“Because precisely, I’m an artist, sir,And woman, if another sate in sight,I’d whisper,—Soft, my sister! not a word!By speaking we prove only we can speak,Which he, the man here, never doubted. WhatHe doubts is, whether we canDOthe thingWith decent grace, we’ve not yet done at all.Now, do it; bring your statue,—you have room!He’ll see it even by the starlight here;And if ’tis e’er so little like the godWho looks out from the marble silentlyAlong the track of his own shining dartThrough the dusk of ages, there’s no need to speak;The universe shall henceforth speak for you,And witness, ‘She who did this thing, was bornTo do it,—claims her license in her work.’And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague,Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech:Who rights a land’s finances is excusedFor touching copper, though her hands be white,—But we, we talk!”“It is the age’s mood”He said; “we boast, and do not.”
“Because precisely, I’m an artist, sir,And woman, if another sate in sight,I’d whisper,—Soft, my sister! not a word!By speaking we prove only we can speak,Which he, the man here, never doubted. WhatHe doubts is, whether we canDOthe thingWith decent grace, we’ve not yet done at all.Now, do it; bring your statue,—you have room!He’ll see it even by the starlight here;And if ’tis e’er so little like the godWho looks out from the marble silentlyAlong the track of his own shining dartThrough the dusk of ages, there’s no need to speak;The universe shall henceforth speak for you,And witness, ‘She who did this thing, was bornTo do it,—claims her license in her work.’And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague,Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech:Who rights a land’s finances is excusedFor touching copper, though her hands be white,—But we, we talk!”“It is the age’s mood”He said; “we boast, and do not.”
E. B. Browning.—“Aurora Leigh,” Book viii