AURORA LEIGH.
‘To 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 shut my tongue against my fly
And struck him; ‘Would he carry,—he was just,—
‘A letter from me to Aurora Leigh,
‘And ratify from his authentic mouth
‘My 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 out,
Like some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—
Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterly
By 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 keep the colour at my lip.
A rose is pink and pretty without blood;
Why not a woman? When we’ve played in vain
The game, to adore,—we have resources still,
And can play on at leisure, being adored:
Here’s Smith already swearing at my feet
That I’m the typic She. Away with Smith!—
Smith smacks of Leigh,—and henceforth, I’ll admit
No socialist within three crinolines,
To live and have his being. But for you,
‘Enough so. Both were happy, he and Howe,
‘To acquit me of the heaviest charge of all—’
—At which I shut my tongue against my fly
And struck him; ‘Would he carry,—he was just,—
‘A letter from me to Aurora Leigh,
‘And ratify from his authentic mouth
‘My 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 out,
Like some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—
Ay, spit on and so wiped out utterly
By 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 keep the colour at my lip.
A rose is pink and pretty without blood;
Why not a woman? When we’ve played in vain
The game, to adore,—we have resources still,
And can play on at leisure, being adored:
Here’s Smith already swearing at my feet
That I’m the typic She. Away with Smith!—
Smith smacks of Leigh,—and henceforth, I’ll admit
No socialist within three crinolines,
To live and have his being. But for you,
