Aurora Leigh. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
in love! He had a right to be dogmatical, This poor, good Romney. Love, to him, was made A simple law-clause. If I married him, I would not dare to call my soul my own, Which so he had bought and paid for: every thought And every heart-beat down there in the bill— Not one found honestly deductible From any use that pleased him! He might cut My body into coins to give away Among his other paupers; change my sons, While I stood dumb as Griseld, for black babes Or piteous foundlings; might unquestioned set My right hand teaching in the Ragged Schools, My left hand washing in the Public Baths, What time my angel of the Ideal stretched Both his to me in vain! I could not claim The poor right of a mouse in a trap, to squeal, And take so much as pity, from myself.
Farewell, good Romney! if I loved you even, I could but ill afford to let you be So generous to me. Farewell, friend, since friend Betwixt us two, forsooth, must be a word So heavily overladen. And, since help Must come to me from those who love me not, Farewell, all helpers—I must help myself, And am alone from henceforth.—Then I stooped, And lifted the soiled garland from the ground, And set it on my head as bitterly As when the Spanish king did crown the bones Of his dead love. So be it. I preserve That crown still—in the drawer there! ’twas the first; The rest are like it;—those Olympian crowns, We run for, till we lose sight of the sun In the dust of the racing chariots! After that, Before the evening fell, I had a note Which ran—‘Aurora, sweet Chaldean, you read My meaning backward like your eastern books, While I am from the west, dear. Read me now A little plainer. Did you hate me quite But yesterday? I loved you for my part; I love you. If I spoke untenderly This morning, my beloved, pardon it; And comprehend me that I loved you so, I set you on the level of my soul, And overwashed you with the bitter brine Of some habitual thoughts. Henceforth, my flower, Be planted out of reach of any such, And lean the side you please, with all your leaves! Write woman’s verses and dream woman’s dreams; But let me feel your perfume in my home, To make my sabbath after working-days; Bloom out your youth beside me—be my wife.’
I wrote in answer—‘We, Chaldeans, discern Still farther than we read. I know your heart, And shut it like the holy book it is, Reserved for mild-eyed saints to pore upon Betwixt their prayers at vespers. Well, you’re right, I did not surely hate you yesterday; And yet I do not love you enough to-day To wed you, cousin Romney. Take this word, And let it stop you as a generous man From speaking farther. You may tease, indeed, And blow about my feelings, or my leaves— And here’s my aunt will help you with east winds, And break a stalk, perhaps, tormenting me; But certain flowers grow near as deep as trees, And, cousin, you’ll not move my root, not you, With all your confluent storms. Then let me grow Within my wayside hedge, and pass your way! This flower has never as much to say to you As the antique tomb which said to travellers, ‘Pause,’ ‘Siste, viator.’ Ending thus, I signed.
The next week passed in silence, so the next, And several after: Romney did not come, Nor my aunt chide me. I lived on and on, As if my heart were kept beneath a glass, And everybody stood, all eyes and ears, To see and hear it tick. I could not sit, Nor walk, nor take a book, nor lay it down, Not sew on steadily, nor drop a stitch And a sigh with it, but I felt her looks Still cleaving to me, like the sucking asp To Cleopatra’s breast, persistently Through the intermittent pantings. Being observed, When observation is not sympathy, Is just being tortured. If she said a word, A ‘thank you,’ or an ‘if it please you, dear,’ She meant a commination, or, at best, An exorcism against the devildom Which plainly held me. So with all the house. Susannah could not stand and twist my hair, Without such glancing at the looking-glass To see my face there, that she missed the plait: And John—I never sent my plate for soup, Or did not send it, but the foolish John Resolved the problem, ’twixt his napkined thumbs, Of what was signified by taking soup Or choosing mackerel. Neighbours, who dropped in On morning visits, feeling a joint wrong, Smiled admonition, sate uneasily, And talked with measured, emphasised reserve, Of parish news, like doctors to the sick, When not called in—as if, with leave to speak, They might say something. Nay, the very dog Would watch me from his sun-patch on the floor, In alternation with the large black fly Not yet in reach of snapping. So I lived.
A Roman died so; smeared with honey, teased By insects, stared to torture by the noon: And many patient souls ’neath English roofs Have died like Romans. I, in looking back, Wish only, now, I had borne the plague of all With meeker spirits than were rife in Rome.
For, on the sixth week, the dead sea broke up, Dashed suddenly through beneath the heel of Him Who stands upon the sea and earth, and swears Time shall be nevermore. The clock struck nine That morning, too—no lark was out of tune; The hidden farms among the hills, breathed straight Their smoke toward heaven; the lime-tree scarcely stirred Beneath the blue weight of the cloudless sky, Though still the July air came floating through The woodbine at my window, in and out, With touches of the out-door country-news For a bending forehead. There I sate, and wished That morning-truce of God would last till eve, Or longer. ‘Sleep,’ I thought, ‘late sleepers—sleep, And spare me yet, the burden of your eyes.’
Then, suddenly, a single ghastly shriek Tore upwards from the bottom of the house. Like one who wakens in a grave and shrieks, The still house seemed to shriek itself alive, And shudder through its passages and stairs With slam of doors and clash of bells.—I sprang, I stood up in the middle of the room, And there confronted at my chamber-door, A white face—shivering, ineffectual lips.
‘Come, come,’ they tried to utter, and I went; As if a ghost had drawn me at the point Of a fiery finger through the uneven dark, I went with reeling footsteps down the stair, Nor asked a question. There she sate, my aunt— Bolt upright in the chair beside her bed, Whose pillow had no dint! she had used no bed For that night’s sleeping … yet slept well. My God, The dumb derision of that grey, peaked face Concluded something grave against the sun, Which filled the chamber with its July burst When Susan drew the curtains, ignorant Of who sate open-eyed behind her. There, She sate … it sate … we said ‘she’ yesterday … And held a letter with unbroken seal, As Susan gave it to her hand last night: All night she had held it. If its news referred To duchies or to dunghills, not an inch She’d budge, ’twas obvious, for such worthless odds: Nor, though the stars were suns, and overburned Their spheric limitations, swallowing up Like wax the azure spaces, could they force Those open eyes to wink once. What last sight Had left them blank and flat so—drawing out The faculty of vision from the roots, As nothing more, worth seeing, remained behind?
Were those the eyes that watched me, worried me? That dogged me up and down the hours and days, A beaten, breathless, miserable soul? And did I pray, a half hour back, but so, To escape the burden of those eyes … those eyes? ‘Sleep late’ I said.— Why now, indeed, they sleep. God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in’t. Every wish Is like a prayer … with God. I had my wish— To read and meditate the thing I would, To fashion all my life upon my thought, And marry, or not marry. Henceforth, none Could disapprove me, vex me, hamper me. Full ground-room, in this desert newly made, For Babylon or Balbec—when the breath, Just choked with sand, returns, for building towns! The heir came over on the funeral day, And we two cousins met before the dead, With two pale faces. Was it death or life That moved us? When the will was read and done, The official guest and witnesses withdrawn, We rose up in a silence almost hard, And looked at one another. Then I said, ‘Farewell, my cousin.’ But he touched, just touched My hatstrings tied for going, (at the door The carriage stood to take me) and said low, His voice a little unsteady through his smile, ‘Siste, viator.’ ‘Is there time,’ I asked, ‘In these last days of railroads, to stop short Like Cæsar’s chariot (weighing half a ton) On the Appian road, for morals?’ ‘There is time,’ He answered grave, ‘for necessary words, Inclusive, trust me, of no epitaph On man or act, my cousin. We have read A will, which gives you all the personal goods And funded monies of your aunt.’ ‘I thank Her memory for it. With three hundred pounds We buy in England even, clear standing-room To stand and work in. Only two hours since, I fancied I was poor.’ ‘And, cousin, still You’re richer than you fancy. The will says, Three hundred pounds, and any other sum Of which the said testatrix dies possessed. I say she died possessed of other sums.’
‘Dear Romney, need we chronicle the pence? I’m richer than I thought—that’s evident. Enough so.’ ‘Listen rather. You’ve to do With business and a cousin,’