Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/288

Than touch such women with my finger-end
They top the poor street-walker by their lie,
And look the better for being so much worse
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
But you, dear, and your story.’
⁠‘All the rest
Is here,’ she said, and sighed upon the child.
‘I found a mistress-sempstress who was kind
And let me sew in peace among her girls;
And what was better than to draw the threads
All day and half the night, for him, and him?
And so I lived for him, and so he lives,
And so I know, by this time, God lives too.’
She smiled beyond the sun, and ended so,
And all my soul rose up to take her part
Against the world’s successes, virtues, fames.
‘Come with me, sweetest sister,’ I returned,
‘And sit within my house, and do me good
From henceforth, thou and thine! ye are my own
From henceforth. I am lonely in the world,
And thou art lonely, and the child is half
An orphan. Come, and, henceforth, thou and I
Being still together, will not miss a friend,
Nor he a father, since two mothers shall
Make that up to him. I am journeying south,
And, in my Tuscan home I’ll find a niche,
And set thee there, my saint, the child and thee,
And burn the lights of love before thy face,
And ever at thy sweet look cross myself