(1) TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
(2) I stood upon the brink of twenty
years,
(3) And looked before and after,
1 as I stood
(4) Woman and artist,—either
incomplete,
(5) Both credulous of completion. There I
held
(6) The whole creation in my little
cup,
(7) And smiled with thirsty lips before I
drank
(8) “Good health to you and me, sweet
neighbour mine,
(9) And all these peoples.”
(9) I was glad, that day;
(10) The June was in me, with its
multitudes
(11) Of nightingales all singing in the
dark,
(12) And rosebuds reddening where the calyx
split.
(13) I felt so young, so strong, so sure of
God!
(14) So glad, I could not choose be very
wise!
(15) And, old at twenty, was inclined to
pull
(16) My childhood backward in a childish
jest
(17) To see the face of ’t once more, and
farewell!
(18) In which fantastic mood I bounded
forth
(19) At early morning,—would not wait so
long
(20) As even to snatch my bonnet by the
strings,
(21) But, brushing a green trail across the
lawn
(22) With my gown in the dew, took will and
way
(23) Among the acacias of the
shrubberies,
(24) To fly my fancies in the open
air
(25) And keep my birthday, till my aunt
awoke
(26) To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I
murmured on
(27) As honeyed bees keep humming to
themselves,
2
(28) “The worthiest poets have remained
uncrowned
(29) Till death has bleached their
foreheads to the bone;
(30) And so with me it must be unless I
prove
(31) Unworthy of the grand adversity,
(32) And certainly I would not fail so
much.
(33) What, therefore, if I crown myself
to-day
(34) In sport, not pride, to learn the feel
of it,
(35) Before my brows be numb as Dante’s
own
(36) To all the tender pricking of such
leaves?
(37) Such leaves! what leaves?”
(37) I pulled the branches
down
(38) To choose from.
(38) “Not the bay! I choose no
bay,
(39) (The fates deny us if we are
overbold)
(40) Nor myrtle—which means chiefly love;
and love
(41) Is something awful which one dares not
touch
(42) So early o’ mornings. This verbena
strains
(43) The point of passionate fragrance; and
hard by,
(44) This guelder-rose,
3 at far too slight a beck
(45) Of the wind, will toss about her
flower-apples.
(46) Ah—there’s my choice,—that ivy on the
wall,
(47) That headlong ivy! not a leaf will
grow
(48) But thinking of a wreath. Large
leaves, smooth leaves,
(49) Serrated like my vines, and half as
green.
(50) I like such ivy, bold to leap a
height
(51) ’Twas strong to climb; as good to grow
on graves
(52) As twist about a thyrsus;
4 pretty too,
(53) (And that’s not ill) when twisted
round a comb.”
(54) Thus speaking to myself, half singing
it,
(55) Because some thoughts are fashioned
like a bell
(56) To ring with once being touched, I
drew a wreath
(57) Drenched, blinding me with dew, across
my brow,
(58) And fastening it behind so, turning
faced
(59) · · My public!—cousin Romney—with a
mouth
(60) Twice graver than his eyes.
(60) I stood there fixed,—
(61) My arms up, like the caryatid,
5 sole
(62) Of some abolished temple,
helplessly
(63) Persistent in a gesture which
derides
(64) A former purpose. Yet my blush was
flame,
(65) As if from flax, not stone.
(65) “Aurora Leigh,
(66) The earliest of Auroras!”
(66) Hand stretched out
(67) I clasped, as shipwrecked men will
clasp a hand,
(68) Indifferent to the sort of palm. The
tide
(69) Had caught me at my pastime, writing
down
(70) My foolish name too near upon the
sea
6
(71) Which drowned me with a blush as
foolish. “You,
(72) My cousin!”
(72) The smile died out in his
eyes
(73) And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead
weight,
(74) For just a moment, “Here’s a book I
found!
(75) No name writ on it—poems, by the
form;
(76) Some Greek upon the margin,—lady’s
Greek
(77) Without the accents.
7 Read it? Not a word.
(78) I saw at once the thing had witchcraft
in ’t,
(79) Whereof the reading calls up dangerous
spirits:
(80) I rather bring it to the
witch.”
(80) "My
book.
(81) You found it . .”
(81) “In the hollow by the
stream
(82) That beech leans down into—of which
you said
(83) The Oread in it has a Naiad’s
heart
(84) And pines for waters.”
(84) “Thank you.”
(84) “Thanks to you
(85) My cousin! that I have seen you not
too much
(86) Witch, scholar, poet, dreamer, and the
rest,
(87) To be a woman also.”
(87) With a glance
(88) The smile rose in his eyes again and
touched
(89) The ivy on my forehead, light as
air.
(90) I answered gravely, “Poets needs must
be
(91) Or men or women—more’s the
pity.”
(91) “Ah,
(92) But men, and still less women,
happily,
(93) Scarce need be poets. Keep to the
green wreath,
(94) Since even dreaming of the stone and
bronze
(95) Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and
defiles
(96) The clean white morning
dresses.”
(96) “So you
judge!
(97) Because I love the beautiful I
must
(98) Love pleasure chiefly, and be
overcharged
(99) For ease and whiteness! well, you know
the world,
(100) And only miss your cousin, ’tis not
much.
(101) But learn this; I would rather take
my part
(102) With God’s Dead, who afford to walk
in white
8
(103) Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet
here
(104) And gather up my feet from even a
step
(105) For fear to soil my gown in so much
dust.
(106) I choose to walk at all risks.—Here,
if heads
(107) That hold a rhythmic thought, must
ache perforce,
(108) For my part I choose headaches,—and
to-day’s
(109) My birthday.”
(109) “Dear Aurora, choose
instead
(110) To cure them. You have balsams.”
9 (110) “I perceive.
(111) The headache is too noble for my
sex.
(112) You think the heartache would sound
decenter,
(113) Since that’s the woman’s special,
proper ache,
(114) And altogether tolerable,
except
(115) To a woman.”
(115) Saying which, I loosed my
wreath,
(116) And swinging it beside me as I
walked,
(117) Half petulant, half playful, as we
walked,
(118) I sent a sidelong look to find his
thought,—
(119) As falcon set on falconer’s finger
may,
(120) With sidelong head, and startled,
braving eye,
(121) Which means, “You’ll see—you’ll see!
I’ll soon take flight,
(122) You shall not hinder.” He, as shaking
out
(123) His hand and answering “Fly then,”
did not speak,
(124) Except by such a gesture.
Silently
(125) We paced, until, just coming into
sight
(126) Of the house-windows, he abruptly
caught
(127) At one end of the swinging wreath,
and said
(128) “Aurora!” There I stopped short,
breath and all.
(129) “Aurora, let’s be serious, and throw
by
(130) This game of head and heart. Life
means, be sure,
(131) Both heart and head,—both active,
both complete,
(132) And both in earnest. Men and women
make
(133) The world, as head and heart make
human life.
(134) Work man, work woman, since there’s
work to do
(135) In this beleaguered earth, for head
and heart,
(136) And thought can never do the work of
love:
(137) But work for ends, I mean for uses,
not
(138) For such sleek fringes (do you call
them ends,
(139) Still less God’s glory?) as we sew
ourselves
(140) Upon the velvet of those
baldaquins
10
(141) Held ’twixt us and the sun. That book
of yours,
(142) I have not read a page of; but I
toss
(143) A rose up—it falls calyx down, you
see!
(144) The chances are that, being a woman,
young
(145) And pure, with such a pair of large,
calm eyes,
(146) You write as well . . and ill . .
upon the whole,
(147) As other women. If as well, what
then?
(148) If even a little better, . . still,
what then?
(149) We want the Best in art now, or no
art.
(150) The time is done for facile settings
up
(151) Of minnow gods, nymphs here and
tritons there;
(152) The polytheists have gone out in
God,
(153) That unity of Bests.
11 No best, no God!
(154) And so with art, we say. Give art’s
divine,
(155) Direct, indubitable, real as
grief,
(156) Or leave us to the grief we grow
ourselves
(157) Divine by overcoming with mere
hope
(158) And most prosaic patience. You, you
are young
(159) As Eve with nature’s daybreak on her
face,
12
(160) But this same world you are come to,
dearest coz,
13
(161) Has done with keeping birthdays,
saves her wreaths
(162) To hang upon her ruins,—and
forgets
(163) To rhyme the cry with which she still
beats back
(164) Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt
her down
(165) To the empty grave of Christ.
14 The world’s hard pressed;
(166) The sweat of labour in the early
curse
(167) Has (turning acrid in six thousand
years)
15
(168) Become the sweat of torture. Who has
time,
(169) An hour’s time . . think!—to sit upon
a bank
(170) And hear the cymbal tinkle
16 in white hands?
(171) When Egypt’s slain, I say, let Miriam
sing!—
(172) Before—where’s Moses?”
(172) “Ah, exactly that.
(173) Where’s Moses?—is a Moses to be
found?
(174) You’ll seek him vainly in the
bulrushes,
17
(175) While I in vain touch cymbals. Yet
concede,
(176) Such sounding brass has done some
actual good
(177) (The application in a woman’s
hand,
(178) If that were credible, being scarcely
spoilt,)
(179) In colonising beehives.”
(179) “There it is!—
(180) You play beside a death-bed like a
child,
(181) Yet measure to yourself a prophet’s
place
(182) To teach the living. None of all
these things,
(183) Can women understand. You
generalise
(184) Oh, nothing,—not even grief! Your
quick-breathed hearts,
(185) So sympathetic to the personal
pang,
(186) Close on each separate knife-stroke,
yielding up
(187) A whole life at each wound,
incapable
(188) Of deepening, widening a large lap of
life
(189) To hold the world-full woe. The human
race
(190) To you means, such a child, or such a
man,
(191) You saw one morning waiting in the
cold,
(192) Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather
up
(193) A few such cases, and when strong
sometimes
(194) Will write of factories and of
slaves, as if
(195) Your father were a negro, and your
son
(196) A spinner in the mills.
18 All’s yours and you,
(197) All, coloured with your blood, or
otherwise
(198) Just nothing to you. Why, I call you
hard
(199) To general suffering. Here’s the
world half blind
(200) With intellectual light, half
brutalised
(201) With civilisation, having caught the
plague
(202) In silks from Tarsus,
19 shrieking east and west
(203) Along a thousand railroads, mad with
pain
(204) And sin too! . . does one woman of
you all
(205) (You who weep easily) grow pale to
see
(206) This tiger shake his cage?—does one
of you
(207) Stand still from dancing, stop from
stringing pearls,
(208) And pine and die because of the great
sum
(209) Of universal anguish?—Show me a
tear
(210) Wet as Cordelia’s,
20 in eyes bright as yours,
(211) Because the world is mad. You cannot
count,
(212) That you should weep for this
account, not you!
(213) You weep for what you know. A
red-haired child
(214) Sick in a fever, if you touch him
once,
(215) Though but so little as with a
finger-tip,
(216) Will set you weeping; but a million
sick . .
(217) You could as soon weep for the rule
of three
21
(218) Or compound fractions. Therefore,
this same world
(219) Uncomprehended by you, must
remain
(220) Uninfluenced by you.—Women as you
are,
(221) Mere women, personal and
passionate,
(222) You give us doating mothers, and
perfect wives,
(223) Sublime Madonnas, and enduring
saints!
(224) We get no Christ from you,
22 —and verily
(225) We shall not get a poet, in my
mind.”
(226) “With which conclusion you conclude”
. .
(226) “But
this:
(227) That you, Aurora, with the large live
brow
(228) And steady eyelids, cannot
condescend
(229) To play at art, as children play at
swords,
(230) To show a pretty spirit, chiefly
admired
(231) Because true action is
impossible.
(232) You never can be satisfied with
praise
(233) Which men give women when they judge
a book
(234) Not as mere work but as mere woman’s
work,
(235) Expressing the comparative
respect
(236) Which means the absolute scorn.
23 ‘Oh, excellent!
(237) ‘What grace, what facile turns, what
fluent sweeps,
(238) ‘What delicate discernment . . almost
thought!
(239) ‘The book does honour to the sex, we
hold.
(240) ‘Among our female authors we make
room
(241) ‘For this fair writer, and
congratulate
(242) ‘The country that produces in these
times
(243) ‘Such women, competent to’ . .
spell.”
(243) “Stop
there,”
(244) I answered, burning through his
thread of talk
(245) With a quick flame of emotion,—“You
have read
(246) My soul, if not my book, and argue
well
(247) I would not condescend . . we will
not say
(248) To such a kind of praise, (a
worthless end
(249) Is praise of all kinds) but to such a
use
(250) Of holy art and golden life. I am
young,
(251) And peradventure weak—you tell me
so—
(252) Through being a woman. And, for all
the rest,
(253) Take thanks for justice. I would
rather dance
(254) At fairs on tight-rope,
24 till the babies dropped
(255) Their gingerbread for joy,—than shift
the types
(256) For tolerable verse,
intolerable
(257) To men who act and suffer. Better
far
(258) Pursue a frivolous trade by serious
means,
(259) Than a sublime art
frivolously.”
(259)
“You,
(260) Choose nobler work than either, O
moist eyes
(261) And hurrying lips and heaving heart!
We are young,
(262) Aurora, you and I. The world,—look
round,—
(263) The world, we’re come to late, is
swollen hard
(264) With perished generations and their
sins:
(265) The civiliser’s spade grinds
horribly
(266) On dead men’s bones, and cannot turn
up soil
(267) That’s otherwise than fetid. All
success
(268) Proves partial failure; all advance
implies
(269) What’s left behind; all triumph,
something crushed
(270) At the chariot-wheels; all
government, some wrong:
(271) And rich men make the poor, who
curse the rich,
(272) Who agonise together, rich and
poor,
(273) Under and over, in the social
spasm
(274) And crisis of the ages. Here’s an
age
(275) That makes its own vocation! here we
have stepped
(276) Across the bounds of time! here’s
nought to see,
(277) But just the rich man and just
Lazarus,
(278) And both in torments, with a mediate
gulph,
(279) Though not a hint of Abraham’s
bosom.
25 Who
(280) Being man, Aurora, can stand calmly
by
(281) And view these things, and never
tease his soul
(282) For some great cure? No physic for
this grief,
(283) In all the earth and heavens
too?”
(283) “You
believe
(284) In God, for your part?—ay? that He
who makes,
(285) Can make good things from ill things,
best from worst,
(286) As men plant tulips upon dunghills
when
(287) They wish them finest?”
(287) “True. A death-heat is
(288) The same as life-heat, to be
accurate,
(289) And in all nature is no death at
all,
(290) As men account of death, so long as
God
(291) Stands witnessing for life
perpetually,
(292) By being just God. That’s abstract
truth, I know,
(293) Philosophy, or sympathy with
God:
(294) But I, I sympathise with man, not
God,
(295) (I think I was a man for chiefly
this)
(296) And when I stand beside a dying
bed,
(297) ’T is death to me. Observe,—it had
not much
(298) Consoled the race of mastodons to
know,
(299) Before they went to fossil,
26 that anon
(300) Their place would quicken with the
elephant:
(301) They were not elephants but
mastodons;
(302) And I, a man, as men are now and
not
(303) As men may be hereafter, feel with
men
(304) In the agonising present.”
(304) “Is it so,”
(305) I said, “my cousin? is the world so
bad,
(306) While I hear nothing of it through
the trees?
(307) The world was always evil,—but so
bad?”
(308) “So bad, Aurora. Dear, my soul is
gray
(309) With poring over the long sum of
ill;
(310) So much for vice, so much for
discontent,
(311) So much for the necessities of
power,
(312) So much for the connivances of
fear,
(313) Coherent in statistical
despairs
(314) With such a total of distracted life,
. .
(315) To see it down in figures on a
page,
(316) Plain, silent, clear, as God sees
through the earth
(317) The sense of all the graves,—that’s
terrible
(318) For one who is not God, and cannot
right
(319) The wrong he looks on. May I choose
indeed
(320) But vow away my years, my means, my
aims,
(321) Among the helpers, if there’s any
help
(322) In such a social strait? The common
blood
(323) That swings along my veins, is strong
enough
(324) To draw me to this duty.”
(324) Then I spoke.
(325) “I have not stood long on the strand
of life,
(326) And these salt waters have had
scarcely time
(327) To creep so high up as to wet my
feet:
(328) I cannot judge these tides—I shall,
perhaps.
(329) A woman’s always younger than a
man
(330) At equal years, because she is
disallowed
(331) Maturing by the outdoor sun and
air,
(332) And kept in long-clothes
27 past the age to walk.
(333) Ah well, I know you men judge
otherwise!
(334) You think a woman ripens as a
peach,
(335) In the cheeks, chiefly. Pass it to me
now;
(336) I’m young in age, and younger still,
I think,
(337) As a woman. But a child may say
amen
(338) To a bishop’s prayer and feel the way
it goes,
(339) And I, incapable to loose the
knot
(340) Of social questions, can approve,
applaud
(341) August compassion, christian thoughts
that shoot
(342) Beyond the vulgar white of personal
aims.
28
(343) Accept my reverence.”
(343) There he glowed
29 on me
(344) With all his face and eyes. “No
other help?”
(345) Said he—“no more than so?”
(345) “What help?” I asked.
(346) “You’d scorn my help,—as Nature’s
self, you say,
(347) Has scorned to put her music in my
mouth
(348) Because a woman’s. Do you now turn
round
(349) And ask for what a woman cannot
give?”
(350) “For what she only can, I turn and
ask,”
(351) He answered, catching up my hands in
his,
(352) And dropping on me from his
high-eaved brow
(353) The full weight of his soul,—“I ask
for love,
(354) And that, she can; for life in
fellowship
(355) Through bitter duties—that, I know
she can;
(356) For wifehood—will she?”
(356) “Now,” I said, “may God
(357) Be witness ’twixt us two!” and with
the word,
(358) Meseemed I floated into a sudden
light
(359) Above his stature,—“am I proved too
weak
(360) To stand alone, yet strong enough to
bear
(361) Such leaners on my shoulder? poor to
think,
(362) Yet rich enough to sympathise with
thought?
(363) Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds
can,
(364) Yet competent to love, like
HIM?”
30 (364) I paused;
(365) Perhaps I darkened, as the
light-house will
(366) That turns upon the sea. “It’s always
so.
(367) Anything does for a wife.”
(367) “Aurora, dear,
(368) And dearly honoured,”—he pressed in
at once
(369) With eager utterance,—“you translate
me ill.
(370) I do not contradict my thought of
you
(371) Which is most reverent, with another
thought
(372) Found less so. If your sex is weak
for art,
(373) (And I who said so, did but honour
you
(374) By using truth in courtship) it is
strong
(375) For life and duty. Place your fecund
heart
(376) In mine, and let us blossom for the
world
(377) That wants love’s colour in the gray
of time.
(378) My talk, meanwhile, is arid to you,
ay,
(379) Since all my talk can only set you
where
(380) You look down coldly on the
arena-heaps
(381) Of headless bodies, shapeless,
indistinct!
(382) The Judgment-Angel
31 scarce would find his way
(383) Through such a heap of generalised
distress
(384) To the individual man with lips and
eyes,
(385) Much less Aurora. Ah my sweet, come
down,
(386) And hand in hand we’ll go where yours
shall touch
(387) These victims, one by one! till, one
by one,
(388) The formless, nameless trunk of every
man
(389) Shall seem to wear a head with hair
you know,
(390) And every woman catch your mother’s
face
(391) To melt you into passion.”
(391) “I am a girl,”
(392) I answered slowly; “you do well to
name
(393) My mother’s face. Though far too
early, alas,
(394) God’s hand did interpose ’twixt it
and me,
(395) I know so much of love as used to
shine
(396) In that face and another. Just so
much;
(397) No more indeed at all. I have not
seen
(398) So much love since, I pray you pardon
me,
(399) As answers even to make a marriage
with
(400) In this cold land of England. What
you love,
(401) Is not a woman, Romney, but a
cause:
(402) You want a helpmate, not a mistress,
sir,
(403) A wife to help your ends,—in her no
end!
(404) Your cause is noble, your ends
excellent,
(405) But I, being most unworthy of these
and that,
(406) Do otherwise conceive of love.
Farewell.”
(407) “Farewell, Aurora? you reject me
thus?”
(408) He said.
(408) “Sir, you were married long ago.
(409) You have a wife already whom you
love,
(410) Your social theory. Bless you both, I
say.
(411) For my part, I am scarcely meek
enough
(412) To be the handmaid of a lawful
spouse.
(413) Do I look a Hagar,
32 think you?”
(413) “So you jest.”
(414) “Nay, so I speak in earnest,” I
replied.
(415) “You treat of marriage too much like,
at least,
(416) A chief apostle
33: you would bear with you
(417) A wife . . a sister . . shall we
speak it out?
(418) A sister of charity.”
(418) “Then, must it be
(419) Indeed farewell? And was I so far
wrong
(420) In hope and in illusion, when I
took
(421) The woman to be nobler than the
man,
(422) Yourself the noblest woman, in the
use
(423) And comprehension of what love
is,—love,
(424) That generates the likeness of
itself
(425) Through all heroic duties? so far
wrong,
(426) In saying bluntly, venturing truth on
love,
(427) ‘Come, human creature, love and work
with me,’—
(428) Instead of, ‘Lady, thou art wondrous
fair,
(429) ‘And, where the Graces walk before,
the Muse
(430) ‘Will follow at the lighting of their
eyes,
(431) ‘And where the Muse walks, lovers
need to creep:
(432) ‘Turn round and love me, or I die of
love.’”
34
(433) With quiet indignation I broke
in.
(434) “You misconceive the question like a
man,
(435) Who sees a woman as the
complement
(436) Of his sex merely.
35 You forget too much
(437) That every creature, female as the
male,
(438) Stands single in responsible act and
thought
(439) As also in birth and death. Whoever
says
(440) To a loyal woman, ‘Love and work with
me,’
(441) Will get fair answers if the work and
love,
(442) Being good themselves, are good for
her—the best
(443) She was born for. Women of a softer
mood,
(444) Surprised by men when scarcely awake
to life,
(445) Will sometimes only hear the first
word, love,
(446) And catch up with it any kind of
work,
(447) Indifferent, so that dear love go
with it.
(448) I do not blame such women, though,
for love,
(449) They pick much oakum;
36 earth’s fanatics make
(450) Too frequently heaven’s saints. But
me your work
(451) Is not the best for,—nor your love
the best,
(452) Nor able to commend the kind of
work
(453) For love’s sake merely. Ah, you force
me, sir,
(454) To be over-bold in speaking of
myself:
(455) I too have my vocation,—work to
do,
(456) The heavens and earth have set me
since I changed
(457) My father’s face for theirs, and,
though your world
(458) Were twice as wretched as you
represent,
(459) Most serious work, most necessary
work
(460) As any of the economists’.
Reform,
(461) Make trade a Christian
possibility,
(462) And individual right no general
wrong;
(463) Wipe out earth’s furrows of the Thine
and Mine,
(464) And leave one green for men to play
at bowls,
37
(465) With innings for them all! . . what
then, indeed,
(466) If mortals are not greater by the
head
(467) Than any of their prosperities? what
then,
(468) Unless the artist keep up open
roads
(469) Betwixt the seen and unseen,—bursting
through
(470) The best of your conventions with his
best,
(471) The speakable, imaginable best
(472) God bids him speak, to prove what
lies beyond
(473) Both speech and imagination? A
starved man
(474) Exceeds a fat beast: we’ll not
barter, sir,
(475) The beautiful for barley.—And, even
so,
(476) I hold you will not compass your poor
ends
(477) Of barley-feeding and material
ease,
(478) Without a poet’s individualism
(479) To work your universal. It takes a
soul,
(480) To move a body: it takes a
high-souled man,
(481) To move the masses,
38 even to a cleaner stye:
(482) It takes the ideal, to blow a
hair’s-breadth off
(483) The dust of the actual.—Ah, your
Fouriers failed,
39
(484) Because not poets enough to
understand
(485) That life develops from within.—For
me,
(486) Perhaps I am not worthy, as you
say,
(487) Of work like this: perhaps a woman’s
soul
(488) Aspires, and not creates: yet we
aspire,
(489) And yet I’ll try out your perhapses,
sir,
(490) And if I fail . . why, burn me up my
straw
(491) Like other false works—I’ll not ask
for grace;
(492) Your scorn is better, cousin Romney.
I
(493) Who love my art, would never wish it
lower
(494) To suit my stature.
40 I may love my art.
(495) You’ll grant that even a woman may
love art,
(496) Seeing that to waste true love on
anything
(497) Is womanly, past question.”
(497) I retain
(498) The very last word which I said that
day,
(499) As you the creaking of the door,
years past,
(500) Which let upon you such disabling
news
(501) You ever after have been graver.
He,
(502) His eyes, the motions in his silent
mouth,
(503) Were fiery points on which my words
were caught,
(504) Transfixed for ever in my
memory
(505) For his sake, not their own. And yet
I know
(506) I did not love him . . nor he me . .
that’s sure . .
(507) And what I said, is unrepented
of,
(508) As truth is always. Yet . . a
princely man!—
(509) If hard to me, heroic for
himself!
(510) He bears down on me through the
slanting years,
(511) The stronger for the distance. If he
had loved,
(512) Ay, loved me, with that retributive
face, . .
(513) I might have been a common woman
now
(514) And happier, less known and less left
alone,
(515) Perhaps a better woman after
all,
(516) With chubby children hanging on my
neck
(517) To keep me low and wise. Ah me, the
vines
(518) That bear such fruit, are proud to
stoop with it.
(519) The palm stands upright in a realm of
sand.
(520) And I, who spoke the truth then,
stand upright,
(521) Still worthy of having spoken out the
truth,
(522) By being content I spoke it though it
set
(523) Him there, me here.—O woman’s vile
remorse,
(524) To hanker after a mere name, a
show,
(525) A supposition, a potential
love!
(526) Does every man who names love in our
lives,
(527) Become a power for that? is love’s
true thing
(528) So much best to us, that what
personates love
(529) Is next best? A potential love,
forsooth!
(530) I’m not so vile. No, no—he cleaves, I
think,
(531) This man, this image,—chiefly for the
wrong
(532) And shock he gave my life, in finding
me
(533) Precisely where the devil of my
youth
(534) Had set me, on those mountain-peaks
of hope
(535) All glittering with the
dawn-dew,
41 all erect
(536) And famished for the
noon,—exclaiming, while
(537) I looked for empire and much tribute,
“Come,
(538) I have some worthy work for thee
below.
(539) Come, sweep my barns and keep my
hospitals,
(540) And I will pay thee with a current
coin
(541) Which men give women.”
(541) As we spoke, the grass
(542) Was trod in haste beside us, and my
aunt,
(543) With smile distorted by the
sun,—face, voice
(544) As much at issue with the
summer-day
(545) As if you brought a candle out of
doors,
(546) Broke in with, “Romney, here!—My
child, entreat
(547) Your cousin to the house, and have
your talk,
(548) If girls must talk upon their
birthdays. Come.”
(549) He answered for me calmly, with pale
lips
(550) That seemed to motion for a smile in
vain.
(551) “The talk is ended, madam, where we
stand.
(552) Your brother’s daughter has dismissed
me here;
(553) And all my answer can be better
said
(554) Beneath the trees, than wrong by such
a word
(555) Your house’s hospitalities.
Farewell.”
(556) With that he vanished. I could hear
his heel
(557) Ring bluntly in the lane, as down he
leapt
(558) The short way from us.—Then a
measured speech
(559) Withdrew me. “What means this, Aurora
Leigh?
(560) My brother’s daughter has dismissed
my guests?”
(561) The lion in me felt the keeper’s
voice
(562) Through all its quivering dewlaps; I
was quelled
(563) Before her,—meekened
42 to the child she knew:
(564) I prayed her pardon, said, “I had
little thought
(565) To give dismissal to a guest of
hers,
(566) In letting go a friend of mine who
came
(567) To take me into service as a
wife,—
(568) No more than that, indeed.”
(568) “No more, no more?
(569) Pray Heaven,” she answered, “that I
was not mad.
(570) I could not mean to tell her to her
face
(571) That Romney Leigh had asked me for a
wife,
(572) And I refused him?”
(572) “Did he ask?” I said;
(573) “I think he rather stooped to take me
up
(574) For certain uses which he found to
do
(575) For something called a wife. He never
asked.”
(576) “What stuff!” she answered; “are they
queens, these girls?
(577) They must have mantles, stitched with
twenty silks,
(578) Spread out upon the ground, before
they’ll step
(579) One footstep for the noblest lover
born.”
(580) “But I am born,” I said with
firmness, “I,
(581) To walk another way than his, dear
aunt.”
(582) “You walk, you walk! A babe at
thirteen months
(583) Will walk as well as you,” she cried
in haste,
(584) “Without a steadying finger. Why, you
child,
(585) God help you, you are groping in the
dark,
(586) For all this sunlight. You suppose,
perhaps,
(587) That you, sole offspring of an
opulent man,
(588) Are rich and free to choose a way to
walk?
(589) You think, and it’s a reasonable
thought,
(590) That I, beside, being well to do in
life,
(591) Will leave my handful in my niece’s
hand
(592) When death shall paralyse these
fingers? Pray,
(593) Pray, child, albeit I know you love
me not,
(594) As if you loved me, that I may not
die!
(595) For when I die and leave you, out you
go,
(596) (Unless I make room for you in my
grave)
(597) Unhoused, unfed, my dear poor
brother’s lamb,
(598) (Ah heaven,—that pains!)—without a
right to crop
(599) A single blade of grass beneath these
trees,
(600) Or cast a lamb’s small shadow on the
lawn,
(601) Unfed, unfolded! Ah, my brother,
here’s
(602) The fruit you planted in your foreign
loves!—
(603) Ay, there’s the fruit he planted!
never look
(604) Astonished at me with your mother’s
eyes,
(605) For it was they who set you where you
are,
(606) An undowered orphan. Child, your
father’s choice
(607) Of that said mother,
disinherited
(608) His daughter, his and hers. Men do
not think
(609) Of sons and daughters, when they fall
in love,
(610) So much more than of sisters;
otherwise
(611) He would have paused to ponder what
he did,
(612) And shrunk before that clause in the
entail
(613) Excluding offspring by a foreign
wife,
43
(614) (The clause set up a hundred years
ago
(615) By a Leigh who wedded a French
dancing-girl
(616) And had his heart danced over in
return);
(617) But this man shrank at nothing, never
thought
(618) Of you, Aurora, any more than
me—
(619) Your mother must have been a pretty
thing,
(620) For all the coarse Italian blacks and
browns,
(621) To make a good man, which my brother
was,
(622) Unchary of the duties to his
house;
(623) But so it fell indeed. Our cousin
Vane,
(624) Vane Leigh, the father of this
Romney, wrote
(625) Directly on your birth, to
Italy,
(626) ‘I ask your baby daughter for my
son
(627) ‘In whom the entail now merges by the
law.
(628) ‘Betroth her to us out of love,
44 instead
(629) ‘Of colder reasons, and she shall not
lose
(630) ‘By love or law from henceforth’—so
he wrote;
(631) A generous cousin, was my cousin
Vane.
(632) Remember how he drew you to his
knee
(633) The year you came here, just before
he died,
(634) And hollowed out his hands to hold
your cheeks,
(565) And wished them redder,—you remember
Vane?
(636) And now his son who represents our
house
(637) And holds the fiefs and manors in his
place,
(638) To whom reverts my pittance when I
die,
(639) (Except a few books and a pair of
shawls)
(640) The boy is generous like him, and
prepared
(641) To carry out his kindest word and
thought
(642) To you, Aurora. Yes, a fine young
man
(643) Is Romney Leigh; although the sun of
youth
(644) Has shone too straight upon his
brain, I know,
(645) And fevered him with dreams of doing
good
(646) To good-for-nothing people. But a
wife
(647) Will put all right, and stroke his
temples cool
(648) With healthy touches” . .
(648) I broke in at that.
(649) I could not lift my heavy heart to
breathe
(650) Till then, but then I raised it, and
it fell
(651) In broken words like these—“No need
to wait.
(652) The dream of doing good to . . me, at
least,
(653) Is ended, without waiting for a
wife
(654) To cool the fever for him. We’ve
escaped
(655) That danger,—thank Heaven for
it.”
(655) “You,” she
cried,
(656) “Have got a fever. What, I talk and
talk
(657) An hour long to you,—I instruct you
how
(658) You cannot eat or drink or stand or
sit
(659) Or even die, like any decent
wretch
(660) In all this unroofed and unfurnished
world,
(661) Without your cousin,—and you, still
maintain
(662) There’s room ’twixt him and you, for
flirting fans
(663) And running knots in eyebrows? You
must have
(664) A pattern lover sighing on his
knee?
(665) You do not count enough, a noble
heart
(666) (Above book-patterns) which this very
morn
(667) Unclosed itself in two dear fathers’
names
(668) To embrace your orphaned life? fie,
fie! But stay,
(669) I write a word, and counteract this
sin.”
(670) She would have turned to leave me,
but I clung.
(671) “O sweet my father’s sister, hear my
word
(672) Before you write yours. Cousin Vane
did well,
(673) And cousin Romney well,—and I well
too,
(674) In casting back with all my strength
and will
(675) The good they meant me. O my God, my
God!
(676) God meant me good, too, when he
hindered me
(677) From saying ‘yes’ this morning. If
you write
(678) A word, it shall be ‘no.’ I say no,
no!
(679) I tie up ‘no’ upon His altar-horns,
45
(680) Quite out of reach of perjury! At
least
(681) My soul is not a pauper; I can
live
(682) At least my soul’s life, without alms
from men;
(683) And if it must be in heaven instead
of earth,
(684) Let heaven look to it,—I am not
afraid.”
(685) She seized my hands with both hers,
strained them fast,
(686) And drew her probing and unscrupulous
eyes
(687) Right through me, body and heart.
“Yet, foolish Sweet,
(688) You love this man. I’ve watched you
when he came,
(689) And when he went, and when we’ve
talked of him:
(690) I am not old for nothing; I can
tell
(691) The weather-signs of love: you love
this man.”
(692) Girls blush sometimes because they
are alive,
(693) Half wishing they were dead to save
the shame.
(694) The sudden blush devours them, neck
and brow;
(695) They have drawn too near the fire of
life, like gnats,
(696) And flare up bodily, wings and all.
What then?
(697) Who’s sorry for a gnat . . or
girl?
(697) I
blushed.
(698) I feel the brand upon my forehead
now
(699) Strike hot, sear deep, as guiltless
men may feel
(700) The felon’s iron,
46 say, and scorn the mark
(701) Of what they are not. Most
illogical
(702) Irrational nature of our
womanhood,
(703) That blushes one way, feels another
way,
(704) And prays, perhaps, another! After
all,
(705) We cannot be the equal of the
male
(706) Who rules his blood a
little.
(706) For
although
(707) I blushed indeed, as if I loved the
man,
(708) And her incisive smile,
accrediting
(709) That treason of false witness in my
blush,
(710) Did bow me downward like a swathe of
grass
(711) Below its level that struck me,—I
attest
(712) The conscious skies and all their
daily suns,
(713) I think I loved him not,—nor then,
nor since,
(714) Nor ever. Do we love the
schoolmaster,
(715) Being busy in the woods? much less,
being poor,
(716) The overseer of the parish?
47 Do we keep
(717) Our love to pay our debts
with?
(717) White and
cold
(718) I grew next moment. As my blood
recoiled
(719) From that imputed ignominy, I
made
(720) My heart great with it. Then, at
last, I spoke,
(721) Spoke veritable words but
passionate,
(722) Too passionate perhaps . . ground up
with sobs
(723) To shapeless endings. She let fall my
hands
(724) And took her smile off, in sedate
disgust,
(725) As peradventure she had touched a
snake,—
(726) A dead snake, mind!—and turning
round, replied,
(727) “We’ll leave Italian manners, if you
please.
(728) I think you had an English father,
child,
(729) And ought to find it possible to
speak
(730) A quiet ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ like English
girls,
(731) Without convulsions. In another
month
(732) We’ll take another answer—no, or
yes.”
(733) With that, she left me in the
garden-walk.
(734) I had a father! yes, but long
ago—
(735) How long it seemed that moment. Oh,
how far,
(736) How far and safe, God, dost thou keep
thy saints
(737) When once gone from us! We may call
against
(738) The lighted windows of thy fair
June-heaven
(739) Where all the souls are happy,—and
not one,
(740) Not even my father, look from work or
play
(741) To ask, “Who is it that cries after
us,
(742) Below there, in the dusk?” Yet
formerly
(743) He turned his face upon me quick
enough,
(4) If I said “father.” Now I might cry
loud;
(745) The little lark reached higher with
his song
(746) Than I with crying. Oh, alone,
alone,—
(747) Not troubling any in heaven, nor any
on earth,
(748) I stood there in the garden, and
looked up
(749) The deaf blue sky that brings the
roses out
(750) On such June mornings.
(750) You who keep account
(751) Of crisis and transition in this
life,
(752) Set down the first time Nature says
plain “no”
(753) To some “yes” in you, and walks over
you
(754) In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all
begin
(755) By singing with the birds, and
running fast
(756) With June-days, hand in hand: but
once, for all,
(757) The birds must sing against us, and
the sun
(758) Strike down upon us like a friend’s
sword caught
(759) By an enemy to slay us, while we
read
(760) The dear name on the blade which
bites at us!—
(761) That’s bitter and convincing: after
that,
(762) We seldom doubt that something in the
large
(763) Smooth order of creation, though no
more
(764) Than haply a man’s footstep, has gone
wrong.
(765) Some tears fell down my cheeks, and
then I smiled,
(766) As those smile who have no face in
the world
(767) To smile back to them. I had lost a
friend
(768) In Romney Leigh; the thing was sure—a
friend,
(769) Who had looked at me most gently now
and then,
(770) And spoken of my favourite books,
“our books,”
(771) With such a voice! Well, voice and
look were now
(772) More utterly shut out from me I
felt,
(773) Than even my father’s. Romney now was
turned
(774) To a benefactor, to a generous
man,
(775) Who had tied himself to marry . . me,
instead
(776) Of such a woman, with low timorous
lids
(777) He lifted with a sudden word one
day,
(778) And left, perhaps, for my sake.—Ah,
self-tied
(779) By a contract, male Iphigenia
bound
(780) At a fatal Aulis for the winds to
change,
48
(781) (But loose him, they’ll not change),
he well might seem
(782) A little cold and dominant in
love!
(783) He had a right to be
dogmatical,
(784) This poor, good Romney. Love, to him,
was made
(785) A simple law-clause. If I married
him,
(786) I should not dare to call my soul my
own
(787) Which so he had bought and paid for:
every thought
(788) And every heart-beat down there in
the bill;
(789) Not one found honestly
deductible
(790) From any use that pleased him! He
might cut
(791) My body into coins to give away
(792) Among his other paupers;
49 change my sons,
(793) While I stood dumb as Griseld,
50 for black babes
(794) Or piteous foundlings; might
unquestioned set
(795) My right hand teaching in the Ragged
Schools,
51
(796) My left hand washing in the Public
Baths,
52
(797) What time my angel of the Ideal
stretched
(798) Both his to me in vain. I could not
claim
(799) The poor right of a mouse in a trap,
to squeal,
(800) And take so much as pity from
myself.
(801) Farewell, good Romney! if I loved you
even,
(802) I could but ill afford to let you
be
(803) So generous to me. Farewell, friend,
since friend
(804) Betwixt us two, forsooth, must be a
word
(805) So heavily overladen. And, since
help
(806) Must come to me from those who love
me not,
(807) Farewell, all helpers—I must help
myself,
(808) And am alone from henceforth.—Then I
stooped
(809) And lifted the soiled garland from
the earth,
(810) And set it on my head as
bitterly
(811) As when the Spanish monarch crowned
the bones
(812) Of his dead love.
53 So be it. I preserve
(813) That crown still,—in the drawer
there!
54 ’t was the first.
(814) The rest are like it;—those Olympian
crowns,
(815) We run for, till we lose sight of the
sun
(816) In the dust of the racing
chariots!
(816) After
that,
(817) Before the evening fell, I had a
note,
(818) Which ran,—“Aurora, sweet Chaldean,
you read
(819) My meaning backward like your eastern
books,
55
(820) While I am from the west, dear. Read
me now
(821) A little plainer. Did you hate me
quite
(822) But yesterday? I loved you for my
part;
(823) I love you. If I spoke
untenderly
(824) This morning, my beloved, pardon
it;
(825) And comprehend me that I loved you
so
(826) I set you on the level of my
soul,
(827) And overwashed you with the bitter
brine
(828) Of some habitual thoughts.
Henceforth, my flower,
(829) Be planted out of reach of any
such,
(830) And lean the side you please, with
all your leaves!
(831) Write woman’s verses and dream
woman’s dreams;
(832) But let me feel your perfume in my
home
(833) To make my sabbath after
working-days.
(834) Bloom out your youth beside me,—be my
wife.”
(835) I wrote in answer—“We Chaldeans
discern
(836) Still farther than we read. I know
your heart,
(837) And shut it like the holy book it
is,
(838) Reserved for mild-eyed saints to pore
upon
(839) Betwixt their prayers at vespers.
Well, you’re right,
(840) I did not surely hate you
yesterday;
(841) And yet I do not love you enough
to-day
(842) To wed you, cousin Romney. Take this
word,
(843) And let it stop you as a generous
man
(844) From speaking farther. You may tease,
indeed,
(845) And blow about my feelings, or my
leaves,
(846) And here’s my aunt will help you with
east winds
(847) And break a stalk, perhaps,
tormenting me;
(848) But certain flowers grow near as deep
as trees,
(849) And, cousin, you’ll not move my root,
not you,
(850) With all your confluent storms. Then
let me grow
(851) Within my wayside hedge, and pass
your way!
(852) This flower has never as much to say
to you
(853) As the antique tomb which said to
travellers, ‘Pause,’
(854) ‘Siste, viator.’”
56 Ending thus, I signed.
(855) The next week passed in silence, so
the next,
(856) And several after: Romney did not
come
(857) Nor my aunt chide me. I lived on and
on,
(858) As if my heart were kept beneath a
glass,
(859) And everybody stood, all eyes and
ears,
(860) To see and hear it tick. I could not
sit,
(861) Nor walk, nor take a book, nor lay it
down,
(862) Nor sew on steadily, nor drop a
stitch,
(863) And a sigh with it, but I felt her
looks
(864) Still cleaving to me, like the
sucking asp
(865) To Cleopatra’s breast,
57 persistently
(866) Through the intermittent pantings.
Being observed,
(867) When observation is not
sympathy,
(868) Is just being tortured. If she said a
word,
(869) A “thank you,” or an “if it please
you, dear,”
(870) She meant a commination,
58 or, at best,
(871) An exorcism against the devildom
59
(872) Which plainly held me. So with all
the house.
(873) Susannah could not stand and twist my
hair,
(874) Without such glancing at the
looking-glass
(875) To see my face there, that she missed
the plait.
(876) And John,—I never sent my plate for
soup,
(877) Or did not send it, but the foolish
John
(878) Resolved the problem, ’twixt his
napkined thumbs,
(879) Of what was signified by taking
soup
(880) Or choosing mackerel. Neighbours who
dropped in
(881) On morning visits, feeling a joint
wrong,
(882) Smiled admonition, sate
uneasily,
(883) And talked with measured, emphasised
reserve,
(884) Of parish news, like doctors to the
sick,
(885) When not called in,—as if, with leave
to speak,
(886) They might say something. Nay, the
very dog
(887) Would watch me from his sun-patch on
the floor,
(888) In alternation with the large black
fly
(889) Not yet in reach of snapping. So I
lived.
(890) A Roman died so; smeared with honey,
teased
(891) By insects, stared to torture by the
noon:
60
(892) And many patient souls ’neath English
roofs
(893) Have died like Romans. I, in looking
back,
(894) Wish only, now, I had borne the
plague of all
(895) With meeker spirits than were rife at
Rome.
(896) For, on the sixth week, the dead sea
broke up,
(897) Dashed suddenly through beneath the
heel of Him
(898) Who stands upon the sea and earth and
swears
(899) Time shall be nevermore.
61 The clock struck nine
(900) That morning too,—no lark was out of
tune,
(901) The hidden farms among the hills
breathed straight
(902) Their smoke toward heaven, the
lime-tree scarcely stirred
(903) Beneath the blue weight of the
cloudless sky,
(904) Though still the July air came
floating through
(905) The woodbine at my window, in and
out,
(906) With touches of the out-door
country-news
(907) For a bending forehead. There I sate,
and wished
(908) That morning-truce of God would last
till eve,
(909) Or longer. “Sleep,” I thought, “late
sleepers,—sleep,
(910) And spare me yet the burden of your
eyes.”
(911) Then, suddenly, a single ghastly
shriek
(912) Tore upward from the bottom of the
house.
(913) Like one who wakens in a grave and
shrieks,
(914) The still house seemed to shriek
itself alive,
(915) And shudder through its passages and
stairs
(916) With slam of doors and clash of
bells.—I sprang,
(917) I stood up in the middle of the
room,
(918) And there confronted at my
chamber-door,
(919) A white face,—shivering, ineffectual
lips.
(920) “Come, come,” they tried to utter,
and I went:
(921) As if a ghost had drawn me at the
point
(922) Of a fiery finger through the uneven
dark,
(923) I went with reeling footsteps down
the stair,
(924) Nor asked a question.
(923) There she sate, my
aunt,—
(925) Bolt upright in the chair beside her
bed,
(926) Whose pillow had no dint! she had
used no bed
(927) For that night’s sleeping, yet slept
well. My God,
(928) The dumb derision of that grey,
peaked face
(929) Concluded something grave against the
sun,
(930) Which filled the chamber with its
July burst
(931) When Susan drew the curtains
ignorant
(932) Of who sate open-eyed behind her.
There
(933) She sate . . it sate . . we said
“she” yesterday . .
(934) And held a letter with unbroken
seal
(935) As Susan gave it to her hand last
night:
(936) All night she had held it. If its
news referred
(937) To duchies or to dunghills, not an
inch
(938) She’d budge, ’t was obvious, for such
worthless odds:
(939) Nor, though the stars were suns and
overburned
(940) Their spheric limitations, swallowing
up
(941) Like wax the azure spaces, could they
force
(942) Those open eyes to wink once. What
last sight
(943) Had left them blank and flat
so,—drawing out
(944) The faculty of vision from the
roots,
(945) As nothing more, worth seeing,
remained behind?
(946) Were those the eyes that watched me,
worried me?
(947) That dogged me up and down the hours
and days,
(498) A beaten, breathless, miserable
soul?
(949) And did I pray, a half-hour back, but
so,
(950) To escape the burden of those eyes .
. those eyes?
(951) “Sleep late” I said?—
(951) Why now, indeed, they
sleep.
(952) God answers sharp and sudden on some
prayers,
(953) And thrusts the thing we have prayed
for in our face,
(954) A gauntlet with a gift in ’t. Every
wish
(955) Is like a prayer, with God.
(955) I had my wish,
(956) To read and meditate the thing I
would,
(957) To fashion all my life upon my
thought,
(958) And marry or not marry. Henceforth
none
(959) Could disapprove me, vex me, hamper
me.
(960) Full ground-room, in this desert
newly made,
(961) For Babylon or Balbec,
62 —when the breath,
(962) Now choked with sand, returns for
building towns.
(963) The heir came over on the funeral
day,
(964) And we two cousins met before the
dead,
(965) With two pale faces. Was it death or
life
(966) That moved us? When the will was read
and done,
(967) The official guests and witnesses
withdrawn,
(968) We rose up in a silence almost
hard,
(969) And looked at one another. Then I
said,
(970) “Farewell, my cousin.”
(970) But he touched, just
touched
(971) My hatstrings tied for going, (at the
door
(972) The carriage stood to take me) and
said low,
(973) His voice a little unsteady through
his smile,
(974) “Siste, viator.”
(974) “Is there time,” I
asked,
(975) “In these last days of railroads, to
stop short
(976) Like Cæsar’s chariot (weighing half a
ton)
(977) On the Appian road for morals?”
63 (977) “There is time,”
(978) He answered grave, “for necessary
words,
(979) Inclusive, trust me, of no
epitaph
(980) On man or act, my cousin. We have
read
(981) A will, which gives you all the
personal goods
(982) And funded monies
64 of your aunt.”
(982) “I thank
(983) Her memory for it. With three hundred
pounds
(984) We buy in England even, clear
standing-room
(985) To stand and work in. Only two hours
since,
(986) I fancied I was poor.”
(986) “And, cousin, still
(987) You’re richer than you fancy. The
will says,
(988) Three hundred
pounds, and any other sum
(989) Of which the
said testatrix dies possessed.
(990) I say she died possessed of other
sums.”
(991) “Dear Romney, need we chronicle the
pence?
(992) I’m richer than I thought—that’s
evident.
(993) Enough so.”
(993) “Listen rather. You’ve to
do
(994) With business and a cousin,” he
resumed,
(995) “And both, I fear, need patience.
Here’s the fact.
(996) The other sum (there is another
sum,
(997) Unspecified in any will which
dates
(998) After possession, yet bequeathed as
much
(999) And clearly as those said three
hundred pounds)
(1000) Is thirty thousand. You will have it
paid
(1001) When? . . where? My duty troubles
you with words.”
(1002) He struck the iron when the bar was
hot;
(1003) No wonder if my eyes sent out some
sparks.
(1004) “Pause there! I thank you. You are
delicate
(1005) In glosing
65 gifts;—but I, who share your
blood,
(1006) Am rather made for giving, like
yourself,
(1007) Than taking, like your pensioners.
Farewell.”
(1008) He stopped me with a gesture of calm
pride.
(1009) “A Leigh,” he said, “gives largesse
and gives love,
(1010) But gloses never: if a Leigh could
glose,
(1011) He would not do it, moreover, to a
Leigh,
(1012) With blood trained up along nine
centuries
(1013) To hound and hate a lie from eyes
like yours.
(1014) And now we’ll make the rest as
clear; your aunt
(1015) Possessed these monies.”
(1015) “You will make it
clear,
(1016) My cousin, as the honour of us
both,
(1017) Or one of us speaks vainly! that’s
not I.
(1018) My aunt possessed this
sum,—inherited
(1019) From whom, and when? bring
documents, prove dates.”
(1020) “Why now indeed you throw your
bonnet off
(1021) As if you had time left for a
logarithm!
(1022) The faith’s the want. Dear cousin,
give me faith,
(1023) And you shall walk this road with
silken shoes,
(1024) As clean as any lady of our
house
(1025) Supposed the proudest. Oh, I
comprehend
(1026) The whole position from your point
of sight.
(1027) I oust you from your father’s halls
and lands
(1028) And make you poor by getting
rich—that’s law;
(1029) Considering which, in common
circumstance,
(1030) You would not scruple to accept from
me
(1031) Some compensation, some
sufficiency
(1032) Of income—that were justice; but,
alas,
(1033) I love you,—that’s mere nature; you
reject
(1034) My love,—that’s nature also; and at
once,
(1035) You cannot, from a suitor
disallowed,
(1036) A hand thrown back as mine is, into
yours
(1037) Receive a doit,
66 a farthing,—not for the
world!
(1038) That’s woman’s etiquette, and
obviously
(1039) Exceeds the claim of nature, law,
and right,
(1040) Unanswerable to all. I grant, you
see,
(1041) The case as you conceive it,—leave
you room
(1042) To sweep your ample skirts of
womanhood,
(1043) While, standing humbly squeezed
against the wall,
(1044) I own myself excluded from being
just,
(1045) Restrained from paying indubitable
debts,
(1046) Because denied from giving you my
soul.
(1047) That’s my misfortune!—I submit to
it
(1048) As if, in some more reasonable
age,
(1049) ’T would not be less inevitable.
Enough.
(1050) You’ll trust me, cousin, as a
gentleman,
(1051) To keep your honour, as you count
it, pure,
(1052) Your scruples (just as if I thought
them wise)
(1053) Safe and inviolate from gifts of
mine.”
(1054) I answered mild but earnest. “I
believe
(1055) In no one’s honour which another
keeps,
(1056) Nor man’s nor woman’s. As I keep,
myself,
(1057) My truth and my religion, I
depute
(1058) No father, though I had one this
side death,
(1059) Nor brother, though I had twenty,
much less you,
(1060) Though twice my cousin, and once
Romney Leigh,
(1061) To keep my honour pure. You face,
to-day,
(1062) A man who wants instruction, mark
me, not
(1063) A woman who wants protection. As to
a man,
(1064) Show manhood, speak out plainly, be
precise
(1065) With facts and dates. My aunt
inherited
(1066) This sum, you say—”
(1066) “I said she died
possessed
(1067) Of this, dear cousin.”
(1067) “Not by heritage.
(1068) Thank you: we’re getting to the
facts at last.
(1069) Perhaps she played at commerce with
a ship
(1070) Which came in heavy with Australian
gold?
67
(1071) Or touched a lottery with her
finger-end,
(1072) Which tumbled on a sudden into her
lap
(1073) Some old Rhine tower
68 or principality?
(1074) Perhaps she had to do with a
marine
(1075) Sub-transatlantic railroad, which
pre-pays
(1076) As well as pre-supposes? or
perhaps
(1077) Some stale ancestral debt was
after-paid
(1078) By a hundred years, and took her by
surprise?—
(1079) You shake your head my cousin; I
guess ill.”
(1080) “You need not guess, Aurora, nor
deride;
(1081) The truth is not afraid of hurting
you.
(1082) You’ll find no cause, in all your
scruples, why
(1083) Your aunt should cavil at a deed of
gift
(1084) ’Twixt her and me.”
(1084) “I thought so—ah! a
gift.”
(1085) “You naturally thought so,” he
resumed.
(1086) “A very natural gift.”
(1086) “A gift, a gift!
(1087) Her individual life being stranded
high
(1088) Above all want, approaching
opulence,
(1089) Too haughty was she to accept a
gift
(1090) Without some ultimate aim: ah, ah, I
see,—
(1091) A gift intended plainly for her
heirs,
(1092) And so accepted . . if accepted . .
ah,
(1093) Indeed that might be; I am snared
perhaps
(1094) Just so. But, cousin, shall I pardon
you,
(1095) If thus you have caught me with a
cruel springe?”
(1096) He answered gently, “Need you
tremble and pant
(1097) Like a netted lioness? is ’t my
fault, mine,
(1098) That you’re a grand wild creature of
the woods
(1099) And hate the stall built for you?
Any way,
(1100) Though triply netted, need you glare
at me?
(1101) I do not hold the cords of such a
net;
(1102) You’re free from me,
Aurora!”
(1102) “Now may
God
(1103) Deliver me from this strait! This
gift of yours
(1104) Was tendered . . when? accepted . .
when?” I asked.
(1105) “A month . . a fortnight since? Six
weeks ago
(1106) It was not tendered; by a word she
dropped
(1107) I know it was not tendered nor
received.
(1108) When was it? bring your
dates.”
(1108) “What
matters when?
(1109) A half-hour ere she died, or a
half-year,
(1110) Secured the gift, maintains the
heritage
(1111) Inviolable with law. As easy
pluck
(1112) The golden stars from heaven’s
embroidered stole
(1113) To pin them on the gray side of this
earth,
(1114) As make you poor again, thank
God.”
(1114) “Not
poor
(1115) Nor clean again from henceforth, you
thank God?
(1116) Well, sir—I ask you—I insist at
need,—
(1117) Vouchsafe the special date, the
special date.”
(1118) “The day before her death-day,” he
replied,
(1119) “The gift was in her hands. We’ll
find that deed,
(1120) And certify that date to
you.”
(1120) As one
(1121) Who has climbed a mountain-height
and carried up
(1122) His own heart climbing, panting in
his throat
(1123) With the toil of the ascent, takes
breath at last,
(1124) Looks back in triumph—so I stood and
looked.
(1125) “Dear cousin Romney, we have reached
the top
(1126) Of this steep question, and may
rest, I think.
(1127) But first,—I pray you pardon, that
the shock
(1128) And surge of natural feeling and
event
(1129) Had made me oblivious of acquainting
you
(1130) That this, this letter, (unread,
mark, still sealed)
(1131) Was found enfolded in the poor dead
hand:
(1132) That spirit of hers had gone beyond
the address,
(1133) Which could not find her though you
wrote it clear,—
(1134) I know your writing,
Romney,—recognise
(1135) The open-hearted A, the liberal sweep
(1136) Of the G. Now listen,—let us understand:
(1137) You will not find that famous deed
of gift,
(1138) Unless you find it in the letter
here,
(1139) Which, not being mine, I give you
back.—Refuse
(1140) To take the letter? well then—you
and I,
(1141) As writer and as heiress, open
it
(1142) Together, by your leave.—Exactly
so:
(1143) The words in which the noble
offering’s made
(1144) Are nobler still, my cousin; and, I
own,
(1145) The proudest and most delicate heart
alive,
(1146) Distracted from the measure of the
gift
(1147) By such a grace in giving, might
accept
(1148) Your largesse without thinking any
more
(1149) Of the burthen of it, than King
Solomon
(1150) Considered, when he wore his holy
ring
(1151) Charáctered over with the ineffable
spell,
69
(1152) How many carats of fine gold made
up
(1153) Its money-value: so, Leigh gives to
Leigh!
(1154) Or rather, might have given,
observe,—for that’s
(1155) The point we come to. Here’s a proof
of gift,
(1156) But here’s no proof, sir, of
acceptancy,
(1157) But rather, disproof. Death’s black
dust, being blown,
(1158) Infiltrated through every secret
fold
(1159) Of this sealed letter by a puff of
fate,
(1160) Dried up for ever the fresh-written
ink,
(1161) Annulled the gift, disutilised the
grace,
(1162) And left these fragments.”
(1162) As I spoke, I tore
(1163) The paper up and down, and down and
up
(1164) And crosswise, till it fluttered
from my hands,
(1165) As forest-leaves, stripped suddenly
and rapt
(1166) By a whirlwind on Valdarno,
70 drop again,
(1167) Drop slow, and strew the melancholy
ground
(1168) Before the amazèd hills . . . why,
so, indeed,
(1169) I’m writing like a poet,
71 somewhat large
(1170) In the type of the image, and
exaggerate
(1) A small thing with a great thing,
topping it:—
(2) But then I’m thinking how his eyes
looked, his,
(3) With what despondent and surprised
reproach!
(4) I think the tears were in them as he
looked;
(5) I think the manly mouth just trembled.
Then
(1176) He broke the silence.
(1176) “I may ask, perhaps,
(7) Although no stranger . . only Romney
Leigh,
(8) Which means still less . . than Vincent
Carrington,
(9) Your plans in going hence, and where
you go.
(1180) This cannot be a secret.”
(1180) “All my life
(1181) Is open to you, cousin. I go
hence
(1182) To London, to the gathering-place of
souls,
(1183) To live mine straight out, vocally,
in books;
(1184) Harmoniously for others, if
indeed
(1185) A woman’s soul, like man’s, be wide
enough
(1186) To carry the whole octave (that’s to
prove)
(1187) Or, if I fail, still purely for
myself.
(1188) Pray God be with me,
Romney.”
(1188) “Ah, poor
child,
(1189) Who fight against the mother’s
’tiring
72 hand,
(1190) And choose the headsman’s! May God
change his world
(1) For your sake, sweet, and make it mild
as heaven,
(1192) And juster than I have found
you.”
(1192) But I
paused.
(1193) “And you, my cousin?”—
(1193) “I,” he said,—“you
ask?
(1194) You care to ask? Well, girls have
curious minds
(1195) And fain would know the end of
everything,
(1196) Of cousins therefore with the rest.
For me,
(1197) Aurora, I’ve my work; you know my
work;
(1198) And, having missed this year some
personal hope,
(1199) I must beware the rather that I
miss
(1200) No reasonable duty. While you
sing
(1201) Your happy pastorals of the meads
and trees,
(1202) Bethink you that I go to impress and
prove
(1203) On stifled brains and deafened ears,
stunned deaf,
(1204) Crushed dull with grief, that nature
sings itself,
(1205) And needs no mediate poet, lute or
voice,
(1206) To make it vocal. While you ask of
men
(1207) Your audience, I may get their leave
perhaps
(1208) For hungry orphans to say
audibly
(1209) ‘We’re hungry, see,’—for beaten and
bullied wives
(1210) To hold their unweaned babies up in
sight,
(1211) Whom orphanage would better, and for
all
(1212) To speak and claim their portion . .
by no means
(1213) Of the soil, . . but of the sweat in
tilling it;
(1214) Since this is now-a-days turned
privilege,
(1215) To have only God’s curse
73 on us, and not man’s.
(1216) Such work I have for doing,
elbow-deep
(1217) In social problems,—as you tie your
rhymes,
(1218) To draw my uses to cohere with
needs
(1219) And bring the uneven world back to
its round,
(1220) Or, failing so much, fill up, bridge
at least
(1221) To smoother issues some abysmal
cracks
(1222) And feuds of earth, intestine heats
have made
(1223) To keep men separate,—using sorry
shifts
(1224) Of hospitals, almshouses, infant
schools,
(1225) And other practical stuff of partial
good
(1226) You lovers of the beautiful and
whole
(1227) Despise by system.”
(1227) “I despise? The scorn
(1228) Is yours, my cousin. Poets become
such
(1229) Through scorning nothing. You decry
them for
(1230) The good of beauty sung and taught
by them,
(1231) While they respect your practical
partial good
(1232) As being a part of beauty’s self.
Adieu!
(1233) When God helps all the workers for
his world,
(1234) The singers shall have help of Him,
not last.”
(1235) He smiled as men smile when they
will not speak
(1236) Because of something bitter in the
thought;
(1237) And still I feel his melancholy
eyes
(1238) Look judgment on me. It is seven
years since:
74
(1239) I know not if ’t was pity or ’t was
scorn
(1240) Has made them so far-reaching: judge
it ye
(1241) Who have had to do with pity more
than love
(1242) And scorn than hatred. I am used,
since then,
(1243) To other ways, from equal men. But
so,
(1244) Even so, we let go hands, my cousin
and I,
(1245) And in between us, rushed the
torrent-world
(1246) To blanch our faces like divided
rocks,
(1247) And bar for ever mutual sight and
touch
(1248) Except through swirl of spray and
all that roar.