Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/353

We both were wrong that June-day,—both as wrong
As an east wind had been. I who talked of art,
And you who grieved for all men’s griefs . . . what then?
We surely made too small a part for God
In these things. What we are, imports us more
Than what we eat; and life you’ve granted me,
Develops from within. But innermost
Of the inmost, most interior of the interne,
God claims his own, Divine humanity
Renewing nature,—or the piercingest verse,
Prest in by subtlest poet, still must keep
As much upon the outside of a man,
As the very bowl, in which he dips his beard.
—And then, . . the rest. I cannot surely speak.
Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then,
If I, the poet’s veritable charge,
Have borne upon my forehead. If I have,
It might feel somewhat liker to a crown,
The foolish green one even.—Ah, I think,
And chiefly when the sun shines, that I’ve failed.
But what then, Romney? Though we fail indeed,
You . . I . . a score of such weak workers, . . He
Fails never. If He cannot work by us,
He will work over us. Does he want a man,
Much less a woman, think you? Every time
The star winks there, so many souls are born,
Who shall work too. Let our own be calm:
We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars,
Impatient that we’re nothing.’
⁠‘Could we sit