Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/64

Among the helpers, if there’s any help
In such a social strait? The common blood
That swings along my veins, is strong enough
To draw me to this duty.’
Then I spoke.
‘I have not stood long on the strand of life,
And these salt waters have had scarcely time
To creep so high up as to wet my feet.
I cannot judge these tides—I shall, perhaps.
A woman’s always younger than a man
At equal years, because she is disallowed
Maturing by the outdoor sun and air,
And kept in long-clothes past the age to walk.
Ah well, I know you men judge otherwise!
You think a woman ripens as a peach,—
In the cheeks, chiefly. Pass it to me now;
I’m young in age, and younger still, I think,
As a woman. But a child may say amen
To a bishop’s prayer and see the way it goes;
And I, incapable to loose the knot
Of social questions, can approve, applaud
August compassion, christian thoughts that shoot
Beyond the vulgar white of personal aims.
Accept my reverence.’
There he glowed on me
With all his face and eyes. ‘No other help?’
Said he—‘no more than so?’
‘What help?’ I asked.
‘You’d scorn my help,—as Nature’s self, you say,

Has scorned to put her music in my mouth,