Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/294

Exceeds all toleration except yours;
But yours, I know, is infinite. Farewell.
To-morrow we take train for Italy.
Speak gently of me to your gracious wife,
As one, however far, shall yet be near
In loving wishes to your house.’
I sign.
And now I’ll loose my heart upon a page,
This—
‘Lady Waldemar, I’m very glad
I never liked you; which you knew so well,
You spared me, in your turn, to like me much.
Your liking surely had done worse for me
Than has your loathing, though the last appears
Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt,
And not afraid of judgment. Now, there’s space
Between our faces,—I stand off, as if
I judged a stranger’s portrait and pronounced
Indifferently the type was good or bad:
What matter to me that the lines are false,
I ask you? Did I ever ink my lips
By drawing your name through them as a friend’s.
Or touch your hands as lovers do? thank God
I never did: and, since you’re proved so vile,
Ay, vile, I say,—we’ll show it presently,—
I’m not obliged to nurse my friend in you,
Or wash out my own blots, in counting yours,
Or even excuse myself to honest souls
Who seek to touch my lip or clasp my palm,—
‘Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first!’