and motion for 
 'Hie dewy kiss that's very sure to come 
 
«80 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 From mouth and cheeks, the whole child's face at once 
 Dissolved on mine, — as if a nosegay burst 
 Its string with the weight of roses overblown, 
 A.nd dropt upon me. Surely I should be glad. 
 The little creature almost loves me now. 
 And calls my name . . * Alola,' stripping off 
 The rs like thorns, to make it smooth enough 
 To take between his dainty, milk-fed lips, 
 God love him ! I should certainly be glad, 
 Except, God help me, that I'm sorrowful. 
 Because of Romney. 
 
 Romney, Ronmey ! WeJfl, 
 This grows absurd ! — too like a tune that runs 
 r the head, and forces all things in the world, 
 Wind, rain, the creaking gnat or stuttering fly, 
 To sing itself and vex you ; — yet perhaps 
 A paltry tune you never fairly liked, 
 Some ' Pd be a butterfly,' or ' Cost I'amour :' 
 AVe're made so,-^not such tyrants to ourselves 
 But still we are slaves to nature. Some of us 
 Are turned, too, overmuch like some poor verse 
 With a trick of ritournelle : the same thing goes 
 And comes back ever. 
 
 Vincent Carrington 
 Is * sorry,' and I'm sorry ; but Ae's strong 
 To mount from sorrow to his heaven of love, 
 And when he says at moments, ' Poor, poor Leigh, 
 Who'll never call his own so true a heart. 
 So fair a face even,'— he must quickly lose 
 The pain of pity in the blush he makes 
 By his very pitying eyes. The snow, for him, 
 Has fallen in May, and finds the whole earth wann, 
 And melts at the first touch of the green grass. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 281 
 
 But Romney, — he has chosen, after all. 
 
 I think he had as excellent a sun 
 
 To see by, as most others, and perhaps 
 
 Has scarce seen really worse than some of us, 
 
 When all's said. Let him pass. I'm not too much 
 
 A woman, not to be a man for once 
 
 And bury all my Dead like Alaric, 
 
 Depositing the treasures of my soul 
 
 In this drained water-course, then letting flow 
 
 The river of life again with commerce-ships 
 
 And pleasure-barges, full of silks and songs. 
 
 Blow winds, and help us. 
 
 Ah, we mock ourselves 
 With talking of the winds ! perhaps as much 
 With other resolutions. How it weighs, 
 This hot, sick air ! and how I covet here 
 The Dead's provision on the river-couch 
 With silver curtains drawn on tinkling rnigs ! 
 Or else their rest in quiet crypts, — laid by 
 From heat and noise : — from those cicale, say, 
 And this more vexing heart-beat. 
 
 So it is : 
 We covet for the soul, the body's part, 
 To die and rot. Even so, Aurora, ends 
 Our aspiration, who bespoke our place 
 So far in the east. The occidental flats 
 Had fed us fatter, therefore 1 we have climbed 
 Where herbage ends 1 we want the beast's part noii» 
 And tire of the angel's ? — Men define a man. 
 The creature who stands fiont-ward to the stars, 
 The creature who looks inward to himself. 
 The tool-wright, laughing creature. 'Tis enough : 
 We'll say instead, the inconsequent creature, man, 
 24=^ 
 
282 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 For that's his speciality. What creature else 
 Conceives the circle, and then walks the square 1 
 Loves things proved bad, and leaves a thing proved 
 
 good ? 
 You thinly the bee makes honey half a year 
 To loathe the comb in winter and desire 
 The little ant's food rather 1 But a man — 
 Note men ! — they are but women after all. 
 As women are but Auroras ! — there are men 
 Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm, 
 Who paint for pastime, in their favourite dream, 
 Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus-flames 
 There are two, who believe in heaven, and fear : 
 There arc, who waste their souls in working out 
 Life's problem on these sands betwixt two tides, 
 Concluding, — ' Give us the oyster's part, in death.' 
 
 Alas, long-suflering and most patient God, 
 Thou need'st be surelier God to bear with us 
 Than even to have made us ! thou aspire, aspire 
 From henceforth for me ! thou who hast thyself 
 Endured this fleshhood, knowing how as a soaked 
 And sucking vesture it can drag us down 
 And choke us in the melancholy Deep, 
 Sustain me, that with thee I walk these waves, 
 Resisting ! — breathe me upward, thou in me 
 Aspiring, who art the way, the truth, the life, — 
 That no truth henceforth seem indifferent. 
 No way to truth laborious, and no life, 
 Not even this life I live, intolerable ! 
 The days went by. I took up the old days 
 With all their Tuscan pleasures worn and spoiled. 
 Like some lost book we dropt in the long grass 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 288 
 
 On such a happy summer-aflernoon 
 When last we read it with a loving friend, 
 And find in autunni when the friend is gone, 
 The grass cut short, the weather changed, too lat©> 
 And stare at, as at something wonderful 
 For sorrow, — thinking how two hands before 
 Had held up what is left to only one. 
 And how we smiled when such a vehement nail 
 Impressed the tiny dint here which presents 
 This verse in fire for ever. Tenderly 
 And mournfully I lived. I knew the birds 
 And insects, — which looked fathered by the flowers 
 And emulous of their hues : 1 recognised 
 The moths, with that great overpoise of wings 
 Which makes a mystery of them how at all 
 They can stop flying: butterflies, that bear 
 Upon their blue wings such red embers round, 
 They seem to scorch the blue air into holes 
 Each flight they take : and fire-flies, that suspire 
 In short soft lapses of transported flame 
 Across the tingling Dark, while overhead 
 The constant and inviolable stars 
 Outburn those lights-of-love : melodious owls, 
 (If music had but one note and was sad, 
 'Twould sound just so) and all the silent swirl 
 Of bats that seem to follow in the air 
 Some grand circumference of a shadowy dome 
 To which we are blind : and then the night ingalea 
 Which pluck our heart across a garden-wall 
 (When walking in the town) and carry it 
 So high into the bowery almond-trees, 
 We tremble and are afraid, and feel as if 
 The golden flood of moonlight unaware 
 
?.64 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Dissolved the pillars of the steady earth 
 
 \nd made it less substantial. And I knew 
 
 The harmless opal snakes, and large mouthed frogs 
 
 (Those noisy vaunters of their shallow sti earns) 
 
 And lizards, the green lightnings of the wall, 
 
 Which, if you sit down quiet nor sigh loud, 
 
 Will flatter you and take you for a stone, 
 
 And flash familiarly about your feet 
 
 With such prodigious eyes in such small heads ! — 
 
 I knew them, though they had somewhat dwindled 
 
 from 
 My childish imagery, — and kept in mind 
 ITow last I sat among them equally, 
 In fellowship and mateship, as a child 
 Feels equal still toward insect, beast, and bird, 
 Before the Adam in him has foregone 
 All privilege of Eden, — making friends 
 And talk, with such a bird or such a goat, 
 And buying many a two-inch-wide rush-cage 
 To let out the caged cricket on a tree. 
 Saying, ' Oh, my dear grillino, were you cramped 1 
 And are you happy with the ilex-leaves ? 
 And do you love me who have let you go ? 
 Say 1/es in singing, and I'll understand.' 
 But now the creatures all seemed farther off, 
 No longer mine, nor like me ; only there, 
 A gulph between us. I could yearn indeed, 
 Like other rich men, for a drop of dew 
 To cool this heat, — a drop of the early dew, 
 The irrecoverable child-innocence 
 (Before the heart took fire and withered life) 
 When childhood might pair equally with birds; 
 But now . . the birds were grown too proud for us? 
 
AURORA LEIGH. IM 
 
 Alas, the very sun forbids the dew. 
 
 And I, I had come back to an empty nest, 
 
 Which every bird's too wise for. How I heard 
 
 My father's step on that deserted ground, 
 
 His voice along that silence, as he told 
 
 The names of bird and insect, tree and flowei, 
 
 And all the presentations of the stars 
 
 Across Valdarno, interposing still 
 
 * My child,' ' my child.' When fathers say ' my 
 
 child,' 
 Tis easier to conceive the universe. 
 And life's transitions down the steps of law. 
 
 I rode once to the little mountain-house 
 
 As fast as if to find my father there, 
 
 But, when in sight oft, within fifty yards, ^ 
 
 I dropped my horse's bridle on his neck 
 
 And paused upon his flank. The house's front 
 
 Was cased with lingots of ripe Indian corn 
 
 In tessclated order and device 
 
 Of golden patterns : not a stone of wall 
 
 Uncovered, — not an inch of room to grow 
 
 A vine-leaf. The old porch had disappeared ; 
 
 And right in the open doorway, sate a girl 
 
 At plaiting straws, — -her black hair strained away 
 
 To a scarlet kerchief caught beneath her chin 
 
 In Tuscan fashion, — her full ebon eyes, 
 
 Which looked too heavy to bo lifi:ed so, 
 
 Still dropt and lifted toward the mulberry-tree 
 
 On which the lads were busy with their staves 
 
 In shout and laughter, stripping every bough 
 
 As bare as winter, of those summer leaves 
 
286 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 My father had not changed fur all the silk 
 In which the ugly silkworms hide themselves. 
 Enough. My horse recoiled before my heart 
 I turned the rein abruptly. Back we went 
 As fast, to Florence. 
 
 That was trial enough 
 Of graves. 1 would not visit, if 1 could, 
 My father's, or my mother's any more, 
 To see if stone-cutter or lichen beat 
 So early in the race, or throw my flowers, 
 Which could not out-smell heaven or sweeten earth. 
 They live too far above, that I should look 
 So far below to find them : let me think 
 That rather they are visiting my grave. 
 This life here, (undeveloped yet to life) 
 And that they drop upon me, now and then. 
 For token or for solace, some small weed 
 Least odorous of the growths of paradise. 
 To spare such pungent scents as kill with joy. 
 My old Assunta, too, was dead, was dead— 
 O land of all men's past ! for me alone. 
 It would not mix its tenses. I was past, 
 It seemed, like others, — only not in heaven. 
 And, many a Tuscan eve I wandered down 
 The cypress alley like a restless ghost 
 That tries its feeble ineffectual breath 
 Upon its own charred funeral-brands put out 
 Too soon, — where black and stifl* stood up the treef 
 Agahist the broad vermilion of the skies. 
 Such skies ! — all clouds abolished in a sweep 
 Of God's skirt, with a dazzle to ghosts and men, 
 As down I went, saluting on the bridge 
 The hem of such before 'twas caught away 
 
A U KOKA lkigh. 
 
 28; 
 
 h'eyond trie peaks of Lucca. Underneath, 
 
 The river, just escaping from the weight 
 
 Of that intolerable glory, ran 
 
 In acquiescent shadow murmurously : 
 
 While up beside it, streamed the festa-folk 
 
 With fellow-murmurs from their feet and fans, 
 
 And issimo and ino and sweet poise 
 
 (Jf \ owels in their pleasant scandalous talk; 
 
 Returning from the grand-duke's dairy-farm 
 
 IJefore the trees grew dangerous at eight, 
 
 (For, * trust no tree by moonlight,' Tuscans say) 
 
 To eat their ice at Donay's tenderly, — 
 
 Each lovely lady close to a cavalier 
 
 Who holds her dear fan while she feeds her smile 
 
 On meditative spoonfuls of vanille, 
 
 And listens to his hot-breathed vows of love. 
 
 Enough to thaw her cream and scorch his beard. 
 
 'Twas little matter. I could pass them by 
 
 Indifferently, not fearing to be known. 
 
 No danger of being wrecked upon a friend, 
 
 And forced to take an iceberg for an isle ! 
 
 The very English, here, must wait and learn 
 
 To hang the cobweb of their gossip out 
 
 And catch a fly. I'm happy. It's sublime, 
 
 This perfect solitude of foreign lands ! 
 
 To be, as if you had not been till then, 
 
 And were then, simply that you chose to be : 
 
 To sprmg up, not be brought forth from the ground 
 
 Like grasshoppers at Athens, and skip thrice 
 
 Before a woman makes a pounce on you 
 
 And plants you in her hair ! — possess, yourself, 
 
 A new world all alive with creatures new, 
 
 New sun, new moon, new flowers, new people — ah. 
 
288 AtJRORA LEIGH. 
 
 And be possessed by none of them ! no right 
 Jn one, to call your name, enquire your where. 
 Or what you think of Mister Someone's book, 
 Or Mister Other's marriage or decease, 
 Or how's the headache which you had last weekj 
 Or why you look so pale still, since it's gone"? 
 — Such most surprising riddance of one's life 
 Cijmes next one's death ; 't is disembodiment 
 Without the pang. I marvel, people choose 
 To stand stock-still like fakirs, till the moss 
 Grows on them and they cry out, self-admired, 
 ' How verdant and how virtuous !' Well, I'm glad 
 Or should be, if grown fbreign to myself 
 As surely as to others. 
 
 Musing so, 
 I walked the narrow unrecognishig streets. 
 Where many a palace-front peers gloomily 
 Through stony vizors iron-barred, (prepared 
 Alike, should foe or lover pass that way. 
 For guest or victim) and came wanderiiig out 
 Upon the churches with mild open doors 
 And plaintive wail of vespers, where a few, 
 Those chiefly women, sprinkled round in blots 
 Upon the dusky pavement, knelt and prayed 
 Toward the altar's silver glory. Oft a ray 
 (I liked to sit and watch) would tremble out, 
 Just touch some face more lifted, more in need, 
 Of course a woman's — while I dreamed a tale 
 To fit its fortunes. There was one who looked 
 As if the earth had suddenly grown too large 
 For such a little humpbacked thing as she ; 
 The pitiful black kerchief round her neck 
 Sole proof she had had a mother. One, again, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 289 
 
 Looked sick for love, — seemed praying some soft 
 
 saint 
 To put more virtue in the new fine scarf 
 She spent a fortnight's meals on, yesterday, 
 That cruel Gigi might return his eyes 
 From Giuliana. There was one, so old, 
 So old, to kneel grew easier than to stand, — 
 So solitary, she accepts at last 
 Our Lady for her gossip, and frets on 
 Against the sinful world which goes its rounds 
 In marrying and being married, just the same 
 ks when 'twas almost good and had the right, 
 (Her Gian alive, and she herself eighteen). 
 And yet, now even, if Madonna willed. 
 She'd win a tern in Thursday's lottery 
 'And better all things. Did she dream for nought, 
 That, boiling cabbage for the fast-day's soup. 
 It smelt like blessed entrails ? such a dream 
 For nought 1 would sweetest Mary cheat her so. 
 And lose that certain candle, straight and white 
 As any fair grand-duchess in her teens. 
 Which otherwise should flare here in a week 1 
 Benigna sis, thou beauteous Queen of heaven ! ' 
 
 1 sate there musing and imagining 
 Such utterance from such faces : poor blind soul* 
 That writhed toward heaven along the devil's trail, — 
 Who knows, I thought, but He may stretch his hand 
 And pick them up 1 'tis written in the Book 
 He heareth the young ravens when they cry ; 
 And yet they cry for carrion. — O my God, 
 And we, who make excuses for the rest. 
 Wo do it in our measure. Then J knelt, 
 25 
 
«90 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 And dropped my head upon the pavement too, 
 And prayed, since I was foolish in desiie 
 Like other creatures, craving offal-food, 
 That He would stop his ears to what 1 said, 
 And only listen to the run and beat 
 Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood — 
 
 And IheL 
 I lay, and spoke not. But He heard in heaven. 
 So many Tuscan evenings passed the same. 
 I could not lose a sunset on the bridge. 
 And would not miss a vigil in the church, 
 And liked to mingle with the out-door crowd 
 So strange and gay and ignorant of my face. 
 For men you know not, are as good as trees. 
 And only once, at the Santissima, 
 I almost chanced upon a man I knew. 
 Sir Blaise Delorme. lie saw me certainly. 
 And somewhat hurried, as he crossed himself, 
 The smoothness of the action, — then half bowed, 
 But only half, and merely to my shade, 
 I slipped so quick behind the porphyry plinth 
 And left him dubious if 'twas really I, 
 Or peradventure Satan's usual trick 
 To keep a mounting saint uncanonised. 
 But he was safe for that time, and I too ; 
 The argent angels in the altar-flare 
 Absorbed his soul next moment. The good man ! 
 In England we were scarce acquaintances. 
 That here in Florence he should keep my thought 
 Beyond the image on his eye, which came 
 And went : and yet his thought disturbed my liffe: 
 For, after that, I oftener sat at home 
 On evenings, watching how they fined themselves 
 
A U R O U A L E 1 G H , 2»l 
 
 With gradual conscience tc a perfect night, 
 Until the moon, diminished to a cuive, 
 Lay out there like a ?ickle for His hand 
 Who Cometh down at last to reap the earth. 
 At such times, ended seemed my trade of verse ; 
 I feared to jingle bells upon my robe 
 Before the four-faced silent cherubim : 
 With God so near me, could I sing of God 1 
 I did not write, nor read, nor even think, 
 But sate absorbed amid the quickening gloomt. 
 Most like some passive broken lump of salt 
 Dropt in by chance to a bowl of oenomel, 
 To spoil the drink a little and lose itself, 
 Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost 
 
EIGHTn BOOK. 
 
 /"^NE eve it happened when I sate alone, 
 Alone upon the terrace of my tower, 
 A book upon my knees, to counterfeit 
 The reading that I never read at all, 
 While Marian, in the garden down below. 
 Knelt by the fountain I could just hear thrill 
 The drowsy silence of the exhausted day, 
 And peeled a new fig from that purple heap 
 In the grass beside her, — turning out the red 
 To feed her eager child, who sucked at it 
 With vehement lips across a gap of air 
 As he stood opposite, face and curls ar flame 
 With that last sun-ray, crying, ' give me, give,' 
 And stamping with imperious baby-feet, 
 (We're all born princes) — something startled me, — 
 The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks 
 Abruptly, as if frightened at itself; 
 'Twas Marian laughed. I' saw her glance above 
 In sudden shame that I should hear her lau^h. 
 And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book, 
 And knew, the first time, 'twas Boccacio's tale, 
 The Falcon's, — of the lover who for love 
 Destroyed the best that loved him; Somo of us 
 l.>(> it still, and tlien we sit and hiwirh. n<. m!.ro. 
 
A UllOTwA LEI OU. "293 
 
 Laugh yow, sweet Marian ! you've the right to h\ugh^ 
 Siuce God himself is for you, and a child ! 
 For me there's somewhat less, — and so I sigh. 
 
 The heavens were making room to hold the night, 
 The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates 
 To let the stars out slowly (prophesied 
 Jn close-approaching advent, not discerfled), 
 While still the cue-owls from the cypresses 
 Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse 
 Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually 
 The purple and transparent shadows slow 
 Had filled up the whole valley to the brim, 
 And flooded all the city, which you saw 
 As some drowned city in some enchanted sea, 
 Cut ofl' from nature, — drawing you who gaze, 
 With passionate desire, to leap and plunge 
 And find a sea-king with a voice of waves, 
 And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks 
 You cannot kiss but you shall bring away 
 Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell 
 Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down. 
 So deep ; and fifty churches answer it 
 The same with twenty various instances. 
 Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets ; 
 llie Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire : 
 And, past the quays, Maria Novella Place, 
 hi which the mystic obelisks stand up 
 Triangular, pyramidal, each based 
 Upon its four-square brazen tortoises, 
 To guard that fhir church, Buonarroti's Bride, 
 That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes, 
 ller quadrant and armillary dials, black 
 25* . ' 
 
294 A U R O II A L E I G II . 
 
 With rhythms of many suns and moons, in vain 
 Enquiry for so rich a soul as his. 
 Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear . . . 
 Aud, oh my heart, ... the sea-king ! 
 
 In my ears 
 The sound of waters. There he stood, my king ' 
 
 I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up 
 
 I rose, as if he were my king indeed. 
 
 And then sate down, in trouble at myself, 
 
 And struggling for my woman's empery. 
 
 'Tis pitiful ; but women are so made : 
 
 We'll die for you perhaps, — 'tis probable ; 
 
 But we'll not spare you an inch of our full height ; 
 
 We'll have our whole just stature, — five feet four. 
 
 Though laid out in our coffins : pitiful ! 
 
 — ' You, Romney ! Lady Waldemar is here V 
 
 lie answered in a voice which was not his 
 
 ' I have her letter ; you shall read it soon. 
 
 But first, I must be heard a little, I, 
 
 Who have waited long and travelled far for that, 
 
 Although you thought to have shut a tedious book 
 
 And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page, 
 
 And here you find me.' 
 
 Did he touch my hand. 
 Or but my sleeve? I tpembled, hand and foot, — 
 lie must have touched me. — ' Will you sit?' I asked 
 And motioned to a chair ; but down he sate, 
 A little slowly, as a man in doubt. 
 Upon the couch beside me,— couch and chair 
 Being whiicled upon the terrace. 
 
AURORA LEI Oil. 295 
 
 ' You arc comw, 
 My cousin Roinnoy'? — this is wonderful. 
 But all is wonder- on such summer-nights; 
 And nothing should surprise us any more, 
 Who see that miracle of stars. Behold * 
 
 I signed above, where all the stars were out, 
 As if an urgent heat had started there 
 A secret writing from a sombre page, 
 A blank last moment, crowded suddenly 
 With hurrying splendours. 
 
 ' Then you do not know' — 
 He murmured. 
 
 ' Yes, I know,' I said, ' I know. 
 I had the news from Vincent Carrington. 
 And yet I did not think you'd leave the work 
 In England, for so much even, — though of course 
 You'll make a work-day of your holiday, 
 And turn it to our Tuscan people's use, — 
 Who much need helping since the Austrian boar 
 (So bold to cross the Alp to Lorabardy 
 And dash his brute front unabashed against 
 The steep snow-bosses of that shield of God 
 Who soon shall rise in wrath and shake it clear,) 
 Came hither also,-^raking up our grape 
 And olive-gardens with his tyrannous tusk, 
 And rolling on our maize with all his swine.* 
 
 You had the news from Vincent Carrington,* 
 lie echoed, — picking up the phrase beyond, 
 As if he knew the rest was merely talk 
 To fill a gap and keep out a strong wind, — 
 'You had, then, Vincent's personal news?* 
 
2»6 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 ' His own, 
 
 I answered. * All that ruined world of yours 
 Seems crumbling into marriage. C&rrington 
 Has chosen wisely.' 
 
 ' Do you take it so V 
 lie cried, ' and is it possible at last' . . 
 He paused there, — and then, inward to himself, 
 ' Too much at last, too late ! — yet certainly' . . 
 (And there his voice swayed as an Alpine plank 
 1'hat feels a passionate torrent underneath) 
 ' The knowledge, had I known it first or last, 
 Had never changed the actual case for me. 
 And best for her at this time.' 
 
 Nay, I thought 
 He loves Kate Ward, it seems, now, like a man. 
 Because he has married Lady Waldemar, 
 Ah, Vincent's letter said how Leigh was moved 
 To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate. 
 With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells 
 In this world ! Then I spoke, — ' I did not think, 
 My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward.' 
 
 In fact I never knew her. 'Tis enough 
 That Vincent did, and therefore chose his wife 
 For other reasons than those topaz eyes 
 I've heard of Not to undervalue them, 
 I'or all that. One takes up the world with eyes.' 
 
 — Including Romney Leigh, I thought again, 
 Albeit he knows them only by repute. 
 How vile must all men be, since he''s a man. 
 
 His deep pathetic voice, as if he guessed 
 
AUR Oil A LEIGH. 2W 
 
 I did not surely love him, took the word ; 
 ' You never got a letter from Lord Howe 
 A month back, dear Aurora V 
 
 * None,* I said. 
 
 * I felt it was so,' he replied : ' Yet, strange ! 
 
 Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence? 
 
 'Ay, 
 By chance I saw him in Our Lady's church, 
 (I saw him, mark you, but he saw not me) 
 CI can- washed in holy water from the count 
 Of things terrestrial, — letters and the rest ; 
 lie had crossed us out together with his sins. 
 Ay, strange ; but only strange that good Lord Ilowe 
 Preferred him to the post because of pauls. 
 For me I'm sworn never to trust a man — 
 At least with letters.' 
 
 There were facts to tell, 
 To smooth with eye and accent. Howe supposed , . 
 Well, well, no matter ! there was dubious need ; 
 You heard the news from Vincent Carrington. 
 And yet perhaps you had been startled less 
 To see me, dear Aurora, if you had read 
 That letter.' 
 
 — Now he sets me down as vexed. 
 I think I've draped myself in woman's pride 
 To a perfect purpose. Oh, I'm vexed, it seems ! 
 My friend Lord Howe deputes his friend S/r 
 
 Blaise 
 To break as softly as a spai row's egg 
 That lets a bird out tenderly, the news 
 
298 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of Romncy's marriage to a certain saint ; 
 To smooth with eye and accent^ — indicate 
 His possible presence. Excellently well 
 You've played your part, my Lady Waldemar,— 
 As I've played mine. 
 
 ' Dear Romney,' I began, 
 ' You di.d not use, of old, to be so like 
 A Greei^ king coming from a taken Troy, 
 'Twas needful that precursors spread your path 
 With three-piled carpets, to receive your foot 
 And dull the sound oft. For myself, be sure, 
 Although it frankly grinds the gravel here, 
 I still can bear it. Yet I'm sorry too 
 To lose this famous letter, which Sir Blaise 
 lias twisted to a lighter absently 
 To fire some holy taper : dear Lord Ilowe 
 Writes letters good for all things but to lose ; 
 And many a flower of London gossipry 
 IFas dropt wherever such a stem broke off. 
 Of course I feci that, lonely among my vines, 
 Where nothing's talked of, save the blight again. 
 And no more Chianti ! Still the letter's use 
 
 As preparation Did I start indeed % 
 
 Last night I started at a cockchafer. 
 
 And shook a half-hour after. Have you learnt 
 
 No more of women, 'spite of privilege, 
 
 Tlian still to take account too seriously 
 
 Of such weak flutterings? Why, wo like it, sir, 
 
 We get oui powers and our effects that way. 
 
 ITio trees stand stiff and still at time of frost. 
 
 If no wind tears them ; but, let summer come. 
 
 When trees are happy, — and a breath avails 
 
 To set them trembling through a million leaves 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 299 
 
 111 luxury of emotion. Something less 
 It takes to move a woman : let her start 
 And shake at pleasure, — nor conclude at yours, 
 The winter's bitter,— but the summer's green.' 
 
 lie answered, * Be the summer ever green 
 
 With you, Aurora !— though you sweep your sex 
 
 With somewhat bitter gusts from where you live 
 
 Above them,— whirling downward from your heights 
 
 Your very own pine-cones, in a grand disdain 
 
 (Jf the lowland burrs with which you scatter them. 
 
 So high and cold to others and yourself, 
 
 A little less to Romney were unjust, 
 
 And thus, J would not have you. Let it pass ; 
 
 I feel content so. You can bear indeed 
 
 My sudden step beside you : but for me, 
 
 Twould move me sore to hear your softened voice,— 
 
 Aurora's voice, — if softened unaware 
 
 in pity of what 1 ani.' 
 
 Ah friend, I thought, 
 As husband of the Lady Waldemar 
 You're granted very sorely pitiable! 
 And yet Aurora Leigh must guard her voice 
 From softening in the pity of your case. 
 As if from lie or licence. Certainly 
 We'll soak up all the slush and soil of life 
 With softened voices, ere we come to yoii. 
 
 At which I interrupted my own thought 
 And spoke out calmly. ' Let us ponder, friend, 
 Whate'er our state we must have made it first ; 
 And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps 
 Displease us warrantably, never doubt 
 
»00 AURORA LEIGU. 
 
 That other states, thought possible once, and then 
 
 Rejected by the instinct of our lives, 
 
 If ^Jien adopted had displeased us more 
 
 Than this in which the choice, the will, the love, 
 
 Has stamped the honour of a patent act 
 
 From henceforth. What we choose may not be 
 
 good ; 
 But, that we choose it, proves it good for us 
 Potentially, fantastically, now 
 Or last year, rather than a thing we saw, 
 And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn 
 Their wings, — which proves that light b good for 
 
 moths. 
 Or else they had flown not where they agonise,' 
 
 * Ay, light is good,' he echoed, and there paused. 
 And then abruptly, . . ' Marian. Marian's well V 
 
 1 bowed my head but found no word. Twas hard 
 
 To speak of her to Lady Waldcmar's 
 
 New husband. ITow much did he know, at last 1 
 
 How much 1 how little 1 He would take no sign, 
 
 But straight repeated, — * Marian. Is she well V 
 
 She's well ' I answered. 
 
 She was there in sight 
 An hour back, but the night had drawn her home ; 
 Where still I heard her in an upper room, 
 Her low voice singing to the child in bed, 
 Who restless with the summer-heat and play 
 And slumber snatched at noon, was long sometimes 
 At falling off, and took a score of songs 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 80) 
 
 And mothcr-hushob ere she saw him sound. 
 
 She's well,' I answered. 
 
 Here V ho asked. 
 
 ' Yes, here.' 
 
 lie stopped and sighed. 'That shall be presently, 
 IJut now this must be. I have words to say, 
 And would be alone to say them, I with you. 
 And no third troubling.' 
 
 * Speak then,' I returned, 
 ' She will not vex you.' 
 
 At which, suddenly 
 He turned his face upon me with its smile. 
 As if to crush me. ' I have read your book, 
 Aurora.' 
 
 * You have read it,' I replied, 
 ' And I have writ it, — we have done with it. 
 And now the rest V 
 
 * The rest is like the first, 
 rie answered, — * for the book is in my heart, 
 Lives in me, wakes in me, and dreams in me • 
 My daily bread tastes of it, — and my wine 
 Which has no smack of it, I pour it out ; 
 It seems unnatural drinking.' 
 
 Bitterly 
 I took the word up ; ' Never waste your winft 
 The book lived in me ere it lived in you ; 
 I know it closer than another does, 
 And how it 's foolish, feeble, and afraid, 
 
802 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And all unworthy so much compliment. 
 
 Beseech you, keep your whie, — and, when you drink, 
 
 Still wish some happier fbrtune to a friend, 
 
 Than even to have written a far better book/ 
 
 He answered gently, * That is consequent : 
 
 The poet looks beyond the book he has made, 
 
 Or else he had not made it. If a man 
 
 Could make a man, he'd henceforth be a god 
 
 In feeling what a little thing is man : 
 
 It is not my case. And this special book, 
 
 1 did not make it, to make light of it : 
 
 It stands above my knowledge, draws me up ; 
 
 Tis high to me. It may be that the book 
 
 Is not so high, but I so low, instead ; 
 
 Still high to me, I mean no compliment : 
 
 I will not say there are not, young or old, 
 
 Male writers, ay, or female, — let it pass, 
 
 Who'll write us richer and completer books. 
 
 A man may love a woman perfectly. 
 
 And yet by no means ignorantly maintain 
 
 A thousand women have not larger eyes : 
 
 Enough that she alone has looked at him 
 
 With eyes that, large or small, have won his souL 
 
 And so, this book, Aurora, — so, your book/ 
 
 ' Alas,' I answered, ' is it so, indeed V 
 And then was silent. 
 
 * Is it so, indeed,' 
 He echoed, ' that ahs is all your word V 
 
 I said, — ' I'm thinking of a far-oflf Jubk^ 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 808 
 
 When you and I, upon my birthday once, 
 Discoursed of life and art, with both untried. 
 I'm thinking, Romney, how 'twas morning then, 
 And now 'tis night.' 
 
 * And now,' he said, ' 'tis night.' 
 
 ' I'm thinking,' I resumed, ' 'tis somewhat sad 
 That if 1 had known, that morning in the dew, 
 My cousin Romney would have said such words 
 On such a night at close of many years, 
 In speaking of a future book of mine. 
 It would have pleased me better as a hope, 
 Than as an actual grace it can at all. 
 That's sad, I'm thinking.' 
 
 * Ay,' he said, ' 'tis night.* 
 
 * And there,' I added lightly, ' are the stars I 
 And here, we'll talk of stars and not of books.' 
 
 ' You have the stars,' he murmured, — ' it is well : 
 Be like them ! shine, Aurora, on my dark. 
 Though high and cold and only like a star, 
 And for this short night only, — ^you, who keep 
 llie same Aurora of the bright June day 
 That withered up the flowers before my face, 
 And turned me from the garden evermore 
 Uecausc I was not worthy. Oh, deserved? 
 Deserved ! That I, who verily had not learnt 
 (Tod's lesson half, attaining as a dunce 
 To obliterate good words with fractious thumbs 
 And cheat myself of the context, — /should push 
 Aside, with male ferocious impudence, 
 
804 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 The world's Aurora who had conned her part 
 
 On the other side the leaf! ignore her so, 
 
 Because she was a woman and a queen, 
 
 And had uo beard to bristle through her song, 
 
 My teacher, who has taught me with a book, 
 
 My Miriam, whose sweet mouth, when nearly 
 
 drowned 
 I still heard singing on the shore ! Deserved, 
 That here I should look up unto the stars 
 And miss the glory' . . 
 
 ' Can I understand V . 
 1 broke in. ' You speak wildly, Romney Leigh, 
 Or I hear wildly. In that morning-time 
 We recollect, the roses were too red, 
 The trees too green, reproach too natural 
 If one should see not what the other saw: 
 And now, it's night, remember ; we have shades 
 In place of colours ; we are now grown cold. 
 And old, my cousin Romney. Pardon me, — 
 I'm very happy that you like my book. 
 And very sorry that I quoted back 
 A ten years' birthday ; 'twas so mad a thing 
 In any woman, I scarce marvel much 
 You took it for a venturous piece of spite, 
 Provoking such excuses as indeed 
 I cannot call you slack in.' 
 
 ' Understand,' 
 lie answered sadly, ' something, if but so. 
 This night is softer than an English day. 
 And men may well come hither when they're sick, 
 To draw in easier breath from larger air. 
 'Tis thus with me; I've come to you, — to you. 
 My Ital^ of women, just to breathe 
 
A U 11 OK A LEIGH. 806 
 
 My soul out once before you, ere I go, 
 
 As humble as God makes me at the la.st 
 
 (I thank Him) quite out of the way of men 
 
 And yours, Aurora, — like a punished child. 
 
 His cheeks all blurred with tears and naughtiness, 
 
 To silence in a corner. I am come 
 
 To speak, beloved' . . 
 
 ' Wisely, cousin Leigh, 
 And worthily of us both !' 
 
 * Yes, worthily ; 
 For this time I must speak out and confess 
 That I, so truculent in assumption once, 
 So absolute in dogma, proud in aim. 
 And fierce in expectation, — I, who felt 
 The whole world tugging at my skirts for help, 
 As if no other man than I, could pull, 
 Nor woman, but I led her by the hand, 
 Nor cloth hold, but I had it in my coat, 
 Do know myself to-night for what I was 
 On that June-day, Aurora. Poor bright day, 
 Which meant the best . . a woman and a rose, 
 And which I smote upon the cheek with words 
 Until it turned and rent me ! Young you were. 
 That birthday, poet, but you talked the right : 
 While I, . . I built up follies like a wall 
 To intercept the sunshine and your face. 
 Your face ! that 's worse.' 
 
 Speak wisely, cousin Leigh. 
 
 'Yes, wisely, dear Aurora, though too late : 
 But then, not wisely. I was heavy then, 
 And stupid, and distracted with the cries 
 Of tortured prisoners in the polished brass 
 26* 
 
306 A UUORA LEIGH. 
 
 ( )f that Piiiilarian bull, society, 
 
 Which seems to bellow bravely like ten bulls, 
 
 I'nt, if you listen, moans and cries instead 
 
 Despairingly, like victims tossed and gored 
 
 And trampled by their hoofs. 1 heard the cries 
 
 Too close : 1 could not hear the angels lift 
 
 A fold of rustling air, nor what they said 
 
 To help my pity. 1 beheld the world 
 
 As one great famishing carnivorous mouth, — 
 
 A huge, deserted, callow, blind, bird Thing, 
 
 With piteous open beak that hurt my heart, 
 
 I'ill down upon the filthy ground I dropped, 
 
 And tore the violets up to get the worms. 
 
 Worms, worms, was all my cry : an open mouth, 
 
 A gross want, bread to fill it to the lips, 
 
 No more ! That poor men narrowed their demands 
 
 To such an end, was virtue, I supposed, 
 
 Adjudicating that to see it so 
 
 Was reason. Oh, 1 did not push the case 
 
 Up higher, and ponder how it answers when 
 
 The rich take up the same cry for themselves, 
 
 Professing equally, — ' an open mouth 
 
 A gross need, food to fill us, and no more.' 
 
 Why that 's so far from virtue, only vice 
 
 Can find excuse for 't ! That makes libertines : 
 
 And slurs our cruel streets from end to end 
 
 With eighty thousand women in one smile, 
 
 Who only smile at night beneath the gns : 
 
 The body's satisfaction and no more, 
 
 Is used for argument against the soul's, 
 
 Here too; the want, here too, implies the rirl.t. 
 
 —How dark I stood that morning in the sun. 
 
 My best Aurora, though I saw your eyes, — 
 
AUROUA LEIGH. 801 
 
 When first you told me . . oh, 1 recollect 
 
 The sounds, and how you Jiftcd yonr small hand, 
 
 And how your white dress and your burnished curls 
 
 Went greiitening round you in the still blue air, 
 
 As if an inspiration from within 
 
 Had blown them all out when you spoke the words, 
 
 Even these, — * You will not compass your poor ends 
 
 * Of barley-feeding and material ease, 
 
 * Without the poet's individualism 
 
 ' To work your universal. It takes a soul, 
 
 * To move a body, — it takes a high-souled man, 
 
 * To move the masses . . even to a cleaner stye : 
 
 * It takes the ideal, to blow an inch inside 
 
 * The dust of the actual : and your Fouriers failed; 
 
 * Because not poets enough- to understand 
 ' That life develops from within.' I say 
 
 Your words, — I could say other words of yours • 
 
 For none of all your words will let me go ; 
 
 Like sweet verbena which, being brushed against, 
 
 Will hold us three hours after by the smell 
 
 In spite of long walks upon windy hills. 
 
 But these words dealt in sharper perfume,— these 
 
 Were ever on me, stinging through my dreams, 
 
 And saying themselves for ever o'er my acts 
 
 Like some unhappy verdict. That I failed, 
 
 Is certain. Stye or no stye, to contrive 
 
 The swine's propulsion toward the precipice, 
 
 Proved easy and plain. I subtly organised 
 
 And ordered, built the cards up high and liiglicr, 
 
 Till, some one breathing, all fell flat again ! 
 
 In setting right society's wide wrong. 
 
 Mere life 's so fatal ! So I failed indeed 
 
 Once, twice, and oflener, — hearing through the renta 
 
808 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Of obstinate purpose, still those words of yours, 
 * You will not compass your poor ends, not you P 
 But harder than you said them ; every time 
 Still farther from your voice, until they came 
 To overcrow me with triumphant scorn 
 Which vexed me to resistance. Set down this 
 For condemnation, — I was guilty here : 
 I stood upon my deed and fought my doubt^ 
 As men will,— for I doubted, — till at last 
 My deed gave way beneath me suddenly 
 And left me what I am. The curtain dropped, 
 My part quite ended, all the footlights quenched, 
 My own soul hissing at me through the dark, 
 I, ready for confession, — I was wrong, 
 I've sorely failed, I've slipped the ends of life, 
 I yield, you have conquered.' 
 
 * Stay,' I answered him j 
 ' I've something for your hearing, also. I 
 Have failed too.' 
 
 * You !' he said, ' you're very greatj 
 The sadness of your greatness fits you well ; 
 As if the plume upon a hero's casque 
 Should nod a shadow upon his victor face.' 
 
 I took him up austerely, — * You have read 
 My book, but not my heart ; for recollect, 
 'Tis writ in Sanscrit which you bungle at. 
 I've surely failed, I know, if failure means 
 To look back sadly on work gladly done, — 
 To wander on my mountains of Delight, 
 So called, (I can remember a friend's words 
 As well as you, sir,) weary and in want 
 Of even a sheep-path, thinking bitterly . , 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 809 
 
 Well, well ! no matter. I but say so much. 
 
 To keep you, Romney Leigh, from saying more, 
 
 And let you feel I am not so high indeed, 
 
 That I can bear to have you at my foot, — 
 
 Or safe, that I can help you. That June^ay, 
 
 Too deeply sunk in craterous sunsets now 
 
 For you or me to dig it up alive ; 
 
 To pluck it out all bleeding with spent flame 
 
 At the roots, before those moralising stars 
 
 We have got instead,— that poor lost day, you said 
 
 Some words as truthful as the thing of mine 
 
 You cared to keep in memory : and I hold 
 
 If I, that day, and, being the girl I was, 
 
 Had shown a gentler spirit, less arrogance, 
 
 It had not liurt me. You will scarce mistake 
 
 The point here. 1 but only think, you see,^ 
 
 More justly, that's more humbly, of myself, 
 
 Than when 1 tried a crown on and supposed . . . 
 
 Nay, laugh, sir,— I'll laugh with you!— pray you, 
 
 laugh. 
 I've had so many birthdays since that day, 
 I've learnt to prize mirth's opportunities, 
 Which come too seldom. Was it you who said 
 I was not changed 1 the same Aurora 1 Ah, , 
 We could laugh there, too ! Why, Ulysses' dog 
 Knew him, and wagged his tail and died : but if 
 I had owned a dog, I too, before my Troy, 
 And, if you brought him here, . . I warrant you 
 He'd look into my face, bark lustily. 
 And live on stoutly, as the creatures will 
 Whose spirits are not troubled by long loves. 
 A dog would never know me, I'm so changed, 
 Much less a friend . . except that you're misled 
 
810 AUaORA LEIGH. 
 
 By the colour of the hair, the trick of the voice, 
 Like that Aurora Leigh's/ . 
 
 ' Sweet trick of ' «ice 
 I would be a dog for this, to know it at last, 
 And die upon the falls of it. O love, 
 
 best Aurora ! are you then so sad, 
 
 You scarcely had been sadder as my wife V 
 
 * Your wife, sir ! I must certainly be changed 
 If I, Aurora, e^n have said a thing 
 So light, it catches at the knightly spurs 
 Of a noble gentleman like Romncy Leigh, 
 And trips him from his honourable sense 
 Of what befits' . . 
 
 ' You wholly misconceive,* 
 lie answered. 
 
 I returned, — ' I'm glad of it : 
 But keep from misconception, too, yourself: 
 
 1 am not humbled to so low a point, 
 Pfer so far saddened. If I am sad at all, 
 Teh layers of birthdays on a woman's head 
 Are apt to fossilise her girlish* mirth, 
 
 Though ne'er so merry : I'm perforce more wise 
 And that, in truth, means sadder. For the rest, 
 Look here, sir : I was right upon the whole 
 That birthday morning. 'Tis impossible 
 To get at men excepting through their souls, 
 However open their carnivorous jaws ; 
 And poets get directlier at the soul. 
 Than any of your oeconomists : — for which 
 You must not overlook the poet's work 
 When scheming for the world's necessities. 
 Tlie soul 's the way. Not even Christ Himself 
 
AUIIORA LElQll. 311 
 
 Can save man else than as lie holds man's soul ; 
 
 And therefore did lie come into our flesh, 
 
 As some wise hunter creeping on his knees 
 
 With a torch, into the blackness of a cave. 
 
 To face and quell the beast there,— take the soul, 
 
 And so possess the whole man, body and soul. 
 
 I said, so far, right, yes; not farther, though : 
 
 We both were wrong that June-day,— both as wrong 
 
 As an east wind had been. I who talked of art. 
 
 And you who grieved for all men's griefs . . . what 
 
 then '? 
 We surely made too small a partfor God 
 m these things. . What we are, imports us more 
 Than what we eat ; and life, you've granted me. 
 Develops from within. But innermost 
 Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, 
 God claims his own, Divine humanity 
 Renewing nature,— or the piercingest verse, 
 Prest in by subtlest poet, still must keep 
 As much upon the outside of a man 
 As the very bowl in which he dips his beard. 
 —And then, . . the rest ; I cannot surely speak 
 Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, 
 If I, the poet's veritable charge. 
 Have borne upon my forehead. If I have 
 It might feel somewhat liker to a crown. 
 The foolish green one even.-r-Ah, I think, 
 And chiefly when the sun shines, that I've failed 
 But what then, Romney '? Though we fail inde» i, 
 You . . 1 . . a score of such weak workers, . . Bi 
 Fails never. If He cannot work by us, 
 lie will woik over us. Docs lie want a man. 
 Much less a woman, think youl Every time 
 
gl2 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 Tho star winks there, so many souls are born, 
 Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm : 
 We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars, 
 Impatient that we're nothing.' 
 
 * Could we sit 
 Just so for ever, sweetest friend,' he said, 
 * My failure would seem better than success. 
 And yet indeed your book has dealt with me 
 More gently, cousin, than you ever will ! 
 The book brought down entire the bright June-day, 
 And set me wandering in the garden-walks, 
 And let me watch the garland in a place, 
 You blushed so . . nay, forgive me; do not stir: 
 I only thank the book for what it taught, 
 And what, permitted. Poet, doubt yourself, 
 But never doubt that you're a poet to me 
 From henceforth. You have written poems, sweet, 
 Which moved me in secret, as the sap is moved 
 In still March-branches, signless as a stone : 
 But this last book o'ercame me like soft rain 
 Which fulls at midnight, when the tightened barl ' 
 Breaks out into unhesitating buds 
 And sudden protestations of the spring. 
 In all your other books, I saw but you : 
 A man may see the moon so, in a pond, 
 , And not the nearer therefore to the moon. 
 Nor use the sight . . except to drown himself; 
 And so I forced my heart back from the sight, 
 For what had 7, I thought, to do with Aer, 
 Aurora . . Romney % But, in this last bool?. 
 You showed me something separate from yourse)fJ 
 Beyond you, and 1 bore to take it in. 
 And lot it draw me. You have sho^vn me truths. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 818 
 
 O Juno-day friend, that help me new at night 
 When Juno is over ! truths not yours, indeed, 
 But set within my reach by means of you, 
 Presented by your voice and verse the way 
 To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong ; 
 And verily many thinkers of this age, 
 Ay, many Qiristian teachers, half in heaven. 
 Are wrong in just my sense who understood 
 Our natural world too insularly, as if 
 No spiritual counterpart completed it 
 Consummating its meaning, rounding all 
 To justice and perfection, line by line. 
 Form by form, nothing single nor alone, 
 ITie great below clenched by the great above, 
 Shade here authenticating substance there, 
 The body proving spirit, as the effect 
 The cause : we meantime being too grossly apt 
 To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, 
 (Though reason and nature beat us in the face) 
 So obstinately, that we'll break our teeth 
 Or ever we let go. For everywhere 
 WcVe too materialistic, — eating clay 
 (Like men of the west) instead of Adam's corn 
 And Noah's wine ; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, 
 Until we're filled up to the throat with clay, 
 And grow the grimy colour of the ground 
 On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist 
 The age's name is. God himself, with some, 
 Is apprehended as the bare result 
 Of what his hand materially has made, 
 Expressed in such an algebraic sign 
 Called God ; — that is, to put it otherwise, 
 They add up nature to a naught of God 
 27 
 
814 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And cross the quotient. There are many even, 
 
 Whose names are written in the Christian church 
 
 To no dishonour, — diet still on mud, 
 
 And splash the altars with it. You might think 
 
 The clay, Christ laid upon their eyelids when, 
 
 Still blind, he called them to the use of sight, 
 
 Remained there to retard its exercise 
 
 With clogging incrustations. Close to heaven, 
 
 They see, for mysteries, through the open doors. 
 
 Vague puffs of smoke fVom pots of earthenware ; 
 
 And fain would enter, when their time shall come. 
 
 With quite another body than St. Paul 
 
 Has promised, — husk and chaff, the whole barley 
 
 corn, 
 Or where's the resurrection V 
 
 'ITiusitis,* 
 I sighed. And he resumed with mournful face. 
 ' Beginning so, and filling up with clay 
 The wards of this great key, the natural world, 
 And fumbling vainly therefore at the lock 
 Of the spiritual, — we feel ourselves shut in 
 With all the wild-beast roar of struggling life. 
 The terrors and compunctions of ouj* souls, 
 'As saints with lions, — we who are not saints, 
 And have no heavenly lordship in our stare 
 To awe them backward ! Ay, we are forced, so pent, 
 To judge the whole too partially, . . confound 
 Conclusions. Is there any common phrase 
 Significant, with the adverb heard alone. 
 The verb being absent, and the pronoun out? 
 But we, distracted in the roar of life. 
 Still insolently at God's adverb snatch, 
 And bruit rgainst Ilim that his thought is void. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 81S 
 
 His meaning h(>peless, — cry, that evorywhero 
 The government is slipping from his hand, 
 Unless »2me other Christ . . say liomney Leigh . . 
 Come up, and toil and moil, and change the world. 
 Because the First has proved inadequate, 
 However we talk bigly of His work 
 And piously of His person. We blasphenw) 
 At last, to fmish our doxology, 
 Despairing on the earth for which He died.' 
 
 * So nov/, I asked, ' you have more hope of men V 
 
 * I hope,' he answered : ' I am come to think 
 That God will have his work done, as you said, 
 And that we need not be disti|rbed too much 
 For Romney Leigh or others having failed 
 With this or that quack nostrum, — recipes 
 Fur keeping summits by annulling depths. 
 For wrestling with luxurious lounging sleeves. 
 And acting heroism without a scratch. 
 
 We fail, — what, then ? Aurora, if I smiled 
 
 To see you, in your lovely morning-pride. 
 
 Try on the poet's wreath which suits the noon, 
 
 (Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain 
 
 Before they grow the ivy !) certainly 
 
 1 stood myself there worthier of contempt, 
 
 Self-rated, in disastrous arrogance, 
 
 As competent to sorrow for mankind 
 
 And even their odds. A man may well despair, 
 
 Who counts himself so needful to success. 
 
 I fliiled. I throw the remedy back on God, 
 
 And sit down here beside you, in good hope.' 
 
316 AUROKA LEIGH. 
 
 ' And yet, take heed,' 1 answered, ' lest we le«n 
 
 Too dangerously on the other side, 
 
 And so fall twice. Be sure, no earnest work 
 
 Of any honest cre:iture, howbeit weak, 
 
 Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much, 
 
 It is not gathered as a grain of sand 
 
 To enlarge the sum of human action used 
 
 For carrying out God's end. No creature works 
 
 So ill, observe, that therefore he's cashiered.. 
 
 The honest earnest man must stand and work, 
 
 Tiie woman also ; otherwise she drops 
 
 At once below the dignity of man, 
 
 Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work. 
 
 Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.' 
 
 lie cried, 'True. After Adam, work was curse; 
 
 The natural creature labours, sweats and frets. 
 
 But, after Christ, work turns to privilege, 
 
 And henceforth one with our humanity. 
 
 The Six-day Worker, working still in us, 
 
 lias called us freely to work on with Ilim 
 
 In high companionship. So, happiest ! 
 
 I count that Heaven itself is only work 
 
 To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed. 
 
 But no more work as Adam . . nor as Leigh 
 
 Erewhile, as if the only man on earth. 
 
 Responsible for all the thistles blown 
 
 And tigers couchant, — struggling in amaze 
 
 Against disease and winter, — snarling on 
 
 For ever, that the world 's not paradise. 
 
 Oh cousin, let us be content, in work. 
 
 To do the thing we can, and not presume 
 
 To fret because it 'a little. 'Twill employ 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 817 
 
 Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin : 
 Who makes the head, content to miss the point, 
 Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join ; 
 And if a man should cry, 'I want a pin, 
 ' And I must make it straightway, head and point,' 
 His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. 
 Seven men to a pin, — and not a man too much ! 
 Seven generations, haply, to this world, 
 To right it visibly a finger's breadth. 
 And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm 
 And say, ' This world here is intolerable ; 
 'I will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine, 
 ' Nor love this woman, flinging her my soul 
 * Without a bond ft)r 't as a lover should, 
 ' Nor use the generous leave of happiness 
 ' As not too good for using generously' — 
 (Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy, 
 Like a man's cheek laid on a woman's hand, 
 And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns 
 
 From joys) to stand and claim to have a life 
 
 Beyond the bounds of the individual man. 
 And raze all personal cloisters of the soul 
 To build up public stores and magazines, 
 As if God's creatures otherwise were lost, 
 The builder surely saved by any means ! 
 To think, — I have a pattern on my nail. 
 And I will carve the world new after it. 
 And solve so, these hard social questions, — ^nay, 
 Impossible social questions, — since their roots 
 Strike deep in Evil's own existence here, 
 Which God permits because the question 's hard 
 To abolish evil nor attaint free-will. 
 \y, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh ! 
 27 ^ 
 
818 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 For Romiiey has a pattern on his nail, 
 (Whatever may be lacking on the Mount) 
 And not being overnice to separate 
 What's element from M'hat's convention, hastei 
 By line on line to draw you out a world, 
 \Vithout your help indeed, unless you take 
 His yoke upon you and will learn of him, 
 So much he has to teach ! so good a world ! 
 The same, the whole creation *s groaning for ? 
 No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint. 
 No potage in it able to exclude 
 A brother's birthright, and no right of birth, 
 The. potage, — both secured to every man. 
 And perfect virtue dealt* out like the rest 
 Gratuitously, with the soup at six, 
 To whoso does not seek it.' 
 
 ' Softly, sir,' 
 1 interrupted, — ' I had a cousin once 
 I held in reverence. If he strained too wide. 
 It was not to take honour but give help ; 
 The gesture was heroic. If his hand 
 Accomplished nothing . . (well, it is not proved) 
 That empty hand thi*own impotently out 
 Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven, 
 Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in 
 And keeps the scythe's glow on it. Pray you, iken, 
 For my sake merely, use less bitterness 
 f Q speaking of my cousin.' 
 
 * Ah,' he said, 
 * A urora ! when the prophet beats the ass, 
 llie angel intercedes.' He shook his head — 
 'And yet to mean so well and fail so foul, 
 Expresses ne'er another beast than man ; 
 
AURORA LEIGH. tW 
 
 The antithesis is humari. Harken, dear ; 
 
 There 's too much abstract willing, purposing, 
 
 In this poor world. We talk by aggregates, 
 
 And think by systems ; and, being used to faoe 
 
 Our evils in statistics,^ are inclined 
 
 To cap them with unreal remedies 
 
 Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate.* 
 
 ' That's true,' I answered, fain to throw up thought 
 And make a game oft, — yes, we generalise 
 Enough to please you. If we pray at all. 
 We pray no longer for our daily bread, 
 But next centenary's harvests. If we give, 
 Our cup of water is not tendered till 
 We lay do\vn pipes and found a Company 
 With Branches. Ass or angel, 'tis the same : 
 A woman cannot do the thing she ought, 
 Which means whatever perfect thing she can. 
 In life, in art, in science, but she fears 
 To let the perfect action take her part 
 And rest there : she must prove what she can do 
 Before she does it, — prate of woman's rights, 
 Of woman's mission, woman's function, till 
 The men (who are prating too on their side) cry, 
 * A woman's function plainly is . . to talk.' 
 Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed ; 
 They cannot hear each other speak.' 
 
 *And you, 
 An artist, judge so V 
 
 ' I, an artist, — yes,. 
 Because, precisely, I'm an artist, sir. 
 And woman, — if another sate in sight, 
 I'd whisper, — Soft, my sister ! not a word ! 
 
820 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 By speaking we prove only we can speak : 
 
 Which he, the man here, never doubted. What 
 
 He doubts is whether we can do the thing 
 
 With decent grace we've not yet done at all. 
 
 Now, do it ; bring your statue, — you have room ! 
 
 He'll see it even by the starlight here ; 
 
 And if 'tis e'er so little like the god 
 
 Who looks out from the marble silently 
 
 Along the track of his own shining dart 
 
 Through the dusk of ages, — there's no need to speak ; 
 
 The universe shall henceforth speak for you, 
 
 And witness, ' She who did this thing, was born 
 
 To do it, — claims her license in her work.' 
 
 — And so with more works. Whoso cures the 
 
 plague. 
 Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech ; 
 Who rights a land's finances, is excused 
 For touching coppers, though her hands be white,— 
 But we, we talk !' 
 
 * It is the age's mood,' 
 He said ; ' we boast, and do not. We put up 
 Hostelry signs where'er we lodge a day, 
 Some red colossal cow with mighty paps 
 A Cyclops' fingers could not strain to milk ; 
 Then bring out presently our saucer-fiiil 
 Of curds. We want more quiet in our works, 
 More knowledge of the bounds in which we work ; 
 More knowledge that each individual man 
 Remains an Adam to the general race. 
 Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep 
 His personal state's condition honestly, 
 Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world, 
 Which still must be developed from its one 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 821 
 
 ff bettered in its many. We indeed, 
 
 Who think to lay it out new like a park, 
 
 We take a work on us which is not man's, 
 
 For God alone sits far enough above 
 
 To speculate so largely. None of us 
 
 (Not Roraney Leigh) is mad enough to say, 
 
 We'll have a grove of oaks upon that slope 
 
 And sink the need of acorns. Government, 
 
 If veritable and lawful, is not given 
 
 By imposition of the foreign hand, 
 
 Nor chosen from a pretty pattern-book 
 
 Of some domestic ideal ogue who sits 
 
 And coldly chooses empire, where as well 
 
 He might republic. Genuine government 
 
 Is but the expression of a nation, good 
 
 Or less good, — even as all society, 
 
 Howe'er unequal, monstrous, crazed, and cursed, 
 
 Is but the expression of men's single lives, 
 
 The loud sum of the silent units. What, 
 
 We'd change the aggregate and yet retain 
 
 Each separate figure 1 Whom do we cheat by that t 
 
 Now, not even Romney.' 
 
 ' Cousin, you are sad. 
 Did all your social labour at Leigh Hall 
 And elsewhere, come to nought then V 
 
 'Itwas nojgfc*, 
 He answered mildly. * There is room indeed 
 For statues still, in this large world of God's, 
 But not for vacuums, — so I am not sad : 
 Not sadder than is good for what I am. 
 My vain phalanstery dissolved itself; 
 My men and women of disordered lives, 
 I brought in orderly to dine and sleep, 
 
922 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear, 
 
 With fierce contortions of the natural face ; 
 
 And cursed me for my tyrannous constraint 
 
 In forcing crooked creatures to live straight ; 
 
 And set the country hounds upon my back 
 
 To bite and tear me for my wicked deed 
 
 Of trying to do good without the church 
 
 Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind 
 
 Your ancient neighbours'? The great book-club 
 
 teems 
 With ' sketches,' ' summaries,' and * last tracts' liil 
 
 twelve, 
 On socialistic troublers of close bonds 
 Betwixt the generous rich and grateful poor. 
 The vicar preached from ' Revelations,' (till 
 The doctor woke) and found me with ' the frogs' 
 On three successive Sundays ; ay, and stopped 
 To weep a little (for he's getting old) 
 That such perdition should o'ertake a man 
 Of such fair acres, — in the parish, too ! 
 He printed his discourses ' by request,' 
 And if your book shall sell as his did, then 
 Your verses are less good than I suppose. 
 The women of the neighbourhood subscribed. 
 And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk. 
 Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh : 
 I Dwn that touched me.' 
 
 * What, the pretty ones 1 
 Poor Romney !' 
 
 * Otherwise the effect was small. 
 I had my windows broken once or twice 
 By liberal peasants naturally incensed 
 At such a vexer of Arcadian peace, 
 
AUR ORA LEIGH. 821 
 
 Who would not let men call their wives their own 
 
 To kick like Britons, — and made obstacles 
 
 When things went smoothly as a baby drugged, 
 
 Toward freedom and starvation ; bringing down 
 
 The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs 
 
 To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves 
 
 With mended morals, quotha, — fine new lives ! — 
 
 My windows paid for't. I was shot at, once, 
 
 By an active poacher who had hit a hare 
 
 From the other barrel,(tiredof springeing game 
 
 So long upon my aores, undisturbed. 
 
 And restless for the country's virtue,— yet 
 
 lie missed me) — ay, and pelted very oft 
 
 In riding through the village. ' There he goes 
 
 ' Who'd drive away our Christian gentlefolks, 
 
 ' To catch us undefended in the trap 
 
 " Tie baits with poisonous cheese, and lock us up 
 
 ' ki that pernicious prison of Leigh Hall 
 
 ' With all his innnlei'ers ! Give another name 
 
 'And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.* 
 
 And so they did at last, Aurora.' 
 
 ' Did V , 
 
 * You never heard it, cousin ] Vincent's news 
 Came stinted, then.' 
 
 * They did 1 they burnt Leigh rjali 1 
 
 ' You're sorry, dear Aurora? Yes indeed, 
 They did it perfectly : a thorough work. 
 And not a failure, this time. Let us grant 
 *Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house 
 Than build a system : — yet that's easy, too, 
 [n a dream. Books, pictures, — ay, the pictures ! what 
 
824 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 You thinit your dear Vaudykes would give them 
 
 pause 1 
 Our proud ancestral Leighs with those peaked beards, 
 Or bosoms white as foam thrown up en rocks 
 From the old-spent wave. Such calm defiant looks 
 They flared up with ! now nevermore to twit 
 The bones in the family-vault with ugly death. 
 Not one was rescued, save the Lady Maud, 
 Who threw you down, that morning you were born, 
 The undeniable lineal mouth and chin 
 To wear for ever for her gracious sake ; 
 For which good deed I saved her : the rest went : 
 And you, you're sorry, cousin. Well, for me, 
 With all my phalansterians safely out, 
 (Poor hearts, they helped the burners, it was said, 
 And certainly a few clapped hands and yelled) 
 The ruin did not hurt me as it might, — 
 As when for instance I was hurt one day 
 A certain letter being destroyed. In fact. 
 To see the great house flare so . . oaken floors. 
 Our fathers made so fine with rushes once 
 F3efore our mothers furbished them with trains, 
 Carved wainscoats, panelled walls, the favourite slide 
 For draining off* a martyr, (or a rogue) 
 The echoing galleries, half a half-mile long. 
 And all the various stairs that took you up 
 And took you down, and took you round about 
 Upon their slippery darkness, recollect. 
 All helping to keep up one blazing jest ; 
 The flames through all the casements pushing forth 
 Like red-hot devils crinkled into snakes. 
 All signifying, — ' Look you, Romney Leigh, 
 We save the people from your saving, here, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. S24 
 
 ' Yet so as by fire ! wo make a pretty show 
 
 • Besides, — and that's the best you've ever done.' 
 — To see this, almost moved myself to clap ! 
 The ' vale et plaude' came too with effect 
 When, in the roof fell, and the fire that paused^ 
 Stunned momently beneath the stroke of slates 
 And tumbling rafters, rose at once and roared, 
 And wrapping the whole house, (which disappeared 
 In a mounting whiriwind of dilated flame,) 
 
 Blew upward, straight, its drift of fiery chaff 
 In the face of heaven, . . which blenched, and ran up 
 higher.' 
 
 * Poor Romney !' 
 
 ' Sometimes when I dream,' he said, 
 ' I hear the silence after, 'twas so still. 
 For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round, 
 Were suddenly silent, while you counted five, 
 So silent, that you heard a young bird fall 
 From the top-nest in the neighbouring rookeiy, 
 Through edging over-raslily toward the light. 
 The old rooks had already fled too far. 
 To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw 
 Some flying still, like scatterings of dead leaves 
 In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky : 
 All flying, — ousted, like the house of Leigh. 
 
 Dear Romney ! 
 
 ' Evidently 'twould have been 
 A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you. 
 To make the verse blaze after. I myself, 
 Even I, felt something in the grand old trees, 
 Wh'ch stood that moment like brute Druid god» 
 28 
 
826 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where, 
 
 As into a blackened socket, the great fire 
 
 Had dropped, — still throwing up splinters now said 
 
 then 
 To show them grey with all their centuries, 
 Left there to witness that on such a day 
 The House went out.' 
 
 'Ah!' 
 
 ' While you counted five 
 I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh, — 
 But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried, 
 And I had enough to think of what to do 
 With all those houseless wretches in the dark, 
 And ponder where they'd dance the next time, they 
 Who had burnt the viol.' 
 
 *-Did you think of that] 
 Who burns his viol will not dance, I know, 
 lo cymbals, Romney.' 
 
 ' O my sweet sad voice, 
 He cried, — ' O voice that speaks and overcomes ! 
 The sun is silent, but Aurora speaks.' 
 
 ' Alas,' I said ; * I speak I know not what : 
 I'm back in childhood, thinking as a child, 
 A foolish fancy — will it make you smile 1 
 I shall not from the window of my room 
 Catch sight of those old chimneys any more.' 
 
 * No more,' he answered. ' If you pushed one day 
 Through all the green hills to our fathers' house, 
 You'd come upon a great charred circle where 
 The patient earth was singed an acre round ; 
 With one stone-stair, symbolic of my life, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. S«7 
 
 Ascending, wniding, leading up to nought ! 
 Tis worth a poet's seeing. Will you go V 
 
 I made no answer. Had I any right 
 
 To weep with this man, that I dared to speak ! 
 
 A woman stood between his soul and mine, 
 
 And waved us off from touching evermore 
 
 With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough. 
 
 We had burnt our viols and were silent. 
 
 So, 
 The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke, 
 To breathe: 'I think you were ill afterward.' 
 
 ' More ill/ he answered, * had been scarcely ill. 
 
 I hoped this feeble fumbling at life's knot 
 
 Might end concisely, — but I failed to die, 
 
 As formerly 1 failed to live, — and thus 
 
 Grew willing, having tried all other ways, 
 
 To try just God's. Humility 's so good, 
 
 When pride 's impossible. Mark us, how we make 
 
 Our virtues, cousin, from our worn-out sins. 
 
 Which smack of them froni henceforth. Is it right, 
 
 For instance, to wed here while you love there ? 
 
 And yet because a man sins once, the sin 
 
 Cleaves to him, in necessity to sin, 
 
 That if he sin not so, to damn himself. 
 
 He sins so, to damn others with himself: 
 
 And thus, to wed here, loving there, becomes 
 
 A duty. Virtue buds a dubious leaf 
 
 Round mortal brows ; your ivy 's better, dear. 
 
 — Yet she, 'tis certain, is my very wife, 
 
 The very lamb left mangled by the wolves 
 
 Through my own bad shepherding : and could I choose 
 
828 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 But take her on my shoulder past this stretch 
 
 Of rough, uneasy wilderness, poor lamb, 
 
 Poor child, poor child ? — Aurora, my beloved, 
 
 I will not vex you any more to-night, 
 
 But, having spoken what I came to say, 
 
 The rest shall please you. What she can, in me,— 
 
 Protection, tender liking, freedom, ease. 
 
 She shall have surely, liberally, for her 
 
 And hers, Aurora. Small amends they'll make 
 
 For hideous evils wliich she had not known 
 
 Except by me, and for this imminent loss. 
 
 This forfeit presence of a gracious friend, 
 
 Which also she must forfeit for my sake. 
 
 Since, .... drop your hand in mine a moment sweet, 
 
 We're parting ! Ah, my snowdrop, what a touch. 
 
 As if the wind had swept it off ! you grudge > 
 
 Your gelid sweetness on my palm but so, 
 
 A moment % angry, that I could not bear 
 
 You . . speaking, breathing, living, side by side 
 
 With some one called my wife . . and live, myself? 
 
 Nay, be not cruel — you must understand ! 
 
 Your lightest footfall on a floor of mine 
 
 Would shake the house, my lintel being uncrossed 
 
 'Gainst angels : henceforth it is night with me, 
 
 And so, henceforth, I put the shutters up : 
 
 Auroras must not come to spoil my dark.' 
 
 He smiled so feebly, with an empty hand 
 Stretched sideway from me, — as indeed he looked 
 To any one but me to give him help, — 
 And, while the moon came suddenly out full, 
 The double rose of our Italian moons, 
 Sufficient plainly for the heaven and earth. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 829 
 
 (The stars, struck dumb and washed away in dew» 
 
 Of golden glory, and the mountains steeped 
 
 In divine languor) he, the man, appeared 
 
 So pale and patient, like the marble man 
 
 A sculptor puts his personal sadness in 
 
 To join his grandeur of ideal thought, — 
 
 As if his mallet struck me from my height 
 
 Of passionate indignation, I who had risen 
 
 Pale, — doubting, paused, .... Was Romney mad 
 
 indeed 1 
 Had all this wrong of heart made sick the brain ? 
 
 Then quiet, with a sort of tremulous pride, 
 'Go, cousin,' I said coldly ; * a flirewell 
 Was sooner spoken 'twixt a pair of friends 
 In those old days, than seems to suit you now. 
 Howbeit, since then, I've writ a book or two, 
 I'm somewhat dull still in the manly art 
 Of phrase and metaphrase. Why, any man 
 Can carve a score of white Loves out of snow. 
 As Buonarroti in my Florence there, 
 And set them on the wall in some safe shade, 
 As safe, sir, as your marriage ! very good ; 
 Though if a woman took one from the ledge 
 To put it on the table by her flowers. 
 And let it mind her of a certain friend, 
 'Twould drop at once, (so better,) would not Deal 
 Her nail-mark even, where she took it up 
 A little tenderly ; so best, I say : 
 For me, I would not touch the fragile thing. 
 And risk to spoil it half an hour before 
 The sun shall shine to melt it : leave it there. 
 Tin plain at speech, direct in purpose : when 
 28* 
 
8S0 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I speak, you'll take the meaning as it is, 
 
 And not allow for puckerings in the silk 
 
 By clever stitches. I'm a woman, sir, 
 
 And use the woman's figures naturally, 
 
 As }ou the male license. So, I wish you welt 
 
 j'ni simply sorry for the griefs you've had 
 
 And not for your sake only, but mankind's. 
 
 This race is never grateful : from the first, 
 
 One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, 
 
 Which back they give at cross-tim^ on a sponge, 
 
 In vinegar and gall.' 
 
 ' If gratefuUer,' 
 He murmured, — ' by so much less pitiable ! 
 God's self would never have come down to die, 
 Could man have thanked him for it.' 
 
 ' Happily 
 *Tis patent that, whatever,' I resumed, 
 ' You suffered from this thanklessness of men, 
 You sink no more than Moses' bulrush-boat 
 When once relieved of Moses ; for you're light, 
 You're light, my cousin ! which is well for you. 
 And manly. For. myself, — now mark me, sir, 
 They burnt Leigh Hall ; but if, consummated 
 To devils, heightened beyond Lucifers, 
 They had burnt instead a star or two of those 
 We saw above there just a moment back. 
 Before the moon abolished them, — destroyed 
 And riddled them in ashes through a sieve 
 On the head of the foundering universe, — what tbeul 
 If you and 1 remained still you and I, 
 It could not shift our places as mere friends, 
 Nor render decent you should toss a phrase 
 BayoiA the point of actual feelhig ! — nay, 
 
AURORA X.EIGH. 8S1 
 
 fou shall not interrupt me : as you said, 
 
 We're parting. Certainly, not once or twice 
 
 To-night you've mocked me somewhat, or yourself, 
 
 And I, at least, have not deserved it so 
 
 That I should meet it unsurprised. But now. 
 
 Enough : we're parting . . parting. Q usin Leigh, 
 
 I wish you well through all the acts of life 
 
 And life's relations, wedlock not the least, 
 
 And it shall ' please me,' in your words, to know 
 
 You yield your wife, protection, freedom, ease, 
 
 And very tender liking. May you live 
 
 So happy with her, Romney, that your friends 
 
 May praise her for it. Meantime some of us 
 
 Are wholly dull in keeping ignorant 
 
 Of what she has suffered by yon, and what debt 
 
 Of sorrow your rich love sits down to pay : 
 
 But if 'tis sweet for love to pay its debt, 
 
 'Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift, 
 
 And you, be liberal in the sweeter way. 
 
 You can, I think. At least, as touches me. 
 
 You owe her, cousin Romney, no amends. 
 
 She i&not used to hold my gown so fast. 
 
 You need entreat her now to let it go : 
 
 The lady never was a friend of mine. 
 
 Nor capable, — I thought you knew as much,—. 
 
 Of losing for your sake so poor a pi!ze 
 
 As such a worthless friendship. Be content, 
 
 Good cousin, therefore, both for her and you ! 
 
 I'll never spoil your dark, nor dull your noon. 
 
 Nor vex you when you're merry, or at rest : 
 
 You shall not need to put a shutter up 
 
 To keep out this Aurora, — though your nortli 
 
 Can make Auroras which vex nobody, 
 
332 AURORA LEIGII. 
 
 Scarce known from night, 1 fancied ! let me add, 
 My larks fly higher than some windows. Well, 
 You've read your Leighs. Indeed 'twould shake a 
 
 house, 
 If such as I came in with outstretched hand 
 Still warm and thrilling from the clasp of one . . 
 Of one we know, . . to acknowledge, palm to palm, 
 As mistress there . . the Lady Waldemar.' 
 
 ' Now God be with us' . . with a sudden clash 
 Of voice he interrupted — ' what name's that 1 
 You spoke a name, Aurora.' 
 
 * Pardon me ; 
 I would that, Romney, I could name your wife 
 Nor wound you, yet be worthy.' 
 
 ' Are we mad V 
 He echoed — ' wife ! mine ! Lady Waldemar ! 
 I think you said my wife.' He sprang to his feet, 
 And threw his noble head back toward the moon 
 As one who swims against a stormy sea, 
 And laughed with such a helpless, hopeless scorn, 
 I stood and trembled. 
 
 ' May God judge me so,* 
 He said at last, — ' I came convicted here, 
 And humbled sorely if not enough. I came. 
 Because this woman from her crystal soul 
 Had shown me something which a man calls light : 
 Because too, formerly, I sinned by her 
 As then and ever since I have, by God, 
 Through arrogance of nature, — though I loved . . 
 Whom best, I need not say, . . smce that is writ 
 Too plainly in the book of my misdeeds : 
 And thus I came here to abase myself, 
 
AURORA LEIi. H. 881 
 
 And fasten, kneeling, on her regent brows 
 
 A garland which I startled thence one daj 
 
 Of her beautiful June-youth. But here again 
 
 I'm baffled ! — fail in my abasement as 
 
 ^y aggrandisement : there's no room left for me 
 
 At any woman's foot who misconceives 
 
 My nature, purpose, possible actions. What ! 
 
 Are you the Aurora who made large my dreams 
 
 To frame your greatness? you conceive so small 1 
 
 You stand so less than woman, through being more, 
 
 And lose your natural instinct, like a beast, 
 
 Through intellectual culture 1 since indeed 
 
 1 do not think that any common she 
 
 Would dare adopt such nstrous forgeries 
 
 For the legible life-signature of such 
 
 As 1, with all my blots : with all my blots ! 
 
 At last then, peerless cousin, we are peers — 
 
 At last we're even. Ah, you've left your height, 
 
 And here upon my level we take hands, 
 
 And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet, 
 
 And that's a fall, Aurora. Long ago 
 
 You seldom understood me, — but before, 
 
 i could not blame you. Then, you only seemed 
 
 So high above, you could not see below ; 
 
 But now I breathe, — but now I pardon ! — nay. 
 
 We're parting. Dearest, men have burnt my house,. 
 
 Maligned my motives, — but not one, I swear, 
 
 Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has. 
 
 Who called the Lady Walderaar my wife.' 
 
 * Not married to her ! yet you said' . . 
 
 ' Again 1 
 
 * Nay, read the lines' (he held a letter out) 
 
«84 A U K R A L E I G H 
 
 • She sent you through me.' 
 
 By the moonlight iherfk 
 I tore the meaning out vdth passionate haste 
 Mufih rather than I read it. Thus it ran. 
 
NINTH BOOK, 
 
 C^VEN thus. 1 pause to write it out at length, 
 The letter of the Lady Waldemar. 
 
 * I prayed your cousin Leigh to take you this, 
 He says he'll do it. After years^ of love, 
 Or what is called so, — when a woman frets 
 And fools upon one string of a man's name, 
 And fingers it for ever till it breaks, — 
 He may perhaps do for her such thing, 
 And she accept it without detriment 
 Although she should not love him any more. 
 And 1, who do not love him, nor love you, 
 Nor you, Aurora, — choose you shall repent 
 Your most ungracious letter and confess, 
 Constrained by his convictions, (he's convinced) 
 You've wronged me foully. Are you made so ill, 
 You woman — to impute such ill to me ? 
 We both had mothers, — lay in their bosom once. 
 P^ r,<], after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh, 
 For proving to myself that there are things 
 I would not do, . . not for my life . . nor him . . 
 Though something I have somewhat overdone,— 
 For instance, when I went to see the gods 
 One morning on Olympus, with a step 
 
886 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 That shook the thunder from a certain cloud, 
 
 Committmg myself vilely. Could 1 think, 
 
 The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breast 
 
 To soften, had herself a sort of heart, 
 
 And loved my mortal 1 He, at least loved her, 
 
 I heard him say so ; 'twas my rferiompence, 
 
 When, watching at his bedside fourteen days, 
 
 He broke out ever like a flame at whiles 
 
 Between the heats of fever . . . ' Is it thou 1 
 
 ' Breathe closer, sweetest mouth !' and when at last 
 
 The fever gone, the wasted face extinct 
 
 As if it irked him much to know me there. 
 
 He said, ' 'Twas kind, 'twas good, 'twas womanly,* 
 
 (And fifty praises to excuse no love) 
 
 ' But was the picture safe he had ventured for V 
 
 And then, half wandering . . ' I have loved her well, 
 
 * Although she could not love me.' — ' Say instead,' 
 I answered, * she does love you.'— 'Twas my turn 
 To rave : I would have married him so changed, 
 Although the world had jeered me properly • 
 For taking up with Cupid at his worst, 
 
 The silver quiver worn off on his hair. 
 
 * No, no,' he murmured, ' no, she loves me not ; 
 
 * Aurora Leigh does better : bring her book 
 ' And read it softly. Lady Waldemar, 
 
 * Until I thank your friendship more for that 
 
 * Than even for harder service.' So I read 
 Your book, Aurora, for an hour that day : 
 I kept its pauses, marked its emphasis ; 
 
 My voice, empaled upon its hooks of riij me, 
 Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt ; 
 I read on calmly, — calmly shut it up. 
 Observing, ' There's some merit in the book ; 
 
A URORA LEIGH. 881 
 
 * And yet the merit in 't is thrown away 
 *As chances still with women if we write 
 
 * Or write not : we want string to tie our flowers, 
 ' So drop them as we walk, which serves to show 
 
 ' The way we went. Good morning, Mister Leigh i 
 ' You '11 find another reader the next time. 
 
 * A woman who does better than to love, 
 
 * I hate ; she will do nothing very well : 
 
 ' Male poets are preferable, straining less 
 
 ' And teaching more.' I triumphed o'er you both, 
 
 And left him. 
 
 ' When I saw him a-fterward, 
 I had read your shameful letter, and my heart. 
 He came with health recover.ed, strong though pala, 
 Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends. 
 To say what men dare say to women, when 
 Their debtors. But I stopped them with a word. 
 And proved I had never trodden such a road 
 To carry so much dirt upon my shoe. 
 Then, putting into it something of disdain, 
 I asked forsooth his pardon, and my own. 
 For having done no better than to love, 
 And that not wisely, — though 'twas long ago, 
 And had been mended radically since. 
 1 told him, as I tell you now Miss Leigh, 
 And proved I took some trouble for his sake 
 (Because I knew he did not love the girl) 
 To spoil my hands with working in the stream 
 Of that poor bubbling nature, — till she went. 
 Consigned to one I trusted, my own maid, 
 Who once had lived full five months in my housei, 
 (Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purse 
 I'o carry to Australia where she had left 
 
 29 I 
 
888 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 A husband, said she. If the creature lied, 
 
 The mission failed, we all do fail and lie 
 
 More or less — and I 'm sorry — which is all 
 
 Expected from us when we fail the most 
 
 And go to church to own it. What I meant, 
 
 Was just the best for him, and me, and her . . 
 
 Best even for Marian ! — I am sorry for 't, 
 
 And very sorry. Yet my creature said 
 
 She saw her stop to speak in Oxford Street 
 
 To one . . no matter ! I had sooner cut 
 
 My hand off (though 'twere kissed the hour before, 
 
 And promised a duke's trotli-ring for the next) 
 
 Than crush her silly head with so much wrong. 
 
 Poor child ! I would have mended it with gold, 
 
 Until it gleamed like St. Sophia's dome 
 
 When all the fiithful troop to morning prayer : 
 
 But he, he nipped the bud of such a thought 
 
 With that cold Leigh look which I fimcied once. 
 
 And broke in, ' Henceforth she was called his wife. 
 
 * His wife required no succour : he was bound 
 
 * To Florence, to resume this broken bond : 
 
 * Enough so. Both were happy, he and Howe, 
 
 * To acquit me of the heaviest charge of all — ' 
 — At which I shut my tongue against my fly 
 And struck him ; * Would he carry, — he was just, 
 
 * A letter from me to Aurora Leigh, 
 
 ' And ratify from his authentic mouth 
 ' My answer to her accusation?' — ' 'Yes, 
 ' If such a letter were prepared in time.' 
 — He's just, your cousin, — ay, abhorrently. 
 He'd wash his hands in blood, to keep them clean. 
 And so, cold, courteous, a mere gentleman, 
 He bowed, we parted. 
 
AURORA LEIGH $89 
 
 ' Parted. Face no more. 
 
 Voice no more, love no more ! wiped wholly out 
 Like some ill scholar's scrawl from heart and slate, — 
 Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterly 
 By some coarse scholar ! I have been too coarse, 
 Too human. Have we business, in our rank. 
 With blood i' the veins'? I will have henceforth 
 
 none, 
 Not even to keep the color at my lip. 
 A rose is pink and pretty without blood; 
 Why not a woman ? When we've played in vain 
 The game, to adore, — we have resources still, 
 And can play on at leisure, being adored : 
 Here's Smith already swearing at my feet 
 That I'm the typic She. Away with Smith ! — 
 Smith smacks of Leigh, — and, henceforth I'll admit 
 No socialist within three crinolines, 
 To live and have his being. But for you, 
 Though insolent your letter and absurd. 
 And though I hate you frankly, — take my Smith ! 
 For when you have seen this famous marriage tied, 
 A most unspotted Erie to a noble Leigh, 
 (His love astray on one he should not love) 
 Howbeit you may not want his love, beware, 
 You'll want some comfort. So I leave you Smith ; 
 Take Smith ! — he talks Leigh's subjects, somewhat 
 
 worse ; 
 Adopts a thought of Leigh's, anj dwindles it; 
 Goes leagues beyond, to be no inch behind ; 
 Will mind you of him, as a shoe-string may 
 Of a man : and women, when they are made like you, 
 Grow tender to a shoe-string, foot-print even, 
 Adore averted shoulders in a glass, 
 
840 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And memories of what, present once, was loathecL 
 And yet, you loathed not Romney, — though you 
 
 played 
 At ' fox and goose' about him with your soul : 
 Pass over fox, you rub out fox, — ignore 
 A feeling, you eradicate it, — the act's 
 Identical. 
 
 I wish you joy. Miss Leigh, 
 You've made a happy marriage for your friend, 
 And all the honour, well-assorted love, 
 Derives from you who love him, whom he loves I 
 You need not wish me joy to think of it, 
 I have so much. Observe, Aurora Leigh ^ 
 Your droop of eyelid is the same as his. 
 And, but for you, I might have won his love, 
 And, to you, I have shown my naked heart, — 
 For which three things I hate, hate, hate you. Hush, 
 Suppose a fourth ! — I cannot choose but think 
 That, with him, I were virtuouser than you 
 Without him : so I hate you from this gulf 
 And hollow of my soul, which opens out 
 To what, except for you, had been my heaven, 
 And is instead, a place to curse by ! Love.* 
 
 An active kind of curse. I stood there cursed 
 Confounded. 1 had seized and caught the sense 
 Of the letter with its twenty stinging snakes, 
 Li a moment's sweep of eyesight, and I stood 
 'Dazed. — ' Ah ! — not married ? ' 
 
 ' You mistake,' he said 
 ' I'm married. Is not Marian Erie my wife 1 
 As God sees things, I have a wife and child ; 
 And I, as I'm a man who honours God, 
 
AORORA LEIGH. 341 
 
 Am here to claim them as my child and wife.* 
 
 I fblt It hard to breathe, much less to speak. 
 Nor word of mine was needed. Some one else 
 Was there for answering. ' Romney,' she began, 
 ' My great good angel, Romney.' 
 
 Then at first, 
 I knew that Marian Erie was beautiful. 
 She stood there, still and pallid as a saint, 
 Dilated, like a saint in ecstacy, 
 As if the floating moonshine iaterposed 
 Betwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her up 
 To float upon it. ' I had left my child. 
 Who sleeps,' she said, ' and having drawn this way 
 I heard you speaking, . . friend ! — Confirm me now. 
 You take this Marian, such as wicked men 
 Have made her, for your honourable wife V 
 
 llie thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice. 
 He stretched his arms out toward the thrilling voice- 
 As if to draw it on to his embrace. 
 — ' I take her as God made her, and as men 
 Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.' 
 
 She never raised her eyes, nor took a step, 
 
 But stood there in her place, and spoke again. 
 
 — ' You take this Marian's child, which is her shame 
 
 In sight of men and women, for your child. 
 
 Of -whom you wall not ever feel ashamed?' 
 
 The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice. 
 He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched armi, 
 As if to quench upon his breast that voice. 
 20* 
 
342 AURORA LEIGH 
 
 — ' May God so father me, as I do him, 
 
 And so forsake me as I let him feel 
 
 He's orphaned haply. Here I take the child 
 
 To share my cup, to slumber on my knee, 
 
 To play his loudest gambol at my foot. 
 
 To hold my finger in the ])ublic ways, 
 
 Till none shall need inquire, ' Whose child is thia»* 
 
 The gesture saying so tenderly, ' My own'.' 
 
 She stood a moment silent in her place ; 
 
 Then turning toward Ine very slow and cold — 
 
 — ' And you, — what say you *? — will you blame m« 
 
 much. 
 If, careful for that outcast child of mine, 
 I catch this hand that's stretched to me and him. 
 Nor dare to leave him friendless m the world 
 Where men have stoned me ? Have I not the right 
 To take so mere an aftermath from life. 
 Else found so wholly bare ? Or is it wrong 
 To let your -cousin, for a generous bent, 
 Put out his ungloved fingers- among briars 
 To set a tumbling bird's-nest somewhat straight 1 
 You will not tell him, though we're innocent 
 We are not harmless, . . and that both our harms 
 Will stick to his good smooth noble life like burrs, 
 Never to drop off though he shakes the cloak ? 
 You've been my friend : you will not now be his ? 
 You've known 'him that he's worthy of a friend, 
 And you're his cousin, lady, after all. 
 And therefore more than free to take his part, 
 Explaining, since the nest is surely spoilt. 
 And Marian what you know her, — though a wife, 
 The world would hardly understand her case 
 
ALMIOIIA LEIGH. 84t 
 
 Of being just hurt and honest; while for him, 
 'Twould ever twit him with his bastard child 
 And married harlot. Speak, while yet there's time ; 
 You would not stand and let a good man's dog 
 Turn round and rend him, because his, and reared 
 Of a generous breed, — and will you let his act, 
 Because it's generous 1 Speak. I'm bound to you, 
 And I'll be bound by only you, in this.' 
 The thrilling, solemn voice, so passionless, 
 Sustained, yet low, without a rise or fall, 
 As one who had authority to speak, 
 And not as Marian. 
 
 I looked up to feel 
 If God stood near me, and beheld his heaven 
 As blue as Aaron's priestly robe appeared 
 To Aaron when he took it off to die. 
 And then I spoke — * Accept the gift, I say. 
 My sister Marian, and be satisfied. 
 The hand that gives, has still a soul behind 
 Which will not let it quail for having given. 
 Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what 
 Of what they know not. Romney's strong enough 
 For this : do you be strong to know he's strong : 
 He stands on Right's side ; never flinch for him, 
 As if he stood on the other. You'll be bound 
 By me ? I am a woman of repute ; 
 No fly-blow gossip ever specked my life ; 
 My name is clean and open as this hand. 
 Whose glove there's not a man dares blab about 
 As if he had touched it freely. Here's my hand 
 To clasp your hand, my Marian, owned as pure. 
 As pure, — as I'm a woman and a Leigh ! — 
 And, as I'm both, I'll witness to the woild 
 
»44 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 That Romney Leigh is honoured in his choice 
 Who chooses Marian for his honoured wife.' 
 
 Her broad wild woodland eyes shot out a light ; 
 Her smile was wonderful for rapture. * Thanks, 
 My great Aurora.' Forward then she sprang, 
 And dropping her impassioned spaniel head 
 With all its brown abandonment of curls 
 On Romney's feet, we heard the kisses drawn 
 Through sobs upon the foot, upon the ground — 
 ' O Romney ! O my angel ! O unchanged. 
 Though since we've parted I have passed the grave 
 But Death itself could only better thee, 
 Not change thee \-^Thee I do not thank at all : 
 I but thank God who made thee what thou art. 
 So wholly godlike.' 
 
 When he tried in vain 
 To raise her to his embrace, escaping thence 
 As any leaping fawn from a huntsman's grasp, 
 She bounded off and 'lighted beyond reach. 
 Before him with a staglike majesty 
 Of soft, serene defiance, — as she knew 
 He could not touch her, so was tolerant 
 He had cared to try. She stood there with her great 
 Drowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange 
 
 sweet smile 
 That lived through all, as if one held a light 
 Across a waste of waters, — shook her head 
 To keep some thoughts down deeper in her souJ,-— 
 Then, white and tranquil like a summer-cloud 
 Which, having rained itself to a tardy peace. 
 Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day. 
 Spoke out again — 'Although, my generous fiiend, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 840 
 
 Since last we met and parted you're unchanged, 
 
 And, having promised faith to Marian Erie, 
 
 Maintain it, as she were not changed at all ; 
 
 And though that's worthy, though that's full of balm 
 
 To any conscious spirit of a girl 
 
 Who once has loved you as 1 loved you once, — 
 
 Yet still it will not make her . . if she's dead, 
 
 And gone away where none can give or take 
 
 In marriage, — able to revive, return 
 
 And wed you, — will it Romney 1 Here's the point ; 
 
 O friend, we'll see it plainer : you and I 
 
 Must never, never, never join hands so. 
 
 Nay, let me say it, — for I said it first 
 
 To God, and placed it, rounded to an oath, 
 
 Far, far above the moon there, at His feet, 
 
 As surely as I wept just now at yours, — 
 
 We never, never, never join hands so. 
 
 And now, be patient with me; do not think 
 
 I'm speaking from a false humility. 
 
 The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief. 
 
 And He has said so often through his nights 
 
 And through his mornings, ' Weep a little still, 
 
 'Thou foolish Marian, because- women must, 
 
 ' But do not blush at all except for sin,' — 
 
 That I, who felt myself unworthy once 
 
 Of virtuous Romney and his high-born race. 
 
 Have come to learn, . . a woman poor or rich. 
 
 Despised or honoured, is a human soul ; 
 
 And what her soul is, — that, she is herself. 
 
 Although she should be spit upon of men. 
 
 As is the pavement of the churches here, 
 
 Btill good enough to pray in. An(5 being chaste 
 
 And honest, and inclined to do the right, 
 
346 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 And love the truth, and live my life out green 
 
 And smooth beneath his steps, I should not fear 
 
 To make him thus a less uneasy time 
 
 Than many a happier woman. Very proud 
 
 You see me. Pardon, that I set a trap 
 
 To hear a confirmation in your voice . . 
 
 Both yours and yours. It is so good to know 
 
 *Twas really God who said the same before : 
 
 For thus it is in heaven, that first God speaks, 
 
 And then his angels. Oh, it does me good. 
 
 It wipes me clean and sweet from devil's dirt, 
 
 That Romney Leigh should think me worthy still 
 
 Of being his true and honourable wife ! 
 
 Henceforth I need not say, on leaving earth, 
 
 I had no glory in it. For the rest. 
 
 The reason 's ready (master, angel, friend, 
 
 Be patient with me) wherefore you and I 
 
 Can never, never, never join hands so. 
 
 \ know you'll not be angry like a man 
 
 (For you are none) when I shall tell the truth, 
 
 Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh, 
 
 1 do not love you. Ah well ! catch my hands, 
 
 Miss Leigh, and burn into my eyes with yours, — 
 
 I swear I do not love him. Did I once ? 
 
 'Tis said that women have been bruised to death, 
 
 And yet, if once they loved, that love of theirs 
 
 Could never be drained out with all their blood : 
 
 I've heara such things and pondered. Did I indeed 
 
 Love once 1 or did 1 only worship 1 Yes, 
 
 Perhaps, O friend, 1 set you up so high 
 
 Above all actual good or hope of good 
 
 Or fear of evil, all that could be mine, 
 
 I haply set you above love itself 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 841 
 
 And out of reach of these poor woman's arms, 
 Angelic Romney. What was in my thought ? 
 To be your slave, your help, your toy, your tooL 
 To be your love . . I never thought of that. 
 To give you love . . still less. I gave you love 1 
 1 think I did not give you anything ; 
 I was but only yours, — upon my knees. 
 All yours, in soul and body, in head and heart, 
 A creature you had taken from the ground, 
 Still crumbling through your fingers to your feet 
 To join the dust she came from. Did I love, 
 Or did I worship 1 judge, Aurora Leigh ! 
 But, if indeed I loved, 'twas long ago, — 
 So long ! before the sun and moon were made, 
 Before the hells were open, — ah, before 
 1 heard my child cry in the desert night. 
 And knew he had no father. It may be 
 I'm not as strong as other women are. 
 Who, torn and crushed, are not undone from love. 
 It may be, I am colder than the dead, 
 Who, being dead, love always. But for me 
 Once killed, . . this ghost of Marian loves no more, 
 No more . . except the child ! . . no more at all, 
 I told your cousin, sir, that I was dead ; 
 And now, she thinks I'll get up from my grave, 
 And wear my chin-cloth for a wcddi'ig-veil. 
 And glide along the churchyard like a bride, 
 While ail the dead keep whispering through tlw 
 withes, 
 
 * You would be better in your place with us, 
 
 * You pitiful corruption !' At the thought, 
 The damps break out on m-e like leprosy 
 Although I'm clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erie : 
 
848 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 As Marian Leigh, I know, I were not clean ; 
 
 I have not so much life that I should love, 
 
 . . Except the child. Ah God ! 1 could not hoar 
 
 To see my darling on a good man's knees, 
 
 And know by such a look, or such a sigh, 
 
 Or such a silence, that he thought sometimes, 
 
 * This child was fathered by some cursed wretvh' . 
 
 For, Romney, — angels are less tender-wise 
 
 Than God and mothers : even you would think 
 
 What we think never. He is ours, the child ; 
 
 And we would sooner vex a soul in heaven 
 
 By coupling with it the dead body's thought, 
 
 It left behind it in a last month's grave. 
 
 Than, in my child, see other than . . my child. 
 
 We only, never call him fatherless 
 
 Who has God and his mother. O my babe, 
 
 My pretty, pretty blossom, an ill-wind 
 
 Once blew upon my breast ! can any think 
 
 I'd have another, — one called happier, 
 
 A fathered child, with father's love and race 
 
 That 's worn as bold and open as a smile. 
 
 To vex my darling when he's asked his name 
 
 And has no answer 1 What ! a happier child 
 
 Than mine, my best, — who laughed so loud to-night 
 
 He could not sleep for pastime ? Nay, I swear 
 
 By life and love, that, if I lived like some. 
 
 And loved like . . some . . ay, loved you, Romnej 
 
 Leigh, 
 As some love (eyes that have wept so much, see clear) 
 I've room for no more children in my ^arms, 
 My kisses are all melted on one mouth, 
 I would not push my darling to a stool 
 To dandle babies. Here 's a hand shall keep 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 84» 
 
 For ever clean without a marriage-ring, 
 
 To tend my boy until he cease to need 
 
 One steadying finger of it, and desert 
 
 (Not miss) his mother's lap, to sit with men. 
 
 And when I miss him (not he me) I'll come 
 
 And say, * Now give me some of Romney's work, 
 
 To help your outcast orphans of the world. 
 
 And comfort grief with grief For you, meantime!. 
 
 Most noble Romney, wed a noble wife, 
 
 And open on each other your great souls, — 
 
 I need not farther bless you. If I dared 
 
 But strain and touch her in her upper sphere 
 
 And say, ' Come down to Romney — pay my debt !' 
 
 I should be joyful with the stream of joy 
 
 Sent through me. But the moon is in my face . . 
 
 I dare not, — though I guess the name he loves ; 
 
 I'm learned with my studies of old days. 
 
 Remembering how he crushed his under-lip 
 
 When some one came and spoke, or did not come: 
 
 Aurora, I could touch her with my hand. 
 
 And fly, because I dare not.* 
 
 She was gone. 
 He smiled so sternly that I spoke in haste. 
 ' Forgive her — she sees clearly for herself: 
 Her instinct's holy.' 
 
 '/forgive]' he said, 
 * I only marvel how she sees so sure. 
 While others' . . there he paused, — then hoarse, ab 
 
 rupt, — 
 ' Aurora, you forgive us, her and me 1 
 For her, the thing she sees, poor loyal child, 
 If once corrected by the thing I know, 
 Had been unspoken, since she loves you well, 
 
 30 
 
SAO AUIIORA LEIGU. 
 
 Has leave to love you : — while for me, alas, 
 
 If once or twice I let my heart escape 
 
 This night, . . remember, where hearts slip and fall 
 
 They break beside : we're parting, — parting,— ah. 
 
 You do not love, that you should surely know 
 
 What that word means. Forgive, be tolerant; 
 
 It had not been, but that 1 felt myself 
 
 So safe in impuissance and despair, 
 
 I could not hurt you though I tossed ray arms 
 
 And sighed my soul out. The most utter wretch 
 
 Will choose his postures when he comes to die, 
 
 However in the presence of a queen : 
 
 And you'll forgive me some unseemly spasms 
 
 Which meant no more than dying. Do you think 
 
 I had ever come here in my perfect mind. 
 
 Unless 1 had come here in my settled mind 
 
 Bound Marian's, bound to keep the bond and give 
 
 My name, my house, my hand, the things I could, 
 
 To Marian ? For even /could give as much ; 
 
 Even I, affronting her exalted soul 
 
 By a supposition that she wanted these, 
 
 Could act the husband's coat and hat set up 
 
 To creak i' the wind and drive the world-crows off 
 
 From pecking in her garden. Straw can fill 
 
 A hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last, 
 
 I own heaven's angels round her life suffice 
 
 To fight the rats of our society, 
 
 Without this Romney : I can see it at last; 
 
 And here is ended my pretention which 
 
 The most pretended. Over-proud of course, 
 
 Even so ! — but not so stupid . . blind . . that I, 
 
 Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the world 
 
 Has set to meditate mistaken work. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. S61 
 
 My dreary face against a dim blank wall 
 
 Throughout man's natural lifetime,— could pretend 
 
 Or wish . . O love, I have loved you ! O my soul, 
 
 I have lost you !— but I swear by all yourself, 
 
 And all you might have been to me these years 
 
 If that June-morning had not failed my hope, — 
 
 I'm not so bestial, to regret that day 
 
 This night,— this night, which still to you is fair ; 
 
 Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attest 
 
 Those stars above us which I cannot see . . .' 
 
 * You cannot.' . . 
 
 * That if Heaven itself should stoop 
 Kemix the lots, and give me another chance, 
 I'd say, * No other !'— I'd record my blank. 
 Aurora never should be wife of mine.' 
 
 * Not see the stars V 
 
 ' 'Tis worse still, not to see 
 To find your hand, although we're parting, dear. 
 A moment let me hold it ere we part ; 
 And understand my last words — these at last I 
 I would not have you thinking when I'm gone 
 That Romney dared to hanker for your love 
 In thought or vision, if attainable, 
 (Which certainly for me it never was) 
 And wished to use it for a dog to-day, 
 To help the blind man stumbling. God forbid! 
 And now I know he held you in his palm. 
 And kept you open-eyed to all my faults, 
 To save you at last from such a dreary end. 
 Believe me, dear, that if I had known like Ilim 
 What loss was coming on me, I had done 
 As well in this as Tie has.-— Parewell you 
 
U2 A U R R A L E I Cr n . 
 
 Who are still my light, — farewell ! How late it is: 
 I know that, now : you've been too patient, sweet. 
 I will but blow my whistle toward the lane, 
 And some one comes . . the same who brought me 
 
 here. 
 Get in — Good night.' 
 
 ' A moment. Heavenly Christ ! 
 A moment. Speak once, Romney. 'Tis not true. 
 I hold your hands, I look into your flice — 
 You sec me V 
 
 ' No more than the blessed stars. 
 Be blessed too, Aurora. Nay, my sweet, 
 You tremble. Tender-hearted ! Do you mind 
 Of yore, dear, how you used to cheat old John, 
 And let the mice out slily from his traps, 
 Until he marvelled at the soul in mice 
 Which took the cheese and left the snare 1 The sarae 
 Dear soft heart always ! 'Twas for this I grieved 
 Howe's letter never reached you. Ah, you had heard 
 Of illness, — not the issue . . not the extent: 
 My life long sick with tossings up and down, ' 
 The sudden revulsion in the blazing house. 
 The strain and struggle both of body and soul, 
 Which left fire running in my veins for blood : 
 Scarce lacked that thunderbolt of the falling beano 
 Which nicked me on the forehead as 1 passed 
 The gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven's bolt, 
 Not William Erie's, not Marian's father's,— tramp 
 And poacher, whom I found for what he was. 
 And, eager for her sake to rescue him. 
 Forth swept from the open highway of the worlil, 
 Road-dusl and all, — till, like a woodland boar 
 Most naturally unwilling to be tamed. 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 863 
 
 tie notched me with his tooth. But not a word 
 To Marian ! and I do not think, besides, 
 He turned the tilting of the beam my way, — 
 And if he laughed, as many swear, poor wretch. 
 Nor he nor I supposed the hurt so deep. 
 We'll hope his next laugh may be merrier, 
 In a better cause.' 
 
 ' Blind, Romney V 
 
 'Ah, my friend 
 You'll learn to say it in a cheerful voice. 
 I, too, at first desponded. To be blind, 
 Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man. 
 Refused the daily largesse of the sun 
 To humble creatures ! When the fever's neat 
 Dropped from me, as the fliime did from my ho»' e, 
 And left me ruined lilcc it, stripped of all 
 The hyes and shapes of aspectable lifii, 
 A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day, 
 A man, upon the outside of the earth, 
 As dark as ten feet under, in the grave, — 
 Why that seemed hard.' 
 
 'No hope?' 
 
 'A tear ! you weep 
 Divine Aurora 1 tears upon my hand ! 
 I've seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird, — 
 But, weep for me, Aurora 1 Yes, there's hope. 
 Not hope of sight, — I could be learned, dear. 
 And tell you in what Greek and Latin name 
 The visual nerve is withered to the root, 
 Though the outer eyes appear indifferent. 
 Unspotted in their chrystals But there's hope. 
 The spirit, from behind this dethroned sense, 
 Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up 
 30* ! 
 
S64 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt ; 
 There^s hope. The man here, once so arrogant 
 And restless, so ambitious, for his part, 
 Of dealing with statistically packed 
 Disorders, (from a pattern on his nail,) 
 And packing such things quite another way, — 
 Is now contented. From his personal loss 
 lie has come to hope for others when they lose, 
 And wear a gladder faith in what we gain . . 
 Through bitter experience, compensation sweet. 
 Like that tear, sweetest. I am quiet now, 
 As tender surely fbr the suffering world. 
 But quiet,— sitting at the wall to learn. 
 Content henceforth to do the thing I can : 
 For, though as powerless, said I, as a stone, 
 A stone can still give shelter to a worm, 
 And it is worth while being a stone for that:* 
 There's hope, Aurora.' 
 
 ' Is there hope for me ? 
 For me 1 — and is there room beneath the stone. 
 For such a worm ? — And if I came and said . . 
 What all this weeping scarce will let me say. 
 And yet what women cannot say at all 
 But weeping bitterly . . (the pride keeps up. 
 Until the heart breaks under it) . . I love, — 
 I love you, Romney' . . . 
 
 ' Silence !' he exclaimed. 
 ' A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad. 
 A man's distraction must not cheat his soul 
 To take advantage of it. Yet, tis hard — 
 Farewell, Aurora.' 
 
 ' But I love you, sir : 
 And when a woman says she loves a man, 
 
AU30RA LEIGH. 86fi 
 
 The man must hear her, though he love her not, 
 
 Which . . hush ! . . he has leave to answer in his turn ; 
 
 She will not surely blame him. As for me, 
 
 Yju call it pity, — think Tm generous? 
 
 'Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proud 
 
 As I am, and I'm very vilely proud, 
 
 To let it pass as such, and press on you 
 
 Un-Q born of pity,— seeing that excellent loves 
 
 Are born so, often, nor the quicklier die, — 
 
 And this would set me higher by the head 
 
 Th&n now I stand. No matter : let the truth 
 
 Stand high ; Aurora must be humble : no. 
 
 My love's not pity merely. Obviously 
 
 I'm not a generous woman, never was, 
 
 Or else, of old, I had not looked so near 
 
 To weights and measures, grudging you the power 
 
 To give, as first I scorned your power to judge 
 
 For me, Aurora : I would have no gifts 
 
 Forsooth, but God's,— and I would use them too 
 
 According to my pleasure and my choice. 
 
 As He and I were equals, — you below, 
 
 Excluded from that level of interchange 
 
 Admitting benefaction. You were wrong 
 
 In much? you said so. I was wrong in most. 
 
 Oh, most ! You only thought to rescue men 
 
 By half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants, 
 
 While thinking nothing of your personal gain. 
 
 But 1 who saw the human nature broad 
 
 At both sides, comprehending too the soul'a, 
 
 And all the high necessities of Art, 
 
 Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own life 
 
 For which I pleaded. Passioned to exalt 
 
 The artist's instinct in me at the cost 
 
856 AURORA J EIGH. 
 
 Of patting down the woman's — I fbrgot 
 
 No perfect artist is developed here 
 
 From any imperfect woman. Flower from rjot, 
 
 And spiritual from natural, grade by grade 
 
 In all our life. A handful of the earth 
 
 To make God's image ! the despised poor earth, 
 
 The healthy odorous earth, — I missed, with it. 
 
 The divme Breath that blows the nostrils out 
 
 2o ineffable inflatus : ay, the breath 
 
 Which love is. Art is much, but love is more. 
 
 Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more! 
 Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God 
 
 And makes heaven. I, Aurora, fell from mine : 
 i would not be a woman like the rest, 
 A simple woman who believes in love 
 And owns the right of love because she loves, 
 And, hearing she's beloved, is satisfied 
 With what contents God : I must analyse, 
 Confront, and question; just as if a fly 
 Refused to warm itself in any sun 
 Till such was in leone : I must fret 
 Forsooth, because the month was only May ; 
 Be faithless of the kind of proffered love. 
 And captious, lest it miss my dignity, 
 And scornful, that my lover sought a wife 
 To use . . to use ! O Romncy, O my love, 
 
 1 am changed since then, changed wholly, — for it 
 
 deed 
 If now you'd stoop so low to take my love, 
 And use it roughly, without stint or spare, 
 As men use common things with more behind, 
 (And, in this, ever would be more behind) 
 To imy mean and ordinary end, — 
 
AUROllA LEIGH. 861 
 
 riie joy would set mo like a star, in heaven, 
 80 high up, I should shine because of height 
 And not of virtue. Yet in one respect. 
 Just one, beloved, I ant in no wise changed : 
 I love you, loved you . . loved you first and last. 
 And love you on for ever. Now I know 
 1 loved you always, Romney. She who died 
 Knew that, and said so ; Lady Waldemar 
 Knows that ; . . and Marian : I had known the same 
 Except that I was prouder than I knew, 
 \nd not so honest. Ay, and as I live, 
 should have died so, crushing in my hand 
 This rose of love, the wasp inside and all. 
 Ignoring ever to my soul and you 
 Both rose and pain, — except for this great loss, 
 This great despair, — to stand before your face 
 And know you do not see me where I stand. 
 You think, perhaps, I am not changed from pride, 
 And that I chiefly bear to say such words 
 Because you cannot shame me with your eyes 1 
 
 calm, grand eyes, extinguished in a storm, 
 Blown out like lights o'er melancholy seas. 
 Though shrieked for by the shipwrecked, — O my 
 
 Dark, 
 My Cloud, — to go before me every day 
 While I go ever toward the wilderness, — 
 
 1 would that you could see me bare to the soul ! 
 If this be pity, 'tis so for myself, 
 
 And not for Romney ; he can stand alone ; 
 
 A man like him is never overcome: 
 
 No woman like me, counts him pitiable 
 
 While saints applaud him. He mistook the world • 
 
 But I mistook my own heart, — and that slip 
 
858 AURORA LKIGH. 
 
 Was fhtal. Romney, — will you leave mc hoiv? 
 So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled. 
 So mere a woman ! — and 1 love you so, 
 I love you, Romney.' 
 
 Could I see his face, 
 I wept so 1 Did I drop against his breast. 
 Or did his arms constrain me ] Were my cheeks 
 Hot, overflooded, with my tears, or his ? 
 And which of our two large explosive hearts 
 So shook me ] That, I know not. There were words; 
 That broke in utterance . . melted, in the fire ; 
 Embrace, that was convulsion, . . then a kiss 
 As long and silent as the ecsUitic night, 
 And deep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant 
 
 beyond 
 Whatevf'r could be told by word or kiss. 
 
 But what he said . . I have written day by day, 
 With somewhat even writing. Did I think 
 That such a passionate rain would intercept 
 And dash this last page 1 What he said, indeed, 
 1 fain would write it down here like the rest 
 To keep it in my eyes, as in my ears. 
 The heart's sweet scripture, to be read at night 
 When weary, or at morning when afraid, 
 And lejm my heaviest oath on when 1 swear • 
 That when alFs done, all tried, all counted here, 
 All great arts, and all good philosophies, 
 This love just puts its hand out in a dream. 
 And straight outstretches all things. 
 
 What he said, 
 1 f«in would write. But if an angel spoke 
 In thunder, should we, haply know much more 
 
AUKJllA LEIGH. 859 
 
 Than that it thundered 1 If a cloud came do\vu 
 
 And wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape, 
 
 As if on the outside and not overcome ? 
 
 And so he spake. His breath against my Cice 
 
 Confiised his words, yet made them more intense,-* 
 
 As when the sudden finger of the wind 
 
 Will wipe a row of single city -lamps 
 
 To a pure white line of flame, more luminous 
 
 Because of obliteration ; more intense, 
 
 The intimate presence carrying in itself 
 
 Complete communication, as with souls 
 
 Who, having put the body off, perceive 
 
 Through simply being. Thus, 'twas granted me 
 
 To know he loved me to the depth and height 
 
 Of such large natures, ever competent 
 
 With grand horizons by the sea or land, 
 
 To love's grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small 
 
 fires : 
 But he loved largely, as a man can love 
 Who, bafliled in his love, dares live his life, 
 Accept the ends which God loves, for his own, 
 And lift a constant aspect. 
 
 From the day 
 I brought to England my poor searching face 
 (An orphan even of my father's grave) 
 lie had loved me, watched me, watched his soul i« 
 
 mine. 
 Which in me grew and heightened into love. 
 For he, a boy still, had been told the tale 
 Of how a fairy bride from Italy, 
 With smells of oleanders in her hair, 
 Was coming through the vines to touch hir hand ; 
 Whereat the blood of boyhood on the palm 
 
§60 ^ AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 Made sudden heats. And when at last I came., 
 
 And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled, 
 
 lie smiled and loved me for the thing I was, 
 
 As every child will love the year's first flower, 
 
 (Not certainly the fairest of the year. 
 
 But, in which, the complete year seems to blow) 
 
 The poor sad snowdrop, — growing between drifls, 
 
 Mysterious medium 'twixt the plant and frost, 
 
 So faint with winter while so quick with spring, 
 
 So doubtful if to thaw itself away 
 
 With that snow near it. Not that Romney Le:gh 
 
 Had loved me coldly. If I thought so once, 
 
 It was as if I had held my hand in fire 
 
 And shook for cold. But now I understood 
 
 For ever, that the very fire and heat 
 
 Of troubling passion in him burned him clear, 
 
 And shaped to dubious order, word and act . 
 
 That, just because he loved me over all, 
 
 All wealth, all lands, all social privilege. 
 
 To which chance made him unexpected heir, 
 
 And, just because on all these lesser gifts, 
 
 Constrained by conscience and the sense of wrong 
 
 He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow- marl 
 
 Of dedication to the human need, 
 
 lie *Jiouglit it should be so too, with his love: 
 
 lie, passionately loving, would bring down 
 
 His love, his life, his best, (because the best) 
 
 llis bride of dreams, who walked so still and high 
 
 Through flowery poems as through meadow-grass, 
 
 The dust of golden lilies on her feet, 
 
 That she should walk beside him on the rocks 
 
 In all that clang and hewing out of men. 
 
 And help the work of help which was his lifb, 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 86 
 
 And prove he kept back nothing, — not his soul. 
 
 And when 1 failed him, — for 1 failed him, 1 — 
 
 And when it seemed he had missed my love,— he 
 
 thought, 
 Aurora makes room for a working-noon ;' 
 And so, self-girded with torn strips of hope, 
 Took up his life as if it were for death, 
 (Just capable of one heroic aim,) 
 And threw it in the thickest of the world, — 
 At which men laughed as if he had drowned a dog 
 No wonder, — since Aurora failed him first ! 
 T\q morning and the evening made his day. 
 
 But l\ the night ! oh, bitter-sweet ! oh, sweet ! 
 
 dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasy 
 Of darki:ess ! O great mystery of love, 
 
 In which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason's self 
 
 Enlarges rapture, — as a pebble dropt 
 
 In some full wine-cup over-brims the wine ! 
 
 While we two sate together, leaned that night 
 
 So close, my very garments crept and thrilled 
 
 With strange electric life ; and both my cheeks 
 
 Grew red, then pale, with touches from my hair 
 
 In which his breath was ; while the golden moon 
 
 Was hung before our faces as the ba^i^ge 
 
 Of some sublime inherited despair, 
 
 Since ever to be seen by only one, — 
 
 A voice said, low and rapid as a sigh, 
 
 Yet breaking, I felt conscious, from a smile, 
 
 ' Thank God, who made me blind, to make me see ' 
 
 Shine on, Aurora, dearest light of souls. 
 
 Which rul'st for evermore both day and night ' 
 
 1 am happy. 
 
 31 
 
868 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 I flung closer to his breast, 
 As sword that, after battle, flings to sheath; 
 And, in that hurtle of united souls, 
 The mystic motions which in common moods 
 Are shut beyond our sense, broke in on us, 
 And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin. 
 And all the starry turbulence of worlds 
 Swing round us in their audient circles, till 
 If that same golden moon were overhead 
 Or if beneath our feet, we did not know. 
 
 And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy 
 riis voice rose, as some chief musician's sonji ' 
 Amid the old Jewish temple's Selah-pause, 
 And bade me mark how we two met at last 
 L^pon this moon-bathed promontory of earth, 
 To give up much on each side, then take all. 
 Beloved,' it sang, ' we must be here to work ; 
 'Vnd men who work can only work for m«n. 
 And, not to work in vain, must comprehend 
 riumanity, and so work humanly. 
 And raise men's bodies still by raising souls. 
 As God did first' 
 
 ' But stand upon the earth,' 
 I said, ' to raise them, — (this is human too ; 
 'riiere's nothing high which has not first been low. 
 My humbleness, said One, has made me great !) 
 As God did last.' 
 
 * And work all silently. 
 And simply,' he returned, * as God does all ; 
 Distort our nature never for our work, 
 Nor count our right hands stronger for being hoofs 
 The man most man, with tendcrcst human hands. 
 
AURORA LEIG n. 841 
 
 Works best for men, — as God in Nazareth.' 
 
 IFfe paused upon the word, and then resumed ; 
 ' Fewer programmes, we who have no prescience. 
 Fewer systems, we who are held and do not hold. 
 IjCss mapping out of masses to be saved, 
 I5y nations or by sexes. Fourier 's void, 
 And Comte absurd, — and Cabet, puerile. 
 Subsists no law of life outside of life, 
 No perfect manners, without Christian souls : 
 The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, 
 Unless He had given the life, too, with the law.' 
 
 I echoed thoughtfully — ' The man, most man, 
 Works best for men : and, if most man indeed, 
 He gets his manhood plainest from his soul : 
 While obviously this stringent soul itself 
 Obeys our old law of development ; 
 The Spirit ever witnessing in ours. 
 And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul. 
 Evolving it sublimely. First, God's love.' 
 
 ' And next,' he smiled, ' the love of wedded souls, 
 Which still prcsenti> that mystery's counterpart. 
 Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life. 
 Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave 
 A name to ! human, vital, fructuous rose. 
 Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves. 
 Loves fdial, loves fraternal, neighbour-loves, 
 And civic, . . all fair petals, all good scents. 
 All reddened, sweetened from one central Heart !' 
 
 ' Alas,' I cried, ' it wfu"? not long ago, 
 
364 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 You sworo this very social rose smelt ill.* 
 
 * Alas,' he answered, * is it a rose at all 1 
 
 The filial *8 thankless, the fraternal 's hard, 
 
 ITie rest is lost. I do but stand and think, 
 
 Across the waters of a troubled life 
 
 The Flower of Heaven so vainly overhangs. 
 
 What perfect counterpart would be in sight, 
 
 If tanks were clearer. Let us clean the tubes, 
 
 And wait for rains. -O poet, my love, 
 
 Since / was too ambitious in my deed, 
 
 And thought to distance all men in success. 
 
 Till God came on me, marked the place, and said, 
 
 ' Ill-doer, henceforth keep within this line, 
 
 Attempting less than others,' — and I stand 
 
 And work among Christ's little ones, content, — 
 
 Come thou, my compensation, my dear sight. 
 
 My morning-star, my morning ! rise and shine, 
 
 And touch my hills with radiance not their own. 
 
 Shine out for two, Aurora, and fulfil 
 
 My falling-short that must be ! work for two, 
 
 As I, though thus restrained, for two, shall love! 
 
 Gaze on, with inscient vision toward the sun. 
 
 And, from his visceral heat, pluck out the roots 
 
 Of light beyond him. Art 's a service, — :mark : 
 
 A silver key is given to thy clasp. 
 
 And thou shalt stand unwearied, night and day, 
 
 And fix it in the hard, slow-turning wards, 
 
 And open, so, that intermediate door 
 
 Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form 
 
 And form insensuous, that inferior men 
 
 May learn to feel on still through these to those, 
 
 And bless thy ministration. The \vorld waits 
 
AURORA LEIGH. 865 
 
 For help. Beloved, let us love so well, 
 
 Our work shall still be better fbr our love, 
 
 And still our love be sweeter fbr our work, 
 
 And both commended, for the sake of each, 
 
 By all true workers and true lovers born. 
 
 Now press thy clarioi v on thy woman's lip 
 
 (Love's holy kiss shall still keep consecrate) 
 
 And breathe the fine keen breath along the brass, 
 
 And blow all class- walls level as Jericho's 
 
 Past Jordan ; crying from the top of souls. 
 
 To souls, that here assembled on earth's flats, 
 
 To get them to some purer eminence 
 
 Than any hitherto beheld for clouds ! 
 
 What height we know not, — but the way we know, 
 
 And how by mounting ever, ,we attain, 
 
 And so climb on. It is the hour for souls •, 
 
 That bodies, leavened by the will and love, 
 
 Be lightened to redemption, The world's old ; 
 
 But the old world waits the time to be renewed ; 
 
 Toward which, new hearts in individual growth 
 
 Must quicken, and increase to multitude 
 
 In new dynasties of the race of men, — 
 
 Developed whence, shall grow spontaneously 
 
 New churches, new oeconomies, new laws 
 
 Admitting freedom, new societies 
 
 Excluding falsehood. He shall make all new.* 
 
 My Romney !— Lifting up my hand in his, 
 As wheeled by Seeing spirits toward the east, 
 He turned instinctively, — where, faint and f;ir, 
 Along the tingling desert of the sky. 
 Beyond the circle of the conscious hills, 
 Were ^aid in jasper-stone as clear as glass 
 31* 
 
868 
 
 AURORA LEIGU, 
 
 llie first fumigations of that new, near Day 
 Which should be builded out of heaven to God. 
 lie stood a moment with erected brows, 
 In silence, as a creature might, who gazed : 
 Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyes 
 Upon the thought of perfect noon. And when 
 I saw his soul saw, — ' Jasper first,' I said, 
 ' And second, sapphire ; third, chalcedony ; 
 The rest in order, . . last, an amethyst* 
 
 ^/