Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/319

Has scarce seen really worse than some of us,
When all’s said. Let him pass. I’m not too much
A woman, not to be a man for once,
And bury all my Dead like Alaric,
Depositing the treasures of my soul
In this drained water-course, and, letting flow
The river of life again, with commerce-ships
And pleasure-barges, full of silks and songs.
Blow winds, and help us.
⁠Ah, we mock ourselves
With talking of the winds! perhaps as much
With other resolutions. How it weighs,
This hot, sick air! and how I covet here
The Dead’s provision on the river’s couch,
With silver curtains drawn on tinkling rings!
Or else their rest in quiet crypts,—laid by
From heat and noise!—from those cicale, say,
And this more vexing heart-beat.
⁠So it is:
We covet for the soul, the body’s part,
To die and rot. Even so, Aurora, ends
Our aspiration, who bespoke our place
So far in the east. The occidental flats
Had fed us fatter, therefore? we have climbed
Where herbage ends? we want the beast’s part now
And tire of the angel’s?—Men define a man,
The creature who stands front-ward to the stars,
The creature who looks inward to himself,
The tool-wright, laughing creature. ’Tis enough:
We’ll say instead, the inconsequent creature, man,—