NINTH BOOK.

NINTH BOOK.

Eventhus. I 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 fretsAnd fools upon one string of a man’s name,And fingers it for ever till it breaks,—He may perhaps do for her such a thing,And she accept it without detrimentAlthough she should not love him any more.And I, who do not love him, nor love you,Nor you, Aurora,—choose you shall repentYour 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 tome?We both had mothers,—lay in their bosom once.Why, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh,For proving to myself that there are thingsI would not do, ... not for my life ... nor him ...Though something I have somewhat overdone,—For instance, when I went to see the godsOne morning on Olympus, with a stepThat shook the thunder in a certain cloud,Committing myself vilely. Could I think,The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breastTo soften, had herself a sort of heart,And loved my mortal? He, at least, loved her;I heard him say so; ’twas my recompence,When, watching at his bedside fourteen days,He broke out ever like a flame at whilesBetween the heats of fever.... ‘Is it thou?Breathe closer, sweetest mouth!’ and when at lastThe fever gone, the wasted face extinctAs if it irked him much to know me there,He said, ‘’Twas kind, ’twas good, ’twas womanly,’(And fifty praises to excuse one love)‘But was the picture safe he had ventured for?’And then, half wandering ... ‘I have loved her well,Although she could not love me.’—‘Say instead,’I answered, ‘that she loves you.’—’Twas my turnTo rave: (I would have married him so changed,Although the world had jeered me properlyFor 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 bookAnd read it softly, Lady Waldemar,Until I thank your friendship more for that,Than even for harder service.’ So I readYour book, Aurora, for an hour, that day:I kept its pauses, marked its emphasis;My voice, empaled upon rhyme’s golden hooks,Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt;I read on calmly,—calmly shut it up,Observing, ‘There’s some merit in the book.And yet the merit in’t is thrown awayAs chances still with women, if we writeOr write not: we want string to tie our flowers,So drop them as we walk, which serves to showThe way we went. Good morning, Mister Leigh;You’ll 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, tiring lessAnd teaching more.’ I triumphed o’er you both,And left him.‘When I saw him afterward,I had read your shameful letter, and my heart.He came with health recovered, strong though pale,Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends,To say what men dare say to women, whenTheir 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 though ’twas altered perfectly since then.I 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 streamOf that poor bubbling nature,—till she went,Consigned to one I trusted, my own maid,Who once had lived full five months in my house,(Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purseTo carry to Australia where she had leftA husband, said she. If the creature lied,The mission failed, we all do fail and lieMore or less—and I’m sorry—which is allExpected 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 saidShe saw her stop to speak in Oxford StreetTo one ... no matter! I had sooner cutMy hand off (though ’twere kissed the hour before,And promised a pearl troth-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 domeWhen all the faithful troop to morning prayer:But he, he nipped the bud of such a thoughtWith that cold Leigh look which I fancied once,And broke in, ‘Henceforth she was called his wife.His wife required no succour: he was boundTo 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 shot my tongue against my flyAnd struck him; ‘Would he carry,—he was just,—A letter from me to Aurora Leigh,And ratify from his authentic mouthMy 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.‘Parted. Face no more,Voice no more, love no more! wiped wholly outLike some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterlyBy 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 colour at my lip.A rose is pink and pretty without blood;Why not a woman? When we’ve played in vainThe game, to adore,—we have resources still,And can play on at leisure, being adored:Here’s Smith already swearing at my feetThat I’m the typic She. Away with Smith!—Smith smacks of Leigh,—and, henceforth, I’ll admitNo 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 Erle to a noble Leigh,(His love astray on one he should not love)Howbeit you should 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, and 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, footprint even,Adore averted shoulders in a glass,And memories of what, present once, was loathed.And yet, you loathed not Romney,—though you’ve playedAt ‘fox and goose’ about him with your soul:Pass over fox, you rub out fox,—ignoreA feeling, you eradicate it,—the act’sIdentical.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!You need not wishmejoy 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 thinkThat, with him, I were virtuouser than youWithout him: so I hate you from this gulfAnd hollow of my soul, which opens outTo 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. I had seized and caught the senseOf the letter with its twenty stinging snakes,In a moment’s sweep of eyesight, and I stoodDazed.—‘Ah!—not married.’‘You mistake,’ he said;‘I’m married. Is not Marian Erle my wife?As God sees things, I have a wife and child;And I, as I’m a man who honours God,Am here to claim them as my child and wife.’I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak.Nor word of mine was needed. Some one elseWas there for answering. ‘Romney,’ she began,‘My great good angel, Romney.’Then at first,I knew that Marian Erle was beautiful.She stood there, still and pallid as a saint,Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy,As if the floating moonshine interposedBetwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her upTo 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 menHave made her, for your honourable wife?’The 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 menMust 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 shameIn sight of men and women, for your child,Of whom you will not ever feel ashamed?’The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice.He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms,As if to quench upon his breast that voice.—‘May God so father me, as I do him,And so forsake me as I let him feelHe’s orphaned haply. Here I take the childTo share my cup, to slumber on my knee,To play his loudest gambol at my foot,To hold my finger in the public ways,Till none shall need inquire, ‘Whose child is this,’The gesture saying so tenderly, ‘My own’.’She stood a moment silent in her place;Then, turning toward me, very slow and cold——‘And you,—what say you?—will you blame me 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 in the worldWhere men have stoned me? Have I not the rightTo take so mere an aftermath from life,Else found so wholly bare? Or is it wrongTo let your cousin, for a generous bent,Put out his ungloved fingers among briarsTo set a tumbling bird’s-nest somewhat straight?You will not tell him, though we’re innocentWe are not harmless?... and that both our harmsWill stick to his good smooth noble life like burrs,Never to drop off though you shake 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 caseOf being just hurt and honest; while for him,’Twould ever twit him with his bastard childAnd married harlot. Speak, while yet there’s time:You would not stand and let a good man’s dogTurn round and rend him, because his, and rearedOf a generous breed,—and will you let his act,Because it’s generous? 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 feelIf God stood near me, and beheld his heavenAs blue as Aaron’s priestly robe appearedTo 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 behindWhich will not let it quail for having given,Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what,Of what they know not. Romney’s strong enoughFor 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 boundBy 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 handTo 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 worldThat 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 headWith all its brown abandonment of curlsOn Romney’s feet, we heard the kisses drawnThrough sobs upon the foot, upon the ground—O Romney! O my angel! O unchanged,Though, since we’ve parted, I have past the grave!But Death itself could only betterthee,Not change thee!—TheeI do not thank at all:I but thank God who made thee what thou art,So wholly godlike.’When he tried in vainTo raise her to his embrace, escaping thenceAs any leaping fawn from a huntsman’s grasp,She bounded off and ‘lighted beyond reach,Before him, with a staglike majestyOf soft, serene defiance,—as she knewHe could not touch her, so was tolerantHe had cared to try. She stood there with her greatDrowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange sweet smileThat lived through all, as if one held a lightAcross a waste of waters,—shook her headTo keep some thoughts down deeper in her soul,—Then, white and tranquil as a summer-cloudWhich, having rained itself to a tardy peace,Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day,Spoke out again—‘Although, my generous friend,Since last we met and parted, you’re unchanged,And, having promised faith to Marian Erle,Maintain it, as she were not changed at all;And though that’s worthy, though that’s full of balmTo any conscious spirit of a girlWho once has loved you as I loved you once,—Yet still it will not make her ... if she’s dead,And gone away where none can give or takeIn marriage,—able to revive, returnAnd wed you,—will it, Romney? Here’s the point;O friend, we’ll see it plainer: you and IMust never, never, never join hands so.Nay, let me say it,—for I said it firstTo 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 thinkI’m speaking from a false humility.The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief,And He has said so often through his nightsAnd 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 onceOf 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,Still good enough to pray in. And, being chasteAnd honest, and inclined to do the right,And love the truth, and live my life out greenAnd smooth beneath his steps, I should not fearTo make him, thus, a less uneasy timeThan many a happier woman. Very proudYou see me. Pardon, that I set a trapTo 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 stillOf 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 ICan never, never, never join hands so.I know you’ll not be angry like a man(Foryouare none) when I shall tell the truth,—Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh,I 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 theirsCould never be drained out with all their blood:I’ve heard such things and pondered. Did I indeedLove once? or did I only worship? Yes,Perhaps, O friend, I set you up so highAbove all actual good or hope of good,Or fear of evil, all that could be mine,I haply set you above love itself,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?I 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 feetTo join the dust she came from. Did I love,Or did I worship? 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, beforeI 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 meOnce 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 wedding-veil,And glide along the churchyard like a bride,While all the dead keep whispering through the withes,‘You would be better in your place with us,You pitiful corruption!’ At the thought,The damps break out on me like leprosy,Although I’m clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erle:As Marian Leigh, I know, I were not clean:I have not so much life that I should love,... Except the child. Ah God! I could not bearTo 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 wretch’ ...For, Romney,—angels are less tender-wiseThan God and mothers: evenyouwould thinkWhatwethink never. He is ours, the child;And we would sooner vex a soul in heavenBy 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 fatherlessWho has God and his mother. O my babe,My pretty, pretty blossom, an ill-windOnce blew upon my breast! can any thinkI’d have another,—one called happier,A fathered child, with father’s love and raceThat’s worn as bold and open as a smile,To vex my darling when he’s asked his nameAnd has no answer? What! a happier childThan mine, my best,—who laughed so loud to-nightHe could not sleep for pastime? Nay, I swearBy life and love, that, if I lived like some,And loved like ...some... ay, loved you, Romney 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 stoolTo dandle babies. Here’s a hand, shall keepFor ever clean without a marriage-ring,To tend my boy, until he cease to needOne 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 comeAnd 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 daredBut 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 joySent 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-lipWhen 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,’‘Iforgive?’ he said,‘I only marvel how she sees so sure,While others’ ... there he paused,—then hoarse, abrupt,—Aurora! you forgive us, her and me?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,Has leave to love you:—while for me, alas,If once or twice I let my heart escapeThis night, ... remember, where hearts slip and fallThey break beside: we’re parting,—parting,—ah,You do not love, that you should surely knowWhat that word means. Forgive, be tolerant;It had not been, but that I felt myselfSo safe in impuissance and despair,I could not hurt you though I tossed my armsAnd sighed my soul out. The most utter wretchWill choose his postures when he comes to die,However in the presence of a queen;And you’ll forgive me some unseemly spasmsWhich meant no more than dying. Do you thinkI had ever come here in my perfect mind,Unless I had come here, in my settled mind,Bound Marian’s, bound to keep the bond, and giveMy name, my house, my hand, the things I could,To Marian? For evenIcould give as much;Even I, affronting her exalted soulBy a supposition that she wanted these,Could act the husband’s coat and hat set upTo creak i’ the wind and drive the world-crows offFrom pecking in her garden. Straw can fillA hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last,I own heaven’s angels round her life sufficeTo fight the rats of our society,Without this Romney: I can see it at last;And here is ended my pretension whichThe most pretended. Over-proud of course,Even so!—but not so stupid ... blind ... that I,Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the worldHas set to meditate mistaken work,My dreary face against a dim blank wallThroughout man’s natural lifetime,—could pretendOr 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 dayThis night,—this night, which still to you is fair;Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attestThose stars above us, which I cannot see ...’‘You cannot’....‘That if Heaven itself should stoop,Remix 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?’‘’Tis worse still, not to seeTo 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 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 wish 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 Him,What loss was coming on me, I had doneAs well in this as He has.—Farewell, you,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 face—You see me?’‘No more than the blessed stars.Be blessed too, Aurora. Ah, my sweet,You tremble. Tender-hearted! Do you mindOf 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 miceWhich took the cheese and left the snare? The sameDear soft heart always! ’Twas for this, I grievedHowe’s letter never reached you. Ah, you had heardOf 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 beam,Which nicked me on the forehead as I passedThe gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven’s bolt,Not William Erie’s; not Marian’s father’s; trampAnd poacher, whom I found for what he was,And, eager for her sake to rescue him,Forth swept from the open highway of the world,Road-dust and all,—till, like a woodland boarMost naturally unwilling to be tamed,He notched me with his tooth. But not a wordTo 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?’‘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 sunTo humble creatures! When the fever’s heatDropped from me, as the flame did from my house,And left me ruined like it, stripped of allThe hues and shapes of aspectable life,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? tears upon my hand!I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,—But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope.Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear,And tell you in what Greek and Latin nameThe 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 upFrom which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt:There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogantAnd restless, so ambitious, for his part,Of dealing with statistically packedDisorders, (from a pattern on his nail,)And packing such things quite another way,—Is now contented. From his personal lossHe 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 for 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?—and is there room beneath the stoneFor 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 soulTo take advantage of it. Yet, ’tis hard—Farewell, Aurora.’‘But I love you, sir;And when a woman says she loves a man,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,You call it pity,—think I’m generous?’Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proudAs I am, and I’m very vilely proud,To let it pass as such, and press on youLove born of pity,—seeing that excellent lovesAre born so, often, nor the quicklier die,—And this would set me higher by the headThan now I stand. No matter: let the truthStand high; Aurora must be humble: no,My love’s not pity merely. ObviouslyI’m not a generous woman, never was,Or else, of old, I had not looked so nearTo weights and measures, grudging you the powerTo give, as first I scorned your power to judgeFor me, Aurora: I would have no giftsForsooth, but God’s,—and I would usethem, too,According to my pleasure and my choice,As He and I were equals,—you, below,Excluded from that level of interchangeAdmitting benefaction. You were wrongIn much? you said so. I was wrong in most.Oh, most! You only thought to rescue menBy half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants,While thinking nothing of your personal gain.But I who saw the human nature broad,At both sides, comprehending, too, the soul’s,And all the high necessities of Art,Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own lifeFor which I pleaded. Passioned to exaltThe artist’s instinct in me at the costOf putting down the woman’s,—I forgotNo perfect artist is developed hereFrom any imperfect woman. Flower from root,And spiritual from natural, grade by gradeIn all our life. A handful of the earthTo make God’s image! the despised poor earth,The healthy odorous earth,—I missed, with it,The divine Breath that blows the nostrils outTo ineffable inflatus: ay, the breathWhich love is. Art is much, but love is more.O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more!Art symbolises heaven, but Love is GodAnd 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 satisfiedWith what contents God: I must analyse,Confront, and question; just as if a flyRefused to warm itself in any sunTill such wasin leone: I must fretForsooth, 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 wifeTo use ... to use! O Romney, O my love,I am changed since then, changed wholly,—for indeed,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 any mean and ordinary end,—The joy would set me like a star, in heaven,So high up, I should shine because of heightAnd not of virtue. Yet in one respect,Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed:I love you, loved you ... loved you first and last,And love you on for ever. Now I knowI loved you always, Romney. She who diedKnew that, and said so; Lady WaldemarKnows that; ... and Marian: I had known the sameExcept that I was prouder than I knew,And not so honest. Ay, and, as I live,I should have died so, crushing in my handThis rose of love, the wasp inside and all,—Ignoring ever to my soul and youBoth rose and pain,—except for this great loss,This great despair,—to stand before your faceAnd know I cannot win a look of yours.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?O 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 dayWhile I go ever toward the wilderness,—I would that you could see me bare to the soul!—If this be pity, ’tis so for myself,And not for Romney:hecan stand alone;A man likehimis never overcome:No woman like me, counts him pitiableWhile saints applaud him. He mistook the world:But I mistook my own heart,—and that slipWas fatal. Romney,—will you leave me here?So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled,So mere a woman!—and I love you so,—I love you, Romney.’Could I see his face,I wept so? Did I drop against his breast,Or did his arms constrain me? Were my cheeksHot, overflooded, with my tears, or his?And which of our two large explosive heartsSo shook me? That, I know not. There were wordsThat broke in utterance ... melted, in the fire;Embrace, that was convulsion, ... then a kiss ...As long and silent as the ecstatic night,—Anddeep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyondWhatever could be told by word or kiss.But what he said ... I have written day by day,With somewhat even writing. Did I thinkThat such a passionate rain would interceptAnd dash this last page? What he said, indeed,I 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 nightWhen weary, or at morning when afraid,And lean my heaviest oath on when I swearThat, when all’s 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 outreaches all things.What he said,I fain would write. But if an angel spokeIn thunder, should we, haply, know much moreThan that it thundered? If a cloud came downAnd wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape,As if on the outside, and not overcome?And so he spake. His breath against my faceConfused his words, yet made them more intense,—As when the sudden finder of the windWill wipe a row of single city-lampsTo a pure white line of flame, more luminousBecause of obliteration; more intense,—The intimate presence carrying in itselfComplete communication, as with soulsWho, having put the body off, perceiveThrough simply being. Thus, ’twas granted meTo know he loved me to the depth and heightOf such large natures, ever competentWith grand horizons by the land or sea,To love’s grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small fires:But he loved largely, as a man can loveWho, baffled in his love, dares live his life,Accept the ends which God loves, for his own,And lift a constant aspect.From the dayI had brought to England my poor searching face,(An orphan even of my father’s grave)He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine,Which in me grew and heightened into love.For he, a boy still, had been told the taleOf how a fairy bride from Italy,With smells of oleanders in her hair,Was coming through the vines to touch his hand;Whereat the blood of boyhood on the palmMade sudden heats. And when at last I came,And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled,He 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 drifts,Mysterious medium ’twixt the plant and frost,So faint with winter while so quick with spring,So doubtful if to thaw itself awayWith that snow near it. Not that Romney LeighHad loved me coldly. If I thought so once,It was as if I had held my hand in fireAnd shook for cold. But now I understoodFor ever, that the very fire and heatOf 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 wrongHe had stamped with steady hand God’s arrow-markOf dedication to the human need,He thought it should be so too, with his love;He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best, (because the best)His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,Thatsheshould walk beside him on the rocksIn all that clang and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing,—not his soul.And when I failed him,—for I failed him, I—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!The morning and the evening made his day.But oh, the night! oh, bitter-sweet! oh, sweet!O dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasyOf darkness! O great mystery of love,—In which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason’s selfEnlarges rapture,—as a pebble droptIn some full wine-cup, over-brims the wine!While we two sate together, leaned that nightSo close, my very garments crept and thrilledWith strange electric life; and both my cheeksGrew red, then pale, with touches from my hairIn which his breath was; while the golden moonWas hung before our faces as the badgeOf 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!I am happy.’I flung closer to his breast,As sword that, after battle, flings to sheathe;And, in that hurtle of united souls,The mystic motions which in common moodsAre shut beyond our sense, broke in on us,And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin,And all the starry turbulence of worldsSwing round us in their audient circles, tillIf that same golden moon were overheadOr if beneath our feet, we did not know.And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy,His voice rose, as some chief musician’s songAmid the old Jewish temple’s Selah-pause,And bade me mark how we two met at lastUpon 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;And men who work, can only work for men,And, not to work in vain, must comprehendHumanity, 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;There’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 tenderest human hands,Works best for men,—as God in Nazareth.’He paused upon the word, and then resumed;‘Fewer programmes; we who have no prescience.Fewer systems; we who are held and do not hold.Less mapping out of masses, to be saved,By nations or by sexes. Fourier’s void,And Comte is dwarfed,—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 itselfObeys our old rules 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 presents that mystery’s counterpart.Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life,Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gaveA name to! human, vital, fructuous rose,Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves,—Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbour-loves,And civic, ... all fair petals, all good scents,All reddened, sweetened from one central Heart!’‘Alas,’ I cried, ‘it was not long ago,You swore this very social rose smelt ill.’‘Alas,’ he answered, ‘is it a rose at all?The filial’s thankless, the fraternal’s hard,The rest is lost. I do but stand and think,Across dim waters of a troubled lifeThe 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, O my love,SinceIwas 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 standAnd 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 fulfilMy 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 rootsOf 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 doorBetwixt the different planes of sensuous formAnd form insensuous, that inferior menMay learn to feel on still through these to those,And bless thy ministration. The world waitsFor help. Beloved, let us love so well,Our work shall still be better for our love,And still our love be sweeter for our work,And both, commended, for the sake of each,By all true workers and true lovers born.Now press the clarion 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’sPast Jordan; crying from the top of souls,To souls, that they assemble on earth’s flatsTo get them to some purer eminenceThan any hitherto beheld for clouds!What height we know not,—but the way we know,And how by mounting aye, we must 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 hour to be renewed:Toward which, new hearts in individual growthMust quicken, and increase to multitudeIn new dynasties of the race of men,—Developed whence, shall grow spontaneouslyNew churches, new œconomies, new lawsAdmitting freedom, new societiesExcluding 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 fair,Along the tingling desert of the sky,Beyond the circle of the conscious hills,Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glassThe first foundations of that new, near DayWhich should be builded out of heaven, to God.He stood a moment with erected brows,In silence, as a creature might, who gazed:Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyesUpon the thought of perfect noon. And whenI saw his soul saw,—‘Jasper first,’ I said,‘And second, sapphire; third, chalcedony;The rest in order, ... last, an amethyst.’

Eventhus. I 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 fretsAnd fools upon one string of a man’s name,And fingers it for ever till it breaks,—He may perhaps do for her such a thing,And she accept it without detrimentAlthough she should not love him any more.And I, who do not love him, nor love you,Nor you, Aurora,—choose you shall repentYour 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 tome?We both had mothers,—lay in their bosom once.Why, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh,For proving to myself that there are thingsI would not do, ... not for my life ... nor him ...Though something I have somewhat overdone,—For instance, when I went to see the godsOne morning on Olympus, with a stepThat shook the thunder in a certain cloud,Committing myself vilely. Could I think,The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breastTo soften, had herself a sort of heart,And loved my mortal? He, at least, loved her;I heard him say so; ’twas my recompence,When, watching at his bedside fourteen days,He broke out ever like a flame at whilesBetween the heats of fever.... ‘Is it thou?Breathe closer, sweetest mouth!’ and when at lastThe fever gone, the wasted face extinctAs if it irked him much to know me there,He said, ‘’Twas kind, ’twas good, ’twas womanly,’(And fifty praises to excuse one love)‘But was the picture safe he had ventured for?’And then, half wandering ... ‘I have loved her well,Although she could not love me.’—‘Say instead,’I answered, ‘that she loves you.’—’Twas my turnTo rave: (I would have married him so changed,Although the world had jeered me properlyFor 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 bookAnd read it softly, Lady Waldemar,Until I thank your friendship more for that,Than even for harder service.’ So I readYour book, Aurora, for an hour, that day:I kept its pauses, marked its emphasis;My voice, empaled upon rhyme’s golden hooks,Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt;I read on calmly,—calmly shut it up,Observing, ‘There’s some merit in the book.And yet the merit in’t is thrown awayAs chances still with women, if we writeOr write not: we want string to tie our flowers,So drop them as we walk, which serves to showThe way we went. Good morning, Mister Leigh;You’ll 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, tiring lessAnd teaching more.’ I triumphed o’er you both,And left him.‘When I saw him afterward,I had read your shameful letter, and my heart.He came with health recovered, strong though pale,Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends,To say what men dare say to women, whenTheir 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 though ’twas altered perfectly since then.I 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 streamOf that poor bubbling nature,—till she went,Consigned to one I trusted, my own maid,Who once had lived full five months in my house,(Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purseTo carry to Australia where she had leftA husband, said she. If the creature lied,The mission failed, we all do fail and lieMore or less—and I’m sorry—which is allExpected 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 saidShe saw her stop to speak in Oxford StreetTo one ... no matter! I had sooner cutMy hand off (though ’twere kissed the hour before,And promised a pearl troth-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 domeWhen all the faithful troop to morning prayer:But he, he nipped the bud of such a thoughtWith that cold Leigh look which I fancied once,And broke in, ‘Henceforth she was called his wife.His wife required no succour: he was boundTo 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 shot my tongue against my flyAnd struck him; ‘Would he carry,—he was just,—A letter from me to Aurora Leigh,And ratify from his authentic mouthMy 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.‘Parted. Face no more,Voice no more, love no more! wiped wholly outLike some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterlyBy 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 colour at my lip.A rose is pink and pretty without blood;Why not a woman? When we’ve played in vainThe game, to adore,—we have resources still,And can play on at leisure, being adored:Here’s Smith already swearing at my feetThat I’m the typic She. Away with Smith!—Smith smacks of Leigh,—and, henceforth, I’ll admitNo 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 Erle to a noble Leigh,(His love astray on one he should not love)Howbeit you should 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, and 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, footprint even,Adore averted shoulders in a glass,And memories of what, present once, was loathed.And yet, you loathed not Romney,—though you’ve playedAt ‘fox and goose’ about him with your soul:Pass over fox, you rub out fox,—ignoreA feeling, you eradicate it,—the act’sIdentical.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!You need not wishmejoy 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 thinkThat, with him, I were virtuouser than youWithout him: so I hate you from this gulfAnd hollow of my soul, which opens outTo 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. I had seized and caught the senseOf the letter with its twenty stinging snakes,In a moment’s sweep of eyesight, and I stoodDazed.—‘Ah!—not married.’‘You mistake,’ he said;‘I’m married. Is not Marian Erle my wife?As God sees things, I have a wife and child;And I, as I’m a man who honours God,Am here to claim them as my child and wife.’I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak.Nor word of mine was needed. Some one elseWas there for answering. ‘Romney,’ she began,‘My great good angel, Romney.’Then at first,I knew that Marian Erle was beautiful.She stood there, still and pallid as a saint,Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy,As if the floating moonshine interposedBetwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her upTo 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 menHave made her, for your honourable wife?’The 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 menMust 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 shameIn sight of men and women, for your child,Of whom you will not ever feel ashamed?’The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice.He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms,As if to quench upon his breast that voice.—‘May God so father me, as I do him,And so forsake me as I let him feelHe’s orphaned haply. Here I take the childTo share my cup, to slumber on my knee,To play his loudest gambol at my foot,To hold my finger in the public ways,Till none shall need inquire, ‘Whose child is this,’The gesture saying so tenderly, ‘My own’.’She stood a moment silent in her place;Then, turning toward me, very slow and cold——‘And you,—what say you?—will you blame me 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 in the worldWhere men have stoned me? Have I not the rightTo take so mere an aftermath from life,Else found so wholly bare? Or is it wrongTo let your cousin, for a generous bent,Put out his ungloved fingers among briarsTo set a tumbling bird’s-nest somewhat straight?You will not tell him, though we’re innocentWe are not harmless?... and that both our harmsWill stick to his good smooth noble life like burrs,Never to drop off though you shake 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 caseOf being just hurt and honest; while for him,’Twould ever twit him with his bastard childAnd married harlot. Speak, while yet there’s time:You would not stand and let a good man’s dogTurn round and rend him, because his, and rearedOf a generous breed,—and will you let his act,Because it’s generous? 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 feelIf God stood near me, and beheld his heavenAs blue as Aaron’s priestly robe appearedTo 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 behindWhich will not let it quail for having given,Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what,Of what they know not. Romney’s strong enoughFor 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 boundBy 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 handTo 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 worldThat 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 headWith all its brown abandonment of curlsOn Romney’s feet, we heard the kisses drawnThrough sobs upon the foot, upon the ground—O Romney! O my angel! O unchanged,Though, since we’ve parted, I have past the grave!But Death itself could only betterthee,Not change thee!—TheeI do not thank at all:I but thank God who made thee what thou art,So wholly godlike.’When he tried in vainTo raise her to his embrace, escaping thenceAs any leaping fawn from a huntsman’s grasp,She bounded off and ‘lighted beyond reach,Before him, with a staglike majestyOf soft, serene defiance,—as she knewHe could not touch her, so was tolerantHe had cared to try. She stood there with her greatDrowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange sweet smileThat lived through all, as if one held a lightAcross a waste of waters,—shook her headTo keep some thoughts down deeper in her soul,—Then, white and tranquil as a summer-cloudWhich, having rained itself to a tardy peace,Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day,Spoke out again—‘Although, my generous friend,Since last we met and parted, you’re unchanged,And, having promised faith to Marian Erle,Maintain it, as she were not changed at all;And though that’s worthy, though that’s full of balmTo any conscious spirit of a girlWho once has loved you as I loved you once,—Yet still it will not make her ... if she’s dead,And gone away where none can give or takeIn marriage,—able to revive, returnAnd wed you,—will it, Romney? Here’s the point;O friend, we’ll see it plainer: you and IMust never, never, never join hands so.Nay, let me say it,—for I said it firstTo 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 thinkI’m speaking from a false humility.The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief,And He has said so often through his nightsAnd 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 onceOf 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,Still good enough to pray in. And, being chasteAnd honest, and inclined to do the right,And love the truth, and live my life out greenAnd smooth beneath his steps, I should not fearTo make him, thus, a less uneasy timeThan many a happier woman. Very proudYou see me. Pardon, that I set a trapTo 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 stillOf 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 ICan never, never, never join hands so.I know you’ll not be angry like a man(Foryouare none) when I shall tell the truth,—Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh,I 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 theirsCould never be drained out with all their blood:I’ve heard such things and pondered. Did I indeedLove once? or did I only worship? Yes,Perhaps, O friend, I set you up so highAbove all actual good or hope of good,Or fear of evil, all that could be mine,I haply set you above love itself,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?I 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 feetTo join the dust she came from. Did I love,Or did I worship? 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, beforeI 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 meOnce 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 wedding-veil,And glide along the churchyard like a bride,While all the dead keep whispering through the withes,‘You would be better in your place with us,You pitiful corruption!’ At the thought,The damps break out on me like leprosy,Although I’m clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erle:As Marian Leigh, I know, I were not clean:I have not so much life that I should love,... Except the child. Ah God! I could not bearTo 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 wretch’ ...For, Romney,—angels are less tender-wiseThan God and mothers: evenyouwould thinkWhatwethink never. He is ours, the child;And we would sooner vex a soul in heavenBy 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 fatherlessWho has God and his mother. O my babe,My pretty, pretty blossom, an ill-windOnce blew upon my breast! can any thinkI’d have another,—one called happier,A fathered child, with father’s love and raceThat’s worn as bold and open as a smile,To vex my darling when he’s asked his nameAnd has no answer? What! a happier childThan mine, my best,—who laughed so loud to-nightHe could not sleep for pastime? Nay, I swearBy life and love, that, if I lived like some,And loved like ...some... ay, loved you, Romney 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 stoolTo dandle babies. Here’s a hand, shall keepFor ever clean without a marriage-ring,To tend my boy, until he cease to needOne 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 comeAnd 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 daredBut 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 joySent 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-lipWhen 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,’‘Iforgive?’ he said,‘I only marvel how she sees so sure,While others’ ... there he paused,—then hoarse, abrupt,—Aurora! you forgive us, her and me?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,Has leave to love you:—while for me, alas,If once or twice I let my heart escapeThis night, ... remember, where hearts slip and fallThey break beside: we’re parting,—parting,—ah,You do not love, that you should surely knowWhat that word means. Forgive, be tolerant;It had not been, but that I felt myselfSo safe in impuissance and despair,I could not hurt you though I tossed my armsAnd sighed my soul out. The most utter wretchWill choose his postures when he comes to die,However in the presence of a queen;And you’ll forgive me some unseemly spasmsWhich meant no more than dying. Do you thinkI had ever come here in my perfect mind,Unless I had come here, in my settled mind,Bound Marian’s, bound to keep the bond, and giveMy name, my house, my hand, the things I could,To Marian? For evenIcould give as much;Even I, affronting her exalted soulBy a supposition that she wanted these,Could act the husband’s coat and hat set upTo creak i’ the wind and drive the world-crows offFrom pecking in her garden. Straw can fillA hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last,I own heaven’s angels round her life sufficeTo fight the rats of our society,Without this Romney: I can see it at last;And here is ended my pretension whichThe most pretended. Over-proud of course,Even so!—but not so stupid ... blind ... that I,Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the worldHas set to meditate mistaken work,My dreary face against a dim blank wallThroughout man’s natural lifetime,—could pretendOr 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 dayThis night,—this night, which still to you is fair;Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attestThose stars above us, which I cannot see ...’‘You cannot’....‘That if Heaven itself should stoop,Remix 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?’‘’Tis worse still, not to seeTo 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 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 wish 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 Him,What loss was coming on me, I had doneAs well in this as He has.—Farewell, you,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 face—You see me?’‘No more than the blessed stars.Be blessed too, Aurora. Ah, my sweet,You tremble. Tender-hearted! Do you mindOf 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 miceWhich took the cheese and left the snare? The sameDear soft heart always! ’Twas for this, I grievedHowe’s letter never reached you. Ah, you had heardOf 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 beam,Which nicked me on the forehead as I passedThe gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven’s bolt,Not William Erie’s; not Marian’s father’s; trampAnd poacher, whom I found for what he was,And, eager for her sake to rescue him,Forth swept from the open highway of the world,Road-dust and all,—till, like a woodland boarMost naturally unwilling to be tamed,He notched me with his tooth. But not a wordTo 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?’‘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 sunTo humble creatures! When the fever’s heatDropped from me, as the flame did from my house,And left me ruined like it, stripped of allThe hues and shapes of aspectable life,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? tears upon my hand!I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,—But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope.Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear,And tell you in what Greek and Latin nameThe 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 upFrom which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt:There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogantAnd restless, so ambitious, for his part,Of dealing with statistically packedDisorders, (from a pattern on his nail,)And packing such things quite another way,—Is now contented. From his personal lossHe 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 for 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?—and is there room beneath the stoneFor 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 soulTo take advantage of it. Yet, ’tis hard—Farewell, Aurora.’‘But I love you, sir;And when a woman says she loves a man,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,You call it pity,—think I’m generous?’Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proudAs I am, and I’m very vilely proud,To let it pass as such, and press on youLove born of pity,—seeing that excellent lovesAre born so, often, nor the quicklier die,—And this would set me higher by the headThan now I stand. No matter: let the truthStand high; Aurora must be humble: no,My love’s not pity merely. ObviouslyI’m not a generous woman, never was,Or else, of old, I had not looked so nearTo weights and measures, grudging you the powerTo give, as first I scorned your power to judgeFor me, Aurora: I would have no giftsForsooth, but God’s,—and I would usethem, too,According to my pleasure and my choice,As He and I were equals,—you, below,Excluded from that level of interchangeAdmitting benefaction. You were wrongIn much? you said so. I was wrong in most.Oh, most! You only thought to rescue menBy half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants,While thinking nothing of your personal gain.But I who saw the human nature broad,At both sides, comprehending, too, the soul’s,And all the high necessities of Art,Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own lifeFor which I pleaded. Passioned to exaltThe artist’s instinct in me at the costOf putting down the woman’s,—I forgotNo perfect artist is developed hereFrom any imperfect woman. Flower from root,And spiritual from natural, grade by gradeIn all our life. A handful of the earthTo make God’s image! the despised poor earth,The healthy odorous earth,—I missed, with it,The divine Breath that blows the nostrils outTo ineffable inflatus: ay, the breathWhich love is. Art is much, but love is more.O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more!Art symbolises heaven, but Love is GodAnd 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 satisfiedWith what contents God: I must analyse,Confront, and question; just as if a flyRefused to warm itself in any sunTill such wasin leone: I must fretForsooth, 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 wifeTo use ... to use! O Romney, O my love,I am changed since then, changed wholly,—for indeed,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 any mean and ordinary end,—The joy would set me like a star, in heaven,So high up, I should shine because of heightAnd not of virtue. Yet in one respect,Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed:I love you, loved you ... loved you first and last,And love you on for ever. Now I knowI loved you always, Romney. She who diedKnew that, and said so; Lady WaldemarKnows that; ... and Marian: I had known the sameExcept that I was prouder than I knew,And not so honest. Ay, and, as I live,I should have died so, crushing in my handThis rose of love, the wasp inside and all,—Ignoring ever to my soul and youBoth rose and pain,—except for this great loss,This great despair,—to stand before your faceAnd know I cannot win a look of yours.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?O 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 dayWhile I go ever toward the wilderness,—I would that you could see me bare to the soul!—If this be pity, ’tis so for myself,And not for Romney:hecan stand alone;A man likehimis never overcome:No woman like me, counts him pitiableWhile saints applaud him. He mistook the world:But I mistook my own heart,—and that slipWas fatal. Romney,—will you leave me here?So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled,So mere a woman!—and I love you so,—I love you, Romney.’Could I see his face,I wept so? Did I drop against his breast,Or did his arms constrain me? Were my cheeksHot, overflooded, with my tears, or his?And which of our two large explosive heartsSo shook me? That, I know not. There were wordsThat broke in utterance ... melted, in the fire;Embrace, that was convulsion, ... then a kiss ...As long and silent as the ecstatic night,—Anddeep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyondWhatever could be told by word or kiss.But what he said ... I have written day by day,With somewhat even writing. Did I thinkThat such a passionate rain would interceptAnd dash this last page? What he said, indeed,I 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 nightWhen weary, or at morning when afraid,And lean my heaviest oath on when I swearThat, when all’s 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 outreaches all things.What he said,I fain would write. But if an angel spokeIn thunder, should we, haply, know much moreThan that it thundered? If a cloud came downAnd wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape,As if on the outside, and not overcome?And so he spake. His breath against my faceConfused his words, yet made them more intense,—As when the sudden finder of the windWill wipe a row of single city-lampsTo a pure white line of flame, more luminousBecause of obliteration; more intense,—The intimate presence carrying in itselfComplete communication, as with soulsWho, having put the body off, perceiveThrough simply being. Thus, ’twas granted meTo know he loved me to the depth and heightOf such large natures, ever competentWith grand horizons by the land or sea,To love’s grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small fires:But he loved largely, as a man can loveWho, baffled in his love, dares live his life,Accept the ends which God loves, for his own,And lift a constant aspect.From the dayI had brought to England my poor searching face,(An orphan even of my father’s grave)He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine,Which in me grew and heightened into love.For he, a boy still, had been told the taleOf how a fairy bride from Italy,With smells of oleanders in her hair,Was coming through the vines to touch his hand;Whereat the blood of boyhood on the palmMade sudden heats. And when at last I came,And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled,He 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 drifts,Mysterious medium ’twixt the plant and frost,So faint with winter while so quick with spring,So doubtful if to thaw itself awayWith that snow near it. Not that Romney LeighHad loved me coldly. If I thought so once,It was as if I had held my hand in fireAnd shook for cold. But now I understoodFor ever, that the very fire and heatOf 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 wrongHe had stamped with steady hand God’s arrow-markOf dedication to the human need,He thought it should be so too, with his love;He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best, (because the best)His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,Thatsheshould walk beside him on the rocksIn all that clang and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing,—not his soul.And when I failed him,—for I failed him, I—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!The morning and the evening made his day.But oh, the night! oh, bitter-sweet! oh, sweet!O dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasyOf darkness! O great mystery of love,—In which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason’s selfEnlarges rapture,—as a pebble droptIn some full wine-cup, over-brims the wine!While we two sate together, leaned that nightSo close, my very garments crept and thrilledWith strange electric life; and both my cheeksGrew red, then pale, with touches from my hairIn which his breath was; while the golden moonWas hung before our faces as the badgeOf 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!I am happy.’I flung closer to his breast,As sword that, after battle, flings to sheathe;And, in that hurtle of united souls,The mystic motions which in common moodsAre shut beyond our sense, broke in on us,And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin,And all the starry turbulence of worldsSwing round us in their audient circles, tillIf that same golden moon were overheadOr if beneath our feet, we did not know.And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy,His voice rose, as some chief musician’s songAmid the old Jewish temple’s Selah-pause,And bade me mark how we two met at lastUpon 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;And men who work, can only work for men,And, not to work in vain, must comprehendHumanity, 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;There’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 tenderest human hands,Works best for men,—as God in Nazareth.’He paused upon the word, and then resumed;‘Fewer programmes; we who have no prescience.Fewer systems; we who are held and do not hold.Less mapping out of masses, to be saved,By nations or by sexes. Fourier’s void,And Comte is dwarfed,—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 itselfObeys our old rules 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 presents that mystery’s counterpart.Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life,Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gaveA name to! human, vital, fructuous rose,Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves,—Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbour-loves,And civic, ... all fair petals, all good scents,All reddened, sweetened from one central Heart!’‘Alas,’ I cried, ‘it was not long ago,You swore this very social rose smelt ill.’‘Alas,’ he answered, ‘is it a rose at all?The filial’s thankless, the fraternal’s hard,The rest is lost. I do but stand and think,Across dim waters of a troubled lifeThe 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, O my love,SinceIwas 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 standAnd 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 fulfilMy 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 rootsOf 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 doorBetwixt the different planes of sensuous formAnd form insensuous, that inferior menMay learn to feel on still through these to those,And bless thy ministration. The world waitsFor help. Beloved, let us love so well,Our work shall still be better for our love,And still our love be sweeter for our work,And both, commended, for the sake of each,By all true workers and true lovers born.Now press the clarion 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’sPast Jordan; crying from the top of souls,To souls, that they assemble on earth’s flatsTo get them to some purer eminenceThan any hitherto beheld for clouds!What height we know not,—but the way we know,And how by mounting aye, we must 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 hour to be renewed:Toward which, new hearts in individual growthMust quicken, and increase to multitudeIn new dynasties of the race of men,—Developed whence, shall grow spontaneouslyNew churches, new œconomies, new lawsAdmitting freedom, new societiesExcluding 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 fair,Along the tingling desert of the sky,Beyond the circle of the conscious hills,Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glassThe first foundations of that new, near DayWhich should be builded out of heaven, to God.He stood a moment with erected brows,In silence, as a creature might, who gazed:Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyesUpon the thought of perfect noon. And whenI saw his soul saw,—‘Jasper first,’ I said,‘And second, sapphire; third, chalcedony;The rest in order, ... last, an amethyst.’

Eventhus. I 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 fretsAnd fools upon one string of a man’s name,And fingers it for ever till it breaks,—He may perhaps do for her such a thing,And she accept it without detrimentAlthough she should not love him any more.And I, who do not love him, nor love you,Nor you, Aurora,—choose you shall repentYour 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 tome?We both had mothers,—lay in their bosom once.Why, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh,For proving to myself that there are thingsI would not do, ... not for my life ... nor him ...Though something I have somewhat overdone,—For instance, when I went to see the godsOne morning on Olympus, with a stepThat shook the thunder in a certain cloud,Committing myself vilely. Could I think,The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breastTo soften, had herself a sort of heart,And loved my mortal? He, at least, loved her;I heard him say so; ’twas my recompence,When, watching at his bedside fourteen days,He broke out ever like a flame at whilesBetween the heats of fever.... ‘Is it thou?Breathe closer, sweetest mouth!’ and when at lastThe fever gone, the wasted face extinctAs if it irked him much to know me there,He said, ‘’Twas kind, ’twas good, ’twas womanly,’(And fifty praises to excuse one love)‘But was the picture safe he had ventured for?’And then, half wandering ... ‘I have loved her well,Although she could not love me.’—‘Say instead,’I answered, ‘that she loves you.’—’Twas my turnTo rave: (I would have married him so changed,Although the world had jeered me properlyFor 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 bookAnd read it softly, Lady Waldemar,Until I thank your friendship more for that,Than even for harder service.’ So I readYour book, Aurora, for an hour, that day:I kept its pauses, marked its emphasis;My voice, empaled upon rhyme’s golden hooks,Not once would writhe, nor quiver, nor revolt;I read on calmly,—calmly shut it up,Observing, ‘There’s some merit in the book.And yet the merit in’t is thrown awayAs chances still with women, if we writeOr write not: we want string to tie our flowers,So drop them as we walk, which serves to showThe way we went. Good morning, Mister Leigh;You’ll 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, tiring lessAnd teaching more.’ I triumphed o’er you both,And left him.‘When I saw him afterward,I had read your shameful letter, and my heart.He came with health recovered, strong though pale,Lord Howe and he, a courteous pair of friends,To say what men dare say to women, whenTheir 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 though ’twas altered perfectly since then.I 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 streamOf that poor bubbling nature,—till she went,Consigned to one I trusted, my own maid,Who once had lived full five months in my house,(Dressed hair superbly) with a lavish purseTo carry to Australia where she had leftA husband, said she. If the creature lied,The mission failed, we all do fail and lieMore or less—and I’m sorry—which is allExpected 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 saidShe saw her stop to speak in Oxford StreetTo one ... no matter! I had sooner cutMy hand off (though ’twere kissed the hour before,And promised a pearl troth-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 domeWhen all the faithful troop to morning prayer:But he, he nipped the bud of such a thoughtWith that cold Leigh look which I fancied once,And broke in, ‘Henceforth she was called his wife.His wife required no succour: he was boundTo 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 shot my tongue against my flyAnd struck him; ‘Would he carry,—he was just,—A letter from me to Aurora Leigh,And ratify from his authentic mouthMy 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.‘Parted. Face no more,Voice no more, love no more! wiped wholly outLike some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterlyBy 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 colour at my lip.A rose is pink and pretty without blood;Why not a woman? When we’ve played in vainThe game, to adore,—we have resources still,And can play on at leisure, being adored:Here’s Smith already swearing at my feetThat I’m the typic She. Away with Smith!—Smith smacks of Leigh,—and, henceforth, I’ll admitNo 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 Erle to a noble Leigh,(His love astray on one he should not love)Howbeit you should 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, and 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, footprint even,Adore averted shoulders in a glass,And memories of what, present once, was loathed.And yet, you loathed not Romney,—though you’ve playedAt ‘fox and goose’ about him with your soul:Pass over fox, you rub out fox,—ignoreA feeling, you eradicate it,—the act’sIdentical.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!You need not wishmejoy 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 thinkThat, with him, I were virtuouser than youWithout him: so I hate you from this gulfAnd hollow of my soul, which opens outTo 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. I had seized and caught the senseOf the letter with its twenty stinging snakes,In a moment’s sweep of eyesight, and I stoodDazed.—‘Ah!—not married.’‘You mistake,’ he said;‘I’m married. Is not Marian Erle my wife?As God sees things, I have a wife and child;And I, as I’m a man who honours God,Am here to claim them as my child and wife.’

I felt it hard to breathe, much less to speak.Nor word of mine was needed. Some one elseWas there for answering. ‘Romney,’ she began,‘My great good angel, Romney.’Then at first,I knew that Marian Erle was beautiful.She stood there, still and pallid as a saint,Dilated, like a saint in ecstasy,As if the floating moonshine interposedBetwixt her foot and the earth, and raised her upTo 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 menHave made her, for your honourable wife?’

The 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 menMust 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 shameIn sight of men and women, for your child,Of whom you will not ever feel ashamed?’

The thrilling, tender, proud, pathetic voice.He stepped on toward it, still with outstretched arms,As if to quench upon his breast that voice.—‘May God so father me, as I do him,And so forsake me as I let him feelHe’s orphaned haply. Here I take the childTo share my cup, to slumber on my knee,To play his loudest gambol at my foot,To hold my finger in the public ways,Till none shall need inquire, ‘Whose child is this,’The gesture saying so tenderly, ‘My own’.’

She stood a moment silent in her place;Then, turning toward me, very slow and cold——‘And you,—what say you?—will you blame me 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 in the worldWhere men have stoned me? Have I not the rightTo take so mere an aftermath from life,Else found so wholly bare? Or is it wrongTo let your cousin, for a generous bent,Put out his ungloved fingers among briarsTo set a tumbling bird’s-nest somewhat straight?You will not tell him, though we’re innocentWe are not harmless?... and that both our harmsWill stick to his good smooth noble life like burrs,Never to drop off though you shake 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 caseOf being just hurt and honest; while for him,’Twould ever twit him with his bastard childAnd married harlot. Speak, while yet there’s time:You would not stand and let a good man’s dogTurn round and rend him, because his, and rearedOf a generous breed,—and will you let his act,Because it’s generous? 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 feelIf God stood near me, and beheld his heavenAs blue as Aaron’s priestly robe appearedTo 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 behindWhich will not let it quail for having given,Though foolish worldlings talk they know not what,Of what they know not. Romney’s strong enoughFor 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 boundBy 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 handTo 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 worldThat 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 headWith all its brown abandonment of curlsOn Romney’s feet, we heard the kisses drawnThrough sobs upon the foot, upon the ground—O Romney! O my angel! O unchanged,Though, since we’ve parted, I have past the grave!But Death itself could only betterthee,Not change thee!—TheeI do not thank at all:I but thank God who made thee what thou art,So wholly godlike.’When he tried in vainTo raise her to his embrace, escaping thenceAs any leaping fawn from a huntsman’s grasp,She bounded off and ‘lighted beyond reach,Before him, with a staglike majestyOf soft, serene defiance,—as she knewHe could not touch her, so was tolerantHe had cared to try. She stood there with her greatDrowned eyes, and dripping cheeks, and strange sweet smileThat lived through all, as if one held a lightAcross a waste of waters,—shook her headTo keep some thoughts down deeper in her soul,—Then, white and tranquil as a summer-cloudWhich, having rained itself to a tardy peace,Stands still in heaven as if it ruled the day,Spoke out again—‘Although, my generous friend,Since last we met and parted, you’re unchanged,And, having promised faith to Marian Erle,Maintain it, as she were not changed at all;And though that’s worthy, though that’s full of balmTo any conscious spirit of a girlWho once has loved you as I loved you once,—Yet still it will not make her ... if she’s dead,And gone away where none can give or takeIn marriage,—able to revive, returnAnd wed you,—will it, Romney? Here’s the point;O friend, we’ll see it plainer: you and IMust never, never, never join hands so.Nay, let me say it,—for I said it firstTo 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 thinkI’m speaking from a false humility.The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief,And He has said so often through his nightsAnd 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 onceOf 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,Still good enough to pray in. And, being chasteAnd honest, and inclined to do the right,And love the truth, and live my life out greenAnd smooth beneath his steps, I should not fearTo make him, thus, a less uneasy timeThan many a happier woman. Very proudYou see me. Pardon, that I set a trapTo 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 stillOf 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 ICan never, never, never join hands so.I know you’ll not be angry like a man(Foryouare none) when I shall tell the truth,—Which is, I do not love you, Romney Leigh,I 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 theirsCould never be drained out with all their blood:I’ve heard such things and pondered. Did I indeedLove once? or did I only worship? Yes,Perhaps, O friend, I set you up so highAbove all actual good or hope of good,Or fear of evil, all that could be mine,I haply set you above love itself,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?I 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 feetTo join the dust she came from. Did I love,Or did I worship? 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, beforeI 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 meOnce 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 wedding-veil,And glide along the churchyard like a bride,While all the dead keep whispering through the withes,‘You would be better in your place with us,You pitiful corruption!’ At the thought,The damps break out on me like leprosy,Although I’m clean. Ay, clean as Marian Erle:As Marian Leigh, I know, I were not clean:I have not so much life that I should love,... Except the child. Ah God! I could not bearTo 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 wretch’ ...For, Romney,—angels are less tender-wiseThan God and mothers: evenyouwould thinkWhatwethink never. He is ours, the child;And we would sooner vex a soul in heavenBy 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 fatherlessWho has God and his mother. O my babe,My pretty, pretty blossom, an ill-windOnce blew upon my breast! can any thinkI’d have another,—one called happier,A fathered child, with father’s love and raceThat’s worn as bold and open as a smile,To vex my darling when he’s asked his nameAnd has no answer? What! a happier childThan mine, my best,—who laughed so loud to-nightHe could not sleep for pastime? Nay, I swearBy life and love, that, if I lived like some,And loved like ...some... ay, loved you, Romney 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 stoolTo dandle babies. Here’s a hand, shall keepFor ever clean without a marriage-ring,To tend my boy, until he cease to needOne 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 comeAnd 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 daredBut 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 joySent 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-lipWhen 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,’‘Iforgive?’ he said,‘I only marvel how she sees so sure,While others’ ... there he paused,—then hoarse, abrupt,—Aurora! you forgive us, her and me?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,Has leave to love you:—while for me, alas,If once or twice I let my heart escapeThis night, ... remember, where hearts slip and fallThey break beside: we’re parting,—parting,—ah,You do not love, that you should surely knowWhat that word means. Forgive, be tolerant;It had not been, but that I felt myselfSo safe in impuissance and despair,I could not hurt you though I tossed my armsAnd sighed my soul out. The most utter wretchWill choose his postures when he comes to die,However in the presence of a queen;And you’ll forgive me some unseemly spasmsWhich meant no more than dying. Do you thinkI had ever come here in my perfect mind,Unless I had come here, in my settled mind,Bound Marian’s, bound to keep the bond, and giveMy name, my house, my hand, the things I could,To Marian? For evenIcould give as much;Even I, affronting her exalted soulBy a supposition that she wanted these,Could act the husband’s coat and hat set upTo creak i’ the wind and drive the world-crows offFrom pecking in her garden. Straw can fillA hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last,I own heaven’s angels round her life sufficeTo fight the rats of our society,Without this Romney: I can see it at last;And here is ended my pretension whichThe most pretended. Over-proud of course,Even so!—but not so stupid ... blind ... that I,Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the worldHas set to meditate mistaken work,My dreary face against a dim blank wallThroughout man’s natural lifetime,—could pretendOr 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 dayThis night,—this night, which still to you is fair;Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attestThose stars above us, which I cannot see ...’

‘You cannot’....‘That if Heaven itself should stoop,Remix 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?’‘’Tis worse still, not to seeTo 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 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 wish 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 Him,What loss was coming on me, I had doneAs well in this as He has.—Farewell, you,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 face—You see me?’‘No more than the blessed stars.Be blessed too, Aurora. Ah, my sweet,You tremble. Tender-hearted! Do you mindOf 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 miceWhich took the cheese and left the snare? The sameDear soft heart always! ’Twas for this, I grievedHowe’s letter never reached you. Ah, you had heardOf 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 beam,Which nicked me on the forehead as I passedThe gallery-door with a burden. Say heaven’s bolt,Not William Erie’s; not Marian’s father’s; trampAnd poacher, whom I found for what he was,And, eager for her sake to rescue him,Forth swept from the open highway of the world,Road-dust and all,—till, like a woodland boarMost naturally unwilling to be tamed,He notched me with his tooth. But not a wordTo 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?’‘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 sunTo humble creatures! When the fever’s heatDropped from me, as the flame did from my house,And left me ruined like it, stripped of allThe hues and shapes of aspectable life,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? tears upon my hand!I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,—But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope.Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear,And tell you in what Greek and Latin nameThe 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 upFrom which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt:There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogantAnd restless, so ambitious, for his part,Of dealing with statistically packedDisorders, (from a pattern on his nail,)And packing such things quite another way,—Is now contented. From his personal lossHe 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 for 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?—and is there room beneath the stoneFor 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 soulTo take advantage of it. Yet, ’tis hard—Farewell, Aurora.’‘But I love you, sir;And when a woman says she loves a man,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,You call it pity,—think I’m generous?’Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proudAs I am, and I’m very vilely proud,To let it pass as such, and press on youLove born of pity,—seeing that excellent lovesAre born so, often, nor the quicklier die,—And this would set me higher by the headThan now I stand. No matter: let the truthStand high; Aurora must be humble: no,My love’s not pity merely. ObviouslyI’m not a generous woman, never was,Or else, of old, I had not looked so nearTo weights and measures, grudging you the powerTo give, as first I scorned your power to judgeFor me, Aurora: I would have no giftsForsooth, but God’s,—and I would usethem, too,According to my pleasure and my choice,As He and I were equals,—you, below,Excluded from that level of interchangeAdmitting benefaction. You were wrongIn much? you said so. I was wrong in most.Oh, most! You only thought to rescue menBy half-means, half-way, seeing half their wants,While thinking nothing of your personal gain.But I who saw the human nature broad,At both sides, comprehending, too, the soul’s,And all the high necessities of Art,Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own lifeFor which I pleaded. Passioned to exaltThe artist’s instinct in me at the costOf putting down the woman’s,—I forgotNo perfect artist is developed hereFrom any imperfect woman. Flower from root,And spiritual from natural, grade by gradeIn all our life. A handful of the earthTo make God’s image! the despised poor earth,The healthy odorous earth,—I missed, with it,The divine Breath that blows the nostrils outTo ineffable inflatus: ay, the breathWhich love is. Art is much, but love is more.O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more!Art symbolises heaven, but Love is GodAnd 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 satisfiedWith what contents God: I must analyse,Confront, and question; just as if a flyRefused to warm itself in any sunTill such wasin leone: I must fretForsooth, 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 wifeTo use ... to use! O Romney, O my love,I am changed since then, changed wholly,—for indeed,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 any mean and ordinary end,—The joy would set me like a star, in heaven,So high up, I should shine because of heightAnd not of virtue. Yet in one respect,Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed:I love you, loved you ... loved you first and last,And love you on for ever. Now I knowI loved you always, Romney. She who diedKnew that, and said so; Lady WaldemarKnows that; ... and Marian: I had known the sameExcept that I was prouder than I knew,And not so honest. Ay, and, as I live,I should have died so, crushing in my handThis rose of love, the wasp inside and all,—Ignoring ever to my soul and youBoth rose and pain,—except for this great loss,This great despair,—to stand before your faceAnd know I cannot win a look of yours.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?O 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 dayWhile I go ever toward the wilderness,—I would that you could see me bare to the soul!—If this be pity, ’tis so for myself,And not for Romney:hecan stand alone;A man likehimis never overcome:No woman like me, counts him pitiableWhile saints applaud him. He mistook the world:But I mistook my own heart,—and that slipWas fatal. Romney,—will you leave me here?So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled,So mere a woman!—and I love you so,—I love you, Romney.’Could I see his face,I wept so? Did I drop against his breast,Or did his arms constrain me? Were my cheeksHot, overflooded, with my tears, or his?And which of our two large explosive heartsSo shook me? That, I know not. There were wordsThat broke in utterance ... melted, in the fire;Embrace, that was convulsion, ... then a kiss ...As long and silent as the ecstatic night,—Anddeep, deep, shuddering breaths, which meant beyondWhatever could be told by word or kiss.

But what he said ... I have written day by day,With somewhat even writing. Did I thinkThat such a passionate rain would interceptAnd dash this last page? What he said, indeed,I 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 nightWhen weary, or at morning when afraid,And lean my heaviest oath on when I swearThat, when all’s 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 outreaches all things.What he said,I fain would write. But if an angel spokeIn thunder, should we, haply, know much moreThan that it thundered? If a cloud came downAnd wrapt us wholly, could we draw its shape,As if on the outside, and not overcome?And so he spake. His breath against my faceConfused his words, yet made them more intense,—As when the sudden finder of the windWill wipe a row of single city-lampsTo a pure white line of flame, more luminousBecause of obliteration; more intense,—The intimate presence carrying in itselfComplete communication, as with soulsWho, having put the body off, perceiveThrough simply being. Thus, ’twas granted meTo know he loved me to the depth and heightOf such large natures, ever competentWith grand horizons by the land or sea,To love’s grand sunrise. Small spheres hold small fires:But he loved largely, as a man can loveWho, baffled in his love, dares live his life,Accept the ends which God loves, for his own,And lift a constant aspect.From the dayI had brought to England my poor searching face,(An orphan even of my father’s grave)He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine,Which in me grew and heightened into love.For he, a boy still, had been told the taleOf how a fairy bride from Italy,With smells of oleanders in her hair,Was coming through the vines to touch his hand;Whereat the blood of boyhood on the palmMade sudden heats. And when at last I came,And lived before him, lived, and rarely smiled,He 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 drifts,Mysterious medium ’twixt the plant and frost,So faint with winter while so quick with spring,So doubtful if to thaw itself awayWith that snow near it. Not that Romney LeighHad loved me coldly. If I thought so once,It was as if I had held my hand in fireAnd shook for cold. But now I understoodFor ever, that the very fire and heatOf 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 wrongHe had stamped with steady hand God’s arrow-markOf dedication to the human need,He thought it should be so too, with his love;He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best, (because the best)His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,Thatsheshould walk beside him on the rocksIn all that clang and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing,—not his soul.And when I failed him,—for I failed him, I—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!The morning and the evening made his day.

But oh, the night! oh, bitter-sweet! oh, sweet!O dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasyOf darkness! O great mystery of love,—In which absorbed, loss, anguish, treason’s selfEnlarges rapture,—as a pebble droptIn some full wine-cup, over-brims the wine!While we two sate together, leaned that nightSo close, my very garments crept and thrilledWith strange electric life; and both my cheeksGrew red, then pale, with touches from my hairIn which his breath was; while the golden moonWas hung before our faces as the badgeOf 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!I am happy.’I flung closer to his breast,As sword that, after battle, flings to sheathe;And, in that hurtle of united souls,The mystic motions which in common moodsAre shut beyond our sense, broke in on us,And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin,And all the starry turbulence of worldsSwing round us in their audient circles, tillIf that same golden moon were overheadOr if beneath our feet, we did not know.

And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy,His voice rose, as some chief musician’s songAmid the old Jewish temple’s Selah-pause,And bade me mark how we two met at lastUpon 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;And men who work, can only work for men,And, not to work in vain, must comprehendHumanity, 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;There’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 tenderest human hands,Works best for men,—as God in Nazareth.’

He paused upon the word, and then resumed;‘Fewer programmes; we who have no prescience.Fewer systems; we who are held and do not hold.Less mapping out of masses, to be saved,By nations or by sexes. Fourier’s void,And Comte is dwarfed,—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 itselfObeys our old rules 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 presents that mystery’s counterpart.Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life,Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gaveA name to! human, vital, fructuous rose,Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves,—Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbour-loves,And civic, ... all fair petals, all good scents,All reddened, sweetened from one central Heart!’

‘Alas,’ I cried, ‘it was not long ago,You swore this very social rose smelt ill.’

‘Alas,’ he answered, ‘is it a rose at all?The filial’s thankless, the fraternal’s hard,The rest is lost. I do but stand and think,Across dim waters of a troubled lifeThe 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, O my love,SinceIwas 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 standAnd 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 fulfilMy 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 rootsOf 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 doorBetwixt the different planes of sensuous formAnd form insensuous, that inferior menMay learn to feel on still through these to those,And bless thy ministration. The world waitsFor help. Beloved, let us love so well,Our work shall still be better for our love,And still our love be sweeter for our work,And both, commended, for the sake of each,By all true workers and true lovers born.Now press the clarion 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’sPast Jordan; crying from the top of souls,To souls, that they assemble on earth’s flatsTo get them to some purer eminenceThan any hitherto beheld for clouds!What height we know not,—but the way we know,And how by mounting aye, we must 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 hour to be renewed:Toward which, new hearts in individual growthMust quicken, and increase to multitudeIn new dynasties of the race of men,—Developed whence, shall grow spontaneouslyNew churches, new œconomies, new lawsAdmitting freedom, new societiesExcluding 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 fair,Along the tingling desert of the sky,Beyond the circle of the conscious hills,Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glassThe first foundations of that new, near DayWhich should be builded out of heaven, to God.He stood a moment with erected brows,In silence, as a creature might, who gazed:Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyesUpon the thought of perfect noon. And whenI saw his soul saw,—‘Jasper first,’ I said,‘And second, sapphire; third, chalcedony;The rest in order, ... last, an amethyst.’

THE END.

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

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