Because a woman’s. Do you now turn round
And ask for what a woman cannot give?’
‘For what she only can, I turn and ask,’
He answered, catching up my hands in his,
And dropping on me from his high-eaved brow
The full weight of his soul,—‘I ask for love,
And that, she can; for life in fellowship
Through bitter duties—that, I know she can;
For wifehood . . will she?’
‘Now,’ I said, ‘may God
Be witness ’twixt us two!’ and with the word,
Meseemed I floated into a sudden light
Above his stature,—‘am I proved too weak
To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear
Such leaners on my shoulder? poor to think,
Yet rich enough to sympathise with thought?
Incompetent to sing, as blackbirds can,
Yet competent to love, like HIM?’
I paused:
Perhaps I darkened, as the lighthouse will
That turns upon the sea. ‘It’s always so!
Anything does for a wife.’
‘Aurora, dear,
And dearly honoured’ . . he pressed in at once
With eager utterance,—‘you translate me ill.
I do not contradict my thought of you
Which is most reverent, with another thought
Found less so. If your sex is weak for art,
