Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/345

God’s lesson half, attaining as a dunce
To obliterate good words with fractious thumbs
And cheat myself of the context,—I should push
Aside, with male ferocious impudence,
The world’s Aurora who had conned her part
On the other side the leaf! ignore her so,
Because she was a woman and a queen,
And had no beard to bristle through her song,—
My teacher, who has taught me with a book,
My Miriam, whose sweet mouth, when nearly drowned
I still heard singing on the shore! Deserved,
That here I should look up unto the stars
And miss the glory’ . .
‘Can I understand?’
I broke in. ‘You speak wildly, Romney Leigh,
Or I hear wildly. In that morning-time
We recollect, the roses were too red,
The trees too green, reproach too natural
If one should see not what the other saw:
And now, it’s night, remember; we have shades
In place of colours; we are now grown cold,
And old, my cousin Romney. Pardon me,—
I’m very happy that you like my book,
And very sorry that I quoted back
A ten years’ birthday; ‘twas so mad a thing
In any woman, I scarce marvel much
You took it for a venturous piece of spite,
Provoking such excuses, as indeed
I cannot call you slack in.’
‘Understand,’