Of course a woman’s–while I dreamed a tale
To fit its fortunes. There was one who looked
As if the earth had suddenly grown too large
For such a little humpbacked thing as she;
The pitiful black kerchief round her neck
Sole proof she had had a mother. One, again,
Looked sick for love,–seemed praying some soft saint
To put more virtue in the new fine scarf
She spent a fortnight’s meals on, yesterday,
That cruel Gigi might return his eyes
From Giuliana. There was one, so old,
So old, to kneel grew easier than to stand.–
So solitary, she accepts at last
Our Lady for her gossip, and frets on
Against the sinful world which goes its rounds
In marrying and being married, just the same
As when ‘twas almost good and had the right,
(Her Gian alive, and she herself eighteen).
And yet, now even, if Madonna willed,
She’d win a tern in Thursday’s lottery,
And better all things. Did she dream for nought,
That, boiling cabbage for the fast day’s soup,
It smelt like blessed entrails? such a dream
For nought? would sweetest Mary cheat her so,
And lose that certain candle, straight and white
As any fair grand-duchess in her teens,
Which otherwise should flare here in a week?
Benigna sis, thou beauteous Queen of heaven!
I sate there musing and imagining
Such utterance from such faces: poor blind souls
That writhed toward heaven along the devil’s trail,–
Who knows, I thought, but He may stretch his hand
And pick them up? ‘tis written in the Book,
He heareth the young ravens when they cry;
And yet they cry for carrion.–O my God,–
And we, who make excuses for the rest,
We do it in our measure. Then I knelt,
And dropped my head upon the pavement too,
And prayed, since I was foolish in desire
Like other creatures, craving offal-food,
That He would stop his ears to what I said,
And only listen to the run and beat
Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood–
And then
I lay and spoke not. But He heard in heaven.
So many Tuscan evenings passed the same!
I could not lose a sunset on the bridge,
And would not miss a vigil in the church,
And liked to mingle with the out-door crowd
So strange and gay and ignorant of my face,
For men you know not, are as good as trees.
And only once, at the Santissima,
I almost chanced upon a man I knew,
Sir Blaise Delorme. He saw me certainly,
And somewhat hurried, as he crossed himself,
The smoothness of the action,–then half bowed,
But only half, and merely to my shade,
I slipped so quick behind the porphyry plinth,
And left him dubious if ‘twas really I,
Or peradventure Satan’s usual trick
To keep a mounting saint uncanonised.
But I was safe for that time, and he too;
The argent angels in the altar-flare
Absorbed his soul next moment. The good man!
In England we were scare acquaintances,
That here in Florence he should keep my thought
Beyond the image on his eye, which came
And went: and yet his thought disturbed my life.
For, after that, I often sate at home
On evenings, watching how they fined themselves
With gradual conscience to a perfect night,
Until a moon, diminished to a curve,
Lay out there, like a sickle for His hand
Who cometh down at last to reap the earth.
At such times, ended seemed my trade of verse;
I feared to jingle bells upon my robe
Before the four-faced silent cherubim;
With God so near me, could I sing of God?
I did not write, nor read, nor even think,
But sate absorbed amid the quickening glooms,
Most like some passive broken lump of salt
Dropt in by chance to a bowl of oenomel,
To spoil the drink a little, and lose itself,
Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost.
AURORA LEIGH. EIGHTH BOOK.
ONE eve it happened when I sate alone,
Alone upon the terrace of my tower,
A book upon my knees, to counterfeit
The reading that I never read at all,
While Marian, in the garden down below,
Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrill
The drowsy silence of the exhausted day)
And peeled a new fig from that purple heap
In the grass beside her,–turning out the red
To feed her eager child, who sucked at it
With vehement lips across a gap of air
As he stood opposite, face and curls a-flame
With that last sun-ray, crying, ‘give me, give,’
And stamping with imperious baby-feet,
(We’re all born princes)–something startled me,–
The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks
Abruptly, as if frightened at itself;
‘Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above
In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,
And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book,
And knew, the first time, ‘twas Boccaccio’s tales,
The Falcon’s,–of the lover who for love
Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us
Do it still, and then we sit and laugh no more.
Laugh you, sweet Marian! you’ve the right to laugh,
Since God himself is for you, and a child!
For me there’s somewhat less,–and so, I sigh.
The heavens were making room to hold the night,
The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates
To let the stars out slowly (prophesied
In close-approaching advent, not discerned),
While still the cue-owls from the cypresses
Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse
Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually
The purple and transparent shadows slow
Had filled up the whole valley to the brim,
And flooded all the city, which you saw
As some drowned city in some enchanted sea,
Cut off from nature,–drawing you who gaze,
With passionate desire, to leap and plunge,
And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,
And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks
You cannot kiss but you shall bring away
Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell
Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down,
So deep; and fifty churches answer it
The same, with fifty various instances.
Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets
The Pitti’s palace-front is drawn in fire:
And, past the quays, Maria Novella’s Place,
In which the mystic obelisks stand up
Triangular, pyramidal, each based
On a single trine of brazen tortoises,
To guard that fair church, Buonarroti’s Bride,
That stares out from her large blind dial-eyes,
Her quadrant and armillary dials, black
With rhythms of many suns and moons, in vain
Enquiry for so rich a soul as his,–
Methinks I have plunged, I see it all so clear . . .
And, oh my heart . . .the sea-king!
In my ears
The sound of waters. There he stood, my king!
I felt him, rather than beheld him. Up
I rose, as if he were my king indeed,
And then sate down, in trouble at myself,
And struggling for my woman’s empery.
‘Tis pitiful; but women are so made:
We’ll die for you, perhaps,–’tis probable:
But we’ll not spare you an inch of our full height:
We’ll have our whole just stature,–five feet four,
Though laid out in our coffins: pitiful!
–’You, Romney!––Lady Waldemar is here?’
He answered in a voice which was not his,
‘I have her letter; you shall read it soon:
But first, I must be heard a little, I,
Who have waited long and travelled far for that,
Although you thought to have shut a tedious book
And farewell. Ah, you dog-eared such a page,
And here you find me.’
Did he touch my hand,
Or but my sleeve? I trembled, hand and foot,–
He must have touched me.–’Will you sit?’ I asked,
And motioned to a chair; but down he sate,
A little slowly, as a man in doubt,
Upon the couch beside me,–couch and chair
Being wheeled upon the terrace.
‘You are come,
My cousin Romney?–this is wonderful.
But all is wonder on such summer-nights;
And nothing should surprise us any more,
Who see that miracle of stars. Behold.’
I signed above, where all the stars were out,
As if an urgent heat had started there
A secret writing from a sombre page,
A blank last moment, crowded suddenly
With hurrying splendours.
‘Then you do not know–
He murmured.
‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘I know.
I had the news from Vincent Carrington.
And yet I did not think you’d leave the work
In England, for so much even,–though, of course,
You’ll make a work-day of your holiday,
And turn it to our Tuscan people’s use,–
Who much need helping since the Austrian boar
(So bold to cross the Alp by Lombardy
And dash his brute front unabashed against
The steep snow-bosses of that shield of God,
Who soon shall rise in wrath and shake it clear
Came hither also,–raking up our vines
And olive-gardens with his tyrannous tusks,
And rolling on our maize with all his swine.’
‘You had the news from Vincent Carrington,’
He echoed,–picking up the phrase beyond,
As if he knew the rest was merely talk
To fill a gap and keep out a strong wind,–
‘You had, then, Vincent’s personal news?’
‘His own,
I answered, ‘All that ruined world of yours
Seems crumbling into marriage. Carrington
Has chosen wisely.’
‘Do you take it so?’
He cried, ‘and is it possible at last’ . .
He paused there,–and then, inward to himself,
‘Too much at last, too late!–yet certainly’ . .
(And there his voice swayed as an Alpine plank
That feels a passionate torrent underneath)
‘The knowledge, if I had known it, first or last,
Had never changed the actual case for me.
And best, for her, at this time.’
Nay, I thought,
He loves Kate Ward, it seems, now, like a man,
Because he has married Lady Waldemar.
Ah, Vincent’s letter said how Leigh was moved
To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate.
With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells
In this world! Then I spoke,–’I did not think,
My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward.’
‘In fact I never knew her. ‘Tis enough
That Vincent did, before he chose his wife
For other reasons than those topaz eyes
I’ve heard of. Not to undervalue them,
For all that. One takes up the world with eyes.’
–Including Romney Leigh, I thought again,
Albeit he knows them only by repute.
How vile must all men be, since he’s a man.
His deep pathetic voice, as if he guessed
I did not surely love him, took the word;
‘You never got a letter from Lord Howe
A month back, dear Aurora?’
‘None,’ I said.
‘I felt it was so,’ he replied: ‘Yet, strange!
Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence?’
‘Ay,
By chance I saw him in Our Lady’s church,
(I saw him, mark you, but he saw not me)
Clean-washed in holy-water from the count
Of things terrestrial,–letters and the rest;
He had crossed us out together with his sins.
Ay, strange; but only strange that good Lord Howe
Preferred him to the post because of pauls.
For me I’m sworn never to trust a man–
At least with letters.’
‘There were facts to tell,–
To smooth with eye and accent. Howe supposed . .
Well, well, no matter! there was dubious need;
You heard the news from Vincent Carrington.
And yet perhaps you had been startled less
To see me, dear Aurora, if you had read
That letter.’
–Now he sets me down as vexed.
I think I’ve draped myself in woman’s pride
To a perfect purpose. Oh, I’m vexed, it seems!
My friend Lord Howe deputes his friend Sir Blaise
To break as softly as a sparrow’s egg
That lets a bird out tenderly, the news
Of Romney’s marriage to a certain saint;
To smooth with eye and accent,–indicate
His possible presence. Excellently well
You’ve played your part, my Lady Waldemar,–
As I’ve played mine.
‘Dear Romney,’ I began,
‘You did not use, of old, to be so like
A Greek king coming from a taken Troy,
‘Twas needful that precursors spread your path
With three-piled carpets, to receive your foot
And dull the sound of’t. For myself, be sure
Although it frankly ground the gravel here
I still could bear it. Yet I’m sorry, too,
To lose this famous letter, which Sir Blaise
Has twisted to a lighter absently
To fire some holy taper with: Lord Howe
Writes letters good for all things but to lose;
And many a flower of London gossipry
Has dropt wherever such a stem broke off,–
Of course I know that, lonely among my vines,
Where nothing’s talked of, save the blight again,
And no more Chianti! Still the letter’s use
As preparation . . . . . Did I start indeed?
Last night I started at a cochchafer,
And shook a half-hour after. Have you learnt
No more of women, ‘spite of privilege,
Than still to take account too seriously
Of such weak flutterings? Why, we like it, sir,–
We get our powers and our effects that way.
The trees stand stiff and still at time of frost,
If no wind tears them; but, let summer come,
When trees are happy,–and a breath avails
To set them trembling through a million leaves
In luxury
of emotion. Something less
It takes to move a woman: let her start
And shake at pleasure,–nor conclude at yours,
The winter’s bitter,–but the summer’s green.’
He answered, ‘Be the summer ever green
With you, Aurora!–though you sweep your sex
With somewhat bitter gusts from where you live
Above them,–whirling downward from your heights
Your very own pine-cones, in a grand disdain
Of the lowland burrs with which you scatter them.
So high and cold to others and yourself,
A little less to Romney, were unjust,
And thus, I would not have you. Let it pass:
I feel content, so. You can bear indeed
My sudden step beside you: but for me,
‘Twould move me sore to hear your softened voice,–
Aurora’s voice,–if softened unaware
In pity of what I am.’
Ah friend, I thought,
As husband of the Lady Waldemar
You’re granted very sorely pitiable!
And yet Aurora Leigh must guard her voice
From softening in the pity of your case,
As if from lie or licence. Certainly
We’ll soak up all the slush and soil of life
With softened voices, ere we come to you.
At which I interrupted my own thought
And spoke out calmly. ‘Let us ponder, friend,
Whate’er our state, we must have made it first;
And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps
Displease us warrantably, never doubt
That other states, thought possible once, and then
Rejected by the instinct of our lives,–
If then adopted, had displeased us more
Than this, in which the choice, the will, the love,
Has stamped the honour of a patent act
From henceforth. What we choose, may not be good;
But, that we choose it, proves it good for us
Potentially, fantastically, now
Or last year, rather than a thing we saw,
And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn
Their wings,–which proves that light is good for moths,
Or else they had flown not, where they agonise.’
‘Ay, light is good,’ he echoed, and there paused.
And then abruptly, . . ‘Marian. Marian’s well?’
I bowed my head but found no word. ‘Twas hard
To speak of her to Lady Waldemar’s
New husband. How much did he know, at last?
How much? how little?––He would take no sign,
But straight repeated,–’Marian. Is she well?’
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 106