Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/377

Through intellectual culture? since indeed
I do not think that any common she
Would dare adopt such fancy-forgeries
For the legible life-signature of such
As I, with all my blots: with all my blots!
At last then, peerless cousin, we are peers—
At last we're even.⁠Ah, you've left your height;
And here upon my level we take hands,
And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet,
And that's a fall, Aurora. Long ago
You seldom understood me,—but, before,
I could not blame you. Then you only seemed
So high above, you could not see below;
But now I breathe,—but now I pardon!—nay,
We're parting.⁠Dearest, men have burnt my house,
Maligned my motives,—but not one, I swear,
Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has,
Who called the Lady Waldemar my wife.'

'Not married to her! yet you said' . .
⁠'Again?
Nay, read the lines' (he held a letter out)
'She sent you through me.'
⁠By the moonlight there,
I tore the meaning out with passionate haste
Much rather than I read it.⁠Thus it ran.