Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/315

Before adulterous eyes.
How sure it is,
That, if we say a true word, instantly
We feel ’tis God’s, not ours, and pass it on
As bread at sacrament, we taste and pass
Nor handle for a moment, as indeed
We dared to set up any claim to such!
And I—my poem;—let my readers talk;
I’m closer to it—I can speak as well:
I’ll say, with Romney, that the book is weak,
The range uneven, the points of sight obscure,
The music interrupted.
Let us go.
The end of woman (or of man, I think)
Is not a book. Alas, the best of books
Is but a word in Art, which soon grows cramped,
Stiff, dubious-statured with the weight of years,
And drops an accent or digamma down
Some cranny of unfathomable time,
Beyond the critic’s reaching. Art itself,
We’ve called the higher life, still must feel the soul
Live past it. For more’s felt than is perceived,
And more’s perceived than can be interpreted,
And Love strikes higher with his lambent flame
Than Art can pile the faggots.
Is it so?
When Jove’s hand meets us with composing touch,
And when, at last, we are hushed and satisfied,—
Then, Io does not call it truth, but love?