Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/398

Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man,
Refused the daily largesse of the sun
To humble creatures! When the fever’s heat
Dropped from me, as the flame did from my house,
And left me ruined like it, stripped of all
The hues and shapes of aspectable life,
A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day,
A man, upon the outside of the earth,
As dark as ten feet under, in the grave,—
Why that seemed hard.’
‘No hope?’
‘A tear! you weep,
Divine Aurora? tears upon my hand!
I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,—
But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope.
Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear,
And tell you in what Greek and Latin name
The visual nerve is withered to the root,
Though the outer eyes appear indifferent,
Unspotted in their crystals. But there’s hope.
The spirit, from behind this dethroned sense,
Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up
From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt.
There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogant
And restless, so ambitious, for his part,
Of dealing with statistically packed
Disorders, (from a pattern on his nail,)
And packing such things quite another way,—
Is now contented. From his personal loss
He has come to hope for others when they lose,