Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/363

To do it,—claims her license in her work.’
—And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague,
Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech:
Who rights a land’s finances, is excused
For touching coppers, though her hands be white,—
But we, we talk!’
‘It is the age’s mood,’
He said; ‘we boast, and do not. We put up
Hostelry signs where’er we lodge a day,—
Some red colossal cow, with mighty paps
A Cyclops’ fingers could not strain to milk;
Then bring out presently our saucer-full
of curds. We want more quiet in our works,
More knowledge of the bounds in which we work;
More knowledge that each individual man
Remains an Adam to the general race,
Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep
His personal state’s condition honestly,
Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world,
Which still must be developed from its one,
If bettered in its many. We, indeed,
Who think to lay it out new like a park,
We take a work on us which is not man’s;
For God alone sits far enough above,
To speculate so largely. None of us
(Not Romney Leigh) is mad enough to say,
We’ll have a grove of oaks upon that slope
And sink the need of acorns. Government,
If veritable and lawful, is not given
By imposition of the foreign hand,—