Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/397

And let the mice out slyly from his traps,
Until he marvelled at the soul in mice
Which took the cheese and left the snare? The same
Dear soft heart always! ’twas for this I grieved
Howe’s letter never reached you. Ah, you had heard
Of illness,—not the issue . . not the extent:
My life long sick with tossings up and down;
The sudden revulsion in the blazing house,—
The strain and struggle both of body and soul,
Which left fire running in my veins, for blood:
Scarce lacked that thunderbolt of the falling beam,
Which nicked me on the forehead as I passed
The gallery door with a burden. Say heaven’s bolt,
Not William Erle’s; not Marian’s father’s; tramp
And poacher, whom I found for what he was,
And, eager for her sake to rescue him,
Forth swept from the open highway of the world,
Road-dust and all,—till, like a woodland boar
Most naturally unwilling to be tamed,
He notched me with his tooth. But not a word
To Marian! and I do not think, besides,
He turned the tilting of the beam my way,—
And if he laughed, as many swear, poor wretch,
Nor he nor I supposed the hurt so deep.
We’ll hope his next laugh may be merrier,
In a better cause.’
⁠‘Blind, Romney?’
⁠‘Ah, my friend,
You’ll learn to say it in a cheerful voice.
I, too, at first desponded. To be blind,