Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/115

Nor outrun by our equipages:—mine
Persisted, spite of efforts. All my cards
Turned up but Romney Leigh; my German stopped
At germane Wertherism; my Paris rounds
Returned me from the Champs Elysées just
A ghost, and sighing like Dido’s. I came home
Uncured,—convicted rather to myself
Of being in love . . in love! That’s coarse you’ll say
I’m talking garlic.’
Coldly I replied.
‘Apologise for atheism, not love!
For, me, I do believe in love, and God.
I know my cousin: Lady Waldemar
I know not: yet I say as much as this—
Whoever loves him, let her not excuse
But cleanse herself; that, loving such a man,
She may not do it with such unworthy love
He cannot stoop and take it.’
‘That is said
Austerely, like a youthful prophetess,
Who knits her brows across her pretty eyes
To keep them back from following the grey flight
Of doves between the temple-columns. Dear,
Be kinder with me. Let us two be friends.
I’m a mere woman—the more weak perhaps
Through being so proud; you’re better; as for him,
He’s best. Indeed he builds his goodness up
So high, it topples down to the other side,
And makes a sort of badness; there’s the worst

I have to say against your cousin’s best!