Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/124

Which dims our hedges even, in your eyes,
And vexed you so much. You find, probably,
No evil in this marriage,—rather good
Of innocence, to pastoralise in song:
You’ll give the bond your signature, perhaps,
Beneath the lady’s work,—indifferent
That Romney chose a wife, could write her name,
In witnessing he loved her.’
⁠‘Loved!’ I cried;
‘Who tells you that he wants a wife to love?
He gets a horse to use, not love, I think:
There’s work for wives as well,—and after, straw,
When men are liberal. For myself, you err
Supposing power in me to break this match.
I could not do it, to save Romney’s life;
And would not to save mine.’
⁠‘You take it so,’
She said, ‘farewell then. Write your books in peace,
As far as may be for some secret stir
Now obvious to me,—for, most obviously,
In coming hither I mistook the way.’
Whereat she touched my hand and bent her head,
And floated from me like a silent cloud
That leaves the sense of thunder.
⁠I drew breath,
As hard as in a sick-room. After all,
This woman breaks her social system up
For love, so counted—the love possible
To such,—and lilies are still lilies, pulled

By smutty hands, though spotted from their white;