Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/365

Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind
Your ancient neighbours? The great book-club teems
With ‘sketches,’ ‘summaries,’ and ‘last tracts’ but twelve,
On socialistic troublers of close bonds
Betwixt the generous rich and grateful poor.
The vicar preached from ‘Revelations,’ (till
The doctor woke) and found me with ‘the frogs’
On three successive Sundays; ay, and stopped
To weep a little (for he’s getting old)
That such perdition should o’ertake a man
Of such fair acres,—in the parish, too!
He printed his discourses ‘by request;’
And if your book shall sell as his did, then
Your verses are less good than I suppose.
The women of the neighbourhood subscribed,
And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk,
Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh:
I own that touched me.’
‘What, the pretty ones?
Poor Romney!’
‘Otherwise the effect was small.
I had my windows broken once or twice
By liberal peasants, naturally incensed
At such a vexer of Arcadian peace,
Who would not let men call their wives their own
To kick like Britons,—and made obstacles
When things went smoothly as a baby drugged,
Toward freedom and starvation; bringing down
The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs,
To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves