Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/402

The joy would set me like a star, in heaven,
So high up, I should shine because of height
And not of virtue. Yet in one respect,
Just one, beloved, I am in no wise changed:
I love you, loved you . . loved you first and last,
And love you on for ever. Now I know
I loved you always, Romney. She who died
Knew that, and said so; Lady Waldemar
Knows that; . . and Marian: I had known the same
Except that I was prouder than I knew,
And not so honest. Ay, and as I live,
I should have died so, crushing in my hand
This rose of love, the wasp inside and all,—
Ignoring ever to my soul and you
Both rose and pain,—except for this great loss,
This great despair,—to stand before your face
And know I cannot win a look of yours.
You think, perhaps, I am not changed from pride,
And that I chiefly bear to say such words
Because you cannot shame me with your eyes?
O calm, grand eyes, extinguished in a storm,
Blown out like lights o’er melancholy seas,
Though shrieked for by the shipwrecked,—O my Dark,
My Cloud,—to go before me every day
While I go ever toward the wilderness,—
I would that you could see me bare to the soul!—
If this be pity, ’tis so for myself,
And not for Romney; he can stand alone;
A man like him is never overcome:
No woman like me, counts him pitiable