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Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Aurora Leigh: Book Fifth
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"Of Romney?"


             "No, no; nothing worse," he cried,
"Of Romney Leigh than what is buzzed about,—
That he is taken in an eye-trap too,
Like many half as wise. The thing I mean
Refers to you, not him."


                          "Refers to me."
He echoed,—"Me! You sound it like a stone
Dropped down a dry well very listlessly
By one who never thinks about the toad
Alive at the bottom. Presently perhaps
You`ll sound your `me` more proudly—till I shrink."


"Lord Howe`s the toad, then, in this question?"


                                                    "Brief,
We`ll take it graver. Give me sofa-room,
And quiet hearing. You know Eglinton,
John Eglinton, of Eglinton in Kent?"


"Is he the toad?—he`s rather like the snail,
Known chiefly for the house upon his back:
Divide the man and house—you kill the man;
That`s Eglinton of Eglinton, Lord Howe."


He answered grave. "A reputable man,
An excellent landlord of the olden stamp,
If somewhat slack in new philanthropies,
Who keeps his birthdays with a tenants` dance,
Is hard upon them when they miss the church
Or hold their children back from catechism,
But not ungentle when the agèd poor
Pick sticks at hedge-sides: nay, I`ve heard him say
`The old dame has a twinge because she stoops;
That`s punishment enough for felony.`"


"O tender-hearted landlord! may I take
My long lease with him, when the time arrives
For gathering winter-faggots!"


                                 "He likes art,
Buys books and pictures . . . of a certain kind;
Neglects no patent duty; a good son" . . .


"To a most obedient mother. Born to wear
His father`s shoes, he wears her husband`s too:
Indeed I`ve heard it`s touching. Dear Lord Howe,
You shall not praise me so against your heart,
When I`m at worst for praise and faggots."


                                              "Be
Less bitter with me, for . . . in short," he said,
"I have a letter, which he urged me so
To bring you . . . I could scarcely choose but yield;
Insisting that a new love, passing through
The hand of an old friendship, caught from it
Some reconciling odour."


                          "Love, you say?
My lord, I cannot love: I only find
The rhyme for love,—and that`s not love, my lord.
Take back your letter."


                         "Pause: you`ll read it first?"


"I will not read it: it is stereotyped;
The same he wrote to,—anybody`s name,
Anne Blythe the actress, when she died so true,
A duchess fainted in a private box:
Pauline the dancer, after the great pas 
In which her little feet winked overhead
Like other fire-flies, and amazed the pit:
Or Baldinacci, when her F in alt
Had touched the silver tops of heaven itself
With such a pungent spirit-dart, the Queen
Laid softly, each to each, her white-gloved palms,
And sighed for joy: or else (I thank your friend)
Aurora Leigh,—when some indifferent rhymes,
Like those the boys sang round the holy ox
On Memphis-highway, chance perhaps to set
Our Apis-public lowing. Oh, he wants,
Instead of any worthy wife at home,
A star upon his stage of Eglinton?
Advise him that he is not overshrewd
In being so little modest: a dropped star
Makes bitter waters, says a Book I`ve read,—
And there`s his unread letter."


                                  "My dear friend,"
Lord Howe began . . .


                       In haste I tore the phrase.
"You mean your friend of Eglinton, or me?"


"I mean you, you," he answered with some fire.
"A happy life means prudent compromise;
The tare runs through the farmer`s garnered sheaves,
And though the gleaner`s apron holds pure wheat
We count her poorer. Tare with wheat, we cry,
And good with drawbacks. You, you love your art,
And, certain of vocation, set your soul
On utterance. Only, in this world we have made
(They say God made it first, but if He did
`Twas so long since, and, since, we have spoiled it so,
He scarce would know it, if He looked this way,
From hells we preach of, with the flames blown out),
—In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world
Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost,—
In this uneven, unfostering England here,
Where ledger-strokes and sword-strokes count indeed,
But soul-strokes merely tell upon the flesh
They strike from,—it is hard to stand for art,
Unless some golden tripod from the sea
Be fished up, by Apollo`s divine chance,
To throne such feet as yours, my prophetess,
At Delphi. Think,—the god comes down as fierce
As twenty bloodhounds, shakes you, strangles you,
Until the oracular shriek shall ooze in froth!
At best `tis not all ease,—at worst too hard:
A place to stand on is a `vantage gained,
And here`s your tripod. To be plain, dear friend,
You`re poor, except in what you richly give;
You labour for your own bread painfully
Or ere you pour our wine. For art`s sake, pause."


I answered slow,—as some wayfaring man,
Who feels himself at night too far from home,
Makes steadfast face against the bitter wind.
"Is art so less a thing than virtue is,
That artists first must cater for their ease
Or ever they make issue past themselves
To generous use? Alas, and is it so
That we, who would be somewhat clean, must sweep
Our ways as well as walk them, and no friend
Confirm us nobly,—`Leave results to God,
But you, be clean?` What! `prudent compromise
Makes acceptable life,` you say instead,
You, you, Lord Howe?—in things indifferent, well.
For instance, compromise the wheaten bread
For rye, the meat for lentils, silk for serge,
And sleep on down, if needs, for sleep on straw;
But there, end compromise. I will not bate
One artist-dream on straw or down, my lord,
Nor pinch my liberal soul, though I be poor,
Nor cease to love high, though I live thus low."


So speaking, with less anger in my voice
Than sorrow, I rose quickly to depart;
While he, thrown back upon the noble shame
Of such high-stumbling natures, murmured words,
The right words after wrong ones. Ah, the man
Is worthy, but so given to entertain
Impossible plans of superhuman life,—
He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf,
To keep them at the grand millennial height,
He has to mount a stool to get at them;
And, meantime, lives on quite the common way,
With everybody`s morals.


                          As we passed,
Lord Howe insisting that his friendly arm
Should oar me across the sparkling brawling stream
Which swept from room to room,—we fell at once
On Lady Waldemar. "Miss Leigh," she said,
And gave me such a smile, so cold and bright,
As if she tried it in a `tiring glass
And liked it, "all to-night I`ve strained at you
As babes at baubles held up out of reach
By spiteful nurses (`Never snatch,` they say),
And there you sat, most perfectly shut in
By good Sir Blaise and clever Mister Smith
And then our dear Lord Howe! at last indeed
I almost snatched. I have a world to speak
About your cousin`s place in Shropshire, where
I`ve been to see his work . . . our work,—you heard
I went? . . . and of a letter yesterday,
In which if I should read a page or two
You might feel interest, though you`re locked of course
In literary toil.—You`ll like to hear
Your last book lies at the phalanstery,
As judged innocuous for the elder girls
And younger women who still care for books.
We all must read, you see, before we live,
Till slowly the ineffable light comes up
And, as it deepens, drowns the written word,—
So said your cousin, while we stood and felt
A sunset from his favourite beech-tree seat.
He might have been a poet if he would,
But then he saw the higher thing at once
And climbed to it. I think he looks well now,
Has quite got over that unfortunate . . .
Ah, ah . . . I know it moved you. Tender-heart!
You took a liking to the wretched girl.
Perhaps you thought the marriage suitable,
Who knows? a poet hankers for romance,
And so on. As for Romney Leigh, `tis sure
He never loved her,—never. By the way,
You have not heard of her . . .? quite out of sight,
And out of saving? lost in every sense?"


She might have gone on talking half an hour
And I stood still, and cold, and pale, I think,
As a garden-statue a child pelts with snow
For pretty pastime. Every now and then
I put in "yes" or "no," I scarce knew why;
The blind man walks wherever the dog pulls,
And so I answered. Till Lord Howe broke in:
"What penance takes the wretch who interrupts
The talk of charming women? I, at last,
Must brave it. Pardon, Lady Waldemar,
The lady on my arm is tired, unwell,
And loyally I`ve promised she shall say
No harder word this evening than . . .good-night;
The rest her face speaks for her."—Then we went.


And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak,
Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties
My hair . . . now could I but unloose my soul!
We are sepulchred alive in this close world,
And want more room.


                     The charming woman there—
This reckoning up and writing down her talk
Affects me singularly. How she talked
To pain me! woman`s spite.—You wear steel-mail:
A woman takes a housewife from her breast
And plucks the delicatest needle out
As `twere a rose, and pricks you carefully
`Neath nails, `neath eyelids, in your nostrils,—say,
A beast would roar so tortured,—but a man,
A human creature, must not, shall not flinch,
No, not for shame.


                    What vexes, after all,
Is just that such as she, with such as I,
Knows how to vex. Sweet heaven, she takes me up
As if she had fingered me and dog-eared me
And spelled me by the fireside half a life!
She knows my turns, my feeble points.—What then?
The knowledge of a thing implies the thing;
Of course, she found that in me, she saw that,
Her pencil underscored this for a fault,
And I, still ignorant. Shut the book up,—close!
And crush that beetle in the leaves.


                                        O heart,
At last we shall grow hard too, like the rest,
And call it self-defence because we are soft.


And after all, now . . . why should I be pained
That Romney Leigh, my cousin, should espouse
This Lady Waldemar? And, say, she held
Her newly-blossomed gladness in my face, . . .
`Twas natural surely, if not generous,
Considering how, when winter held her fast,
I helped the frost with mine, and pained her more
Than she pains me. Pains me!—but wherefore pained?
`Tis clear my cousin Romney wants a wife,—
So, good!—The man`s need of the woman, here,
Is greater than the woman`s of the man,
And easier served; for where the man discerns
A sex (ah, ah, the man can generalise,
Said he), we see but one, ideally
And really: where we yearn to lose ourselves
And melt like white pearls in another`s wine,
He seeks to double himself by what he loves,
And make his drink more costly by our pearls.
At board, at bed, at work and holiday,
It is not good for man to be alone,
And that`s his way of thinking, first and last,
And thus my cousin Romney wants a wife.
But then my cousin sets his dignity
On personal virtue. If he understands
By love, like others, self-aggrandisement,
It is that he may verily be great
By doing rightly and kindly. Once he thought,
For charitable ends set duly forth
In Heaven`s white judgment-book, to marry . . . ah,
We`ll call her name Aurora Leigh, although
She`s changed since then!—and once, for social ends,
Poor Marian Erle, my sister Marian Erle,
My woodland sister, sweet maid Marian,
Whose memory moans on in me like the wind
Through ill-shut casements, making me more sad
Than ever I find reasons for. Alas,
Poor pretty plaintive face, embodied ghost!
He finds it easy then, to clap thee off
From pulling at his sleeve and book and pen,—
He locks thee out at night into the cold
Away from butting with thy horny eyes
Against his crystal dreams, that now he`s strong
To love anew? that Lady Waldemar
Succeeds my Marian?


                     After all, why not?
He loved not Marian, more than once he loved
Aurora. If he loves at last that Third,
Albeit she prove as slippery as spilt oil
On marble floors, I will not augur him
Ill-luck for that. Good love, howe`er ill-placed,
Is better for a man`s soul in the end,
That if he loved ill what deserves love well.
A pagan, kissing for a step of Pan
The wild-goat`s hoof-print on the loamy down,
Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back
The strata . . . granite, limestone, coal, and clay,
Concluding coldly with "Here`s law! where`s God?"


And then at worst,—if Romney loves her not,—
At worst—if he`s incapable of love,
Which may be—then indeed, for such a man
Incapable of love, she`s good enough;
For she, at worst too, is a woman still
And loves him . . . as the sort of woman can.


My loose long hair began to burn and creep,
Alive to the very ends, about my knees:
I swept it backward as the wind sweeps flame,
With the passion of my hands. Ah, Romney laughed
One day . . . (how full the memories come up!)
"—Your Florence fire-flies live on in your hair,"
He said, "it gleams so." Well, I wrung them out,
My fire-flies; made a knot as hard as life
Of those loose, soft, impracticable curls,
And then sat down and thought . . . "She shall not think
Her thought of me,"—and drew my desk and wrote.


"Dear Lady Waldemar, I could not speak
With people round me, nor can sleep to-night
And not speak, after the great news I heard
Of you and of my cousin. May you be
Most happy; and the good he meant the world
Replenish his own life. Say what I say,
And let my word be sweeter for your mouth,
As you are you . . . I only Aurora Leigh."
That`s quiet, guarded: though she hold it up
Against the light, she`ll not see through it more
Than lies there to be seen. So much for pride;
And now for peace, a little. Let me stop
All writing back . . . "Sweet thanks, my sweetest friend,
You`ve made more joyful my great joy itself."
—No, that`s too simple! she would twist it thus,
"My joy would still be as sweet as thyme in drawers,
However shut up in the dark and dry;
But violets, aired and dewed by love like yours,
Out-smell all thyme: we keep that in our clothes,
But drop the other down our bosoms till
They smell like—" . . . ah, I see her writing back
Just so. She`ll make a nosegay of her words,
And tie it with blue ribbons at the end
To suit a poet;—pshaw!


                         And then we`ll have
The call to church, the broken, sad, bad dream
Dreamed out at last, the marriage-vow complete
With the marriage breakfast; praying in white gloves,
Drawn off in haste for drinking pagan toasts
In somewhat stronger wine than any sipped
By gods since Bacchus had his way with grapes.


A postscript stops all that and rescues me.
"You need not write. I have been overworked,
And think of leaving London, England even,
And hastening to get nearer to the sun
Where men sleep better. So, adieu."—I fold
And seal,—and now I`m out of all the coil;
I breathe now, I spring upward like a branch
The ten-years school-boy with a crooked stick
May pull down to his level in search of nuts,
But cannot hold a moment. How we twang
Back on the blue sky, and assert our height,
While he stares after! Now, the wonder seems
That I could wrong myself by such a doubt.
We poets always have uneasy hearts,
Because our hearts, large-rounded as the globe,
Can turn but one side to the sun at once.
We are used to dip our artist-hands in gall
And potash, trying potentialities
Of alternated colour, till at last
We get confused, and wonder for our skin
How nature tinged it first. Well—here`s the true
Good flesh-colour; I recognise my hand,—
Which Romney Leigh may clasp as just a friend`s,
And keep his clean.


                     And now, my Italy.
Alas, if we could ride with naked souls
And make no noise and pay no price at all,
I would have seen thee sooner, Italy,
For still I have heard thee crying through my life,
Thou piercing silence of ecstatic graves,
Men call that name!


                     But even a witch to-day
Must melt down golden pieces in the nard
Wherewith to anoint her broomstick ere she rides;
And poets evermore are scant of gold,
And if they find a piece behind the door
It turns by sunset to a withered leaf.
The Devil himself scarce trusts his patented
Gold-making art to any who make rhymes,
But culls his Faustus from philosophers
And not from poets. "Leave my Job," said God;
And so the Devil leaves him without pence,
And poverty proves plainly special grace.
In these new, just, administrative times
Men clamour for an order of merit: why?
Here`s black bread on the table and no wine!


At least I am a poet in being poor,
Thank God. I wonder if the manuscript
Of my long poem, if `twere sold outright,
Would fetch enough to buy me shoes to go
Afoot (thrown in, the necessary patch
For the other side the Alps)? It cannot be.
I fear that I must sell this residue
Of my father`s books, although the Elzevirs
Have fly-leaves overwritten by his hand
In faded notes as thick and fine and brown
As cobwebs on a tawny monument
Of the old Greeks—conferenda hæc cum his—
Corruptè citat—lege potiùs,
And so on, in the scholar`s regal way
Of giving judgment on the parts of speech,
As if he sat on all twelve thrones up-piled,
Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes
Must go together. And this Proclus too,
In these dear quaint contracted Grecian types,
Fantastically crumpled like his thoughts
Which would not seem too plain; you go round twice
For one step forward, then you take it back
Because you`re somewhat giddy; there`s the rule
For Proclus. Ah, I stained this middle leaf
With pressing in`t my Florence iris-bell,
Long stalk and all: my father chided me
For that stain of blue blood,—I recollect
The peevish turn his voice took,—"Silly girls,
Who plant their flowers in our philosophy
To make it fine, and only spoil the book!
No more of it, Aurora." Yes—no more!
Ah, blame of love, that`s sweeter than all praise
Of those who love not! `tis so lost to me,
I cannot, in such beggared life, afford
To lose my Proclus,—not for Florence even.


The kissing Judas, Wolff, shall go instead,
Who builds us such a royal book as this
To honour a chief-poet, folio-built,
And writes above "The house of Nobody!"
Who floats in cream, as rich as any sucked
From Juno`s breasts, the broad Homeric lines,
And, while with their spondaic prodigious mouths
They lap the lucent margins as babe-gods,
Proclaims them bastards. Wolff`s an atheist:
And if the Iliad fell out, as he says,
By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs,
Conclude as much too for the universe.


That Wolff, those Platos: sweep the upper shelves
As clean as this, and so I am almost rich,
Which means, not forced to think of being poor
In sight of ends. To-morrow: no delay.
I`ll wait in Paris till good Carrington
Dispose of such and, having chaffered for
My book`s price with the publisher, direct
All proceeds to me. Just a line to ask
His help.


          And now I come, my Italy,
My own hills! Are you `ware of me, my hills,
How I burn toward you? do you feel to-night
The urgency and yearning of my soul,
As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe
And smile?—Nay, not so much as when in heat
Vain lightnings catch at your inviolate tops
And tremble while ye are steadfast. Still ye go
Your own determined, calm, indifferent way
Toward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by light,
Of all the grand progression nought left out,
As if God verily made you for yourselves
And would not interrupt your life with ours.
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