Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/296

Ay, Marian’s babe, her poor unfathered child,
Her yearling babe!—you’d face him when he wakes
And opens up his wonderful blue eyes:
You’d meet them and not wink perhaps, nor fear
God’s triumph in them and supreme revenge,
So, righting His creation’s balance-scale
(You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top
Of most celestial innocence! For me
Who am not as bold, I own those infant eyes
Have set me praying.
‘While they look at heaven,
No need of protestation in my words
Against the place you’ve made them! let them look!
They’ll do your business with the heavens, be sure:
I spare you common curses.
‘Ponder this.
If haply you’re the wife of Romney Leigh,
(For which inheritance beyond your birth
You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul)
I charge you, be his faithful and true wife!
Keep warm his hearth and clean his board, and, when
He speaks, be quick with your obedience;
Still grind your paltry wants and low desires
To dust beneath his heel; though, even thus,
The ground must hurt him,—it was writ of old,
‘Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,’
The nobler and ignobler. Ay, but you
Shall do your part as well as such ill things
Can do aught good. You shall not vex him,—mark,
You shall not vex him, . .jar him when he’s sad,