Part 3

In those days, though, I never analysed Myself even. All analysis comes late. You catch a sight of Nature, earliest, In full front sun-face, and your eyelids wink And drop before the wonder of’t; you miss The form, through seeing the light. I lived, those days, And wrote because I lived—unlicensed else: My heart beat in my brain. Life’s violent flood Abolished bounds,—and, which my neighbour’s field, Which mine, what mattered? It is so in youth. We play at leap-frog over the god Term; The love within us and the love without Are mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love, We scarce distinguish. So, with other power. Being acted on and acting seem the same: In that first onrush of life’s chariot-wheels, We know not if the forests move or we.

And so, like most young poets, in a flush Of individual life, I poured myself Along the veins of others, and achieved Mere lifeless imitations of live verse, And made the living answer for the dead, Profaning nature. ‘Touch not, do not taste, Nor handle,’—we’re too legal, who write young: We beat the phorminx till we hurt our thumbs, As if still ignorant of counterpoint; We call the Muse.... ‘O Muse, benignant Muse!’— As if we had seen her purple-braided head With the eyes in it, start between the boughs As often as a stag’s. What make-believe, With so much earnest! what effete results, From virile efforts! what cold wire-drawn odes, From such white heats!—bucolics, where the cows Would scare the writer if they splashed the mud In lashing off the flies,—didactics, driven Against the heels of what the master said; And counterfeiting epics, shrill with trumps A babe might blow between two straining cheeks Of bubbled rose, to make his mother laugh; And elegiac griefs, and songs of love, Like cast-off nosegays picked up on the road, The worse for being warm: all these things, writ On happy mornings, with a morning heart, That leaps for love, is active for resolve, Weak for art only. Oft, the ancient forms Will thrill, indeed, in carrying the young blood. The wine-skins, now and then, a little warped, Will crack even, as the new wine gurgles in. Spare the old bottles!—spill not the new wine.

By Keats’s soul, the man who never stepped In gradual progress like another man, But, turning grandly on his central self, Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years And died, not young,—(the life of a long life, Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear Upon the world’s cold cheek to make it burn For ever;) by that strong excepted soul, I count it strange, and hard to understand, That nearly all young poets should write old; That Pope was sexagenarian at sixteen, And beardless Byron academical, And so with others. It may be, perhaps, Such have not settled long and deep enough In trance, to attain to clairvoyance,—and still The memory mixes with the vision, spoils, And works it turbid. Or perhaps, again, In order to discover the Muse-Sphinx, The melancholy desert must sweep round, Behind you, as before.— For me, I wrote False poems, like the rest, and thought them true, Because myself was true in writing them. I, peradventure, have writ true ones since With less complacence. But I could not hide My quickening inner life from those at watch. They saw a light at a window now and then, They had not set there. Who had set it there? My father’s sister started when she caught My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say I had no business with a sort of soul, But plainly she objected,—and demurred, That souls were dangerous things to carry straight Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world.

She said sometimes, ‘Aurora, have you done Your task this morning?—have you read that book? And are you ready for the crochet here?’— As if she said, ‘I know there’s something wrong; I know I have not ground you down enough To flatten and bake you to a wholesome crust For household uses and proprieties, Before the rain has got into my barn And set the grains a-sprouting. What, you’re green With out-door impudence? you almost grow?’ To which I answered, ‘Would she hear my task, And verify my abstract of the book? And should I sit down to the crochet work? Was such her pleasure?’ ... Then I sate and teased The patient needle till it spilt the thread, Which oozed off from it in meandering lace From hour to hour. I was not, therefore, sad; My soul was singing at a work apart Behind the wall of sense, as safe from harm As sings the lark when sucked up out of sight, In vortices of glory and blue air.

And so, through forced work and spontaneous work, The inner life informed the outer life, Reduced the irregular blood to settled rhythms, Made cool the forehead with fresh-sprinkling dreams, And, rounding to the spheric soul the thin Pined body, struck a colour up the cheeks, Though somewhat faint. I clenched my brows across My blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass, And said, ‘We’ll live, Aurora! we’ll be strong. The dogs are on us—but we will not die.’

Whoever lives true life, will love true love. I learnt to love that England. Very oft, Before the day was born, or otherwise Through secret windings of the afternoons, I threw my hunters off and plunged myself Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag Will take the waters, shivering with the fear And passion of the course. And when, at last Escaped,—so many a green slope built on slope Betwixt me and the enemy’s house behind, I dared to rest, or wander,—like a rest Made sweeter for the step upon the grass,— And view the ground’s most gentle dimplement, (As if God’s finger touched but did not press In making England!) such an up and down Of verdure,—nothing too much up or down, A ripple of land; such little hills, the sky Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields climb; Such nooks of valleys, lined with orchises, Fed full of noises by invisible streams; And open pastures, where you scarcely tell White daisies from white dew,—at intervals The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade,— I thought my father’s land was worthy too Of being my Shakspeare’s. Very oft alone, Unlicensed; not unfrequently with leave To walk the third with Romney and his friend The rising painter, Vincent Carrington, Whom men judge hardly, as bee-bonnetted, Because he holds that, paint a body well, You paint a soul by implication, like The grand first Master. Pleasant walks! for if He said ... ‘When I was last in Italy’ ... It sounded as an instrument that’s played Too far off for the tune—and yet it’s fine To listen. Ofter we walked only two, If cousin Romney pleased to walk with me. We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced: We were not lovers, nor even friends well-matched— Say rather, scholars upon different tracks, And thinkers disagreed; he, overfull Of what is, and I, haply, overbold For what might be. But then the thrushes sang, And shook my pulses and the elms’ new leaves,— And then I turned, and held my finger up, And bade him mark that, howsoe’er the world Went ill, as he related, certainly The thrushes still sang in it.—At which word His brow would soften,—and he bore with me In melancholy patience, not unkind, While, breaking into voluble ecstacy, I flattered all the beauteous country round, As poets use ... the skies, the clouds, the fields, The happy violets hiding from the roads The primroses run down to, carrying gold,— The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out Impatient horns and tolerant churning mouths ’Twixt dripping ash-boughs,—hedgerows all alive With birds and gnats and large white butterflies Which look as if the May-flower had caught life And palpitated forth upon the wind,— Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist, Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills, And cattle grazing in the watered vales, And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods, And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere, Confused with smell of orchards. ‘See,’ I said, ‘And see! is God not with us on the earth? And shall we put Him down by aught we do? Who says there’s nothing for the poor and vile Save poverty and wickedness? behold!’ And ankle-deep in English grass I leaped, And clapped my hands, and called all very fair.

In the beginning when God called all good, Even then, was evil near us, it is writ. But we, indeed, who call things good and fair, The evil is upon us while we speak; Deliver us from evil, let us pray.

SECOND BOOK.

TIMES followed one another. Came a morn I stood upon the brink of twenty years, And looked before and after, as I stood Woman and artist,—either incomplete, Both credulous of completion. There I held The whole creation in my little cup, And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank, ‘Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine, And all these peoples.’ I was glad, that day; The June was in me, with its multitudes Of nightingales all singing in the dark, And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split. I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God! So glad, I could not choose be very wise! And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull My childhood backward in a childish jest To see the face of’t once more, and farewell! In which fantastic mood I bounded forth At early morning,—would not wait so long As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings, But, brushing a green trail across the lawn With my gown in the dew, took will and way Among the acacias of the shrubberies, To fly my fancies in the open air And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on, As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves; ‘The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone, And so with me it must be, unless I prove Unworthy of the grand adversity,— And certainly I would not fail so much. What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it, Before my brows be numb as Dante’s own To all the tender pricking of such leaves? Such leaves! what leaves?’ I pulled the branches down, To choose from. ‘Not the bay! I choose no bay; The fates deny us if we are overbold: Nor myrtle—which means chiefly love; and love Is something awful which one dares not touch So early o’ mornings. This verbena strains The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by, This guelder-rose, at far too slight a beck Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples. Ah—there’s my choice,—that ivy on the wall, That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow But thinking of a wreath. Large leaves, smooth leaves, Serrated like my vines, and half as green. I like such ivy; bold to leap a height ’Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too, (And that’s not ill) when twisted round a comb,’

Thus speaking to myself, half singing it, Because some thoughts are fashioned like a bell To ring with once being touched, I drew a wreath Drenched, blinding me with dew, across my brow, And fastening it behind so, ... turning faced ... My public!—cousin Romney—with a mouth Twice graver than his eyes. I stood there fixed— My arms up, like the caryatid, sole Of some abolished temple, helplessly Persistent in a gesture which derides A former purpose. Yet my blush was flame, As if from flax, not stone. ‘Aurora Leigh, The earliest of Auroras!’ Hand stretched out I clasped, as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand, Indifferent to the sort of palm. The tide Had caught me at my pastime, writing down My foolish name too near upon the sea Which drowned me with a blush as foolish. ‘You, My cousin!’ The smile died out in his eyes And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead weight, For just a moment.... ‘Here’s a book, I found! No name writ on it—poems, by the form; Some Greek upon the margin,—lady’s Greek, Without the accents. Read it? Not a word. I saw at once the thing had witchcraft in’t Whereof the reading calls up dangerous spirits; I rather bring it to the witch.’ ‘My book! You found it‘.... ‘In the hollow by the stream, That beech leans down into—of which you said, The Oread in it has a Naiad’s heart And pines for waters.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Rather _you_, My cousin! that I have seen you not too much A witch, a poet, scholar, and the rest, To be a woman also.’ With a glance The smile rose in his eyes again, and touched The ivy on my forehead, light as air. I answered gravely, ‘Poets needs must be Or men or women—more’s the pity.’ ‘Ah, But men, and still less women, happily, Scarce need be poets. Keep to the green wreath, Since even dreaming of the stone and bronze Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and defiles The clean white morning dresses.’ ‘So you judge! Because I love the beautiful, I must Love pleasure chiefly, and be overcharged For ease and whiteness! Well—you know the world, And only miss your cousin; ’tis not much!— But learn this: I would rather take my part With God’s Dead, who afford to walk in white Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet here, And gather up my feet from even a step, For fear to soil my gown in so much dust. I choose to walk at all risks.—Here, if heads That hold a rhythmic thought, must ache perforce, For my part, I choose headaches,—and today’s My birthday.’ ‘Dear Aurora, choose instead To cure such. You have balsams.’ ‘I perceive!— The headache is too noble for my sex. You think the heartache would sound decenter, Since that’s the woman’s special, proper ache, And altogether tolerable, except To a woman.’ Saying which, I loosed my wreath, And, swinging it beside me as I walked, Half petulant, half playful, as we walked, I sent a sidelong look to find his thought,— As falcon set on falconer’s finger may, With sidelong head, and startled, braving eye, Which means, ‘You’ll see—you’ll see! I’ll soon take flight— You shall not hinder.’ He, as shaking out His hand and answering ‘Fly then,’ did not speak, Except by such a gesture. Silently We paced, until, just coming into sight Of the house-windows, he abruptly caught At one end of the swinging wreath, and said ‘Aurora!’ There I stopped short, breath and all.

‘Aurora, let’s be serious, and throw by This game of head and heart. Life means, be sure, Both heart and head,—both active, both complete, And both in earnest. Men and women make The world, as head and heart make human life. Work man, work woman, since there’s work to do In this beleaguered earth, for head and heart, And thought can never do the work of love! But work for ends, I mean for uses; not For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends? Still less God’s glory) as we sew ourselves Upon the velvet of those baldaquins Held ’twixt us and the sun. That book of yours, I have not read a page of; but I toss A rose up—it falls calyx down, you see!... The chances are that, being a woman, young, And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes, ... You write as well ... and ill ... upon the whole, As other women. If as well, what then? If even a little better, ... still, what then? We want the Best in art now, or no art. The time is done for facile settings up Of minnow gods, nymphs here, and tritons there; The polytheists have gone out in God, That unity of Bests. No best, no God!— And so with art, we say. Give art’s divine, Direct, indubitable, real as grief,— Or leave us to the grief we grow ourselves Divine by overcoming with mere hope And most prosaic patience. You, you are young As Eve with nature’s daybreak on her face; But this same world you are come to, dearest coz, Has done with keeping birthdays, saves her wreaths To hang upon her ruins,—and forgets To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down To the empty grave of Christ. The world’s hard pressed; The sweat of labour in the early curse Has (turning acrid in six thousand years) Become the sweat of torture. Who has time, An hour’s time ... think!... to sit upon a bank And hear the cymbal tinkle in white hands? When Egypt’s slain, I say, let Miriam sing!— Before ... where’s Moses?’ ‘Ah—exactly that! Where’s Moses?—is a Moses to be found?— You’ll seek him vainly in the bulrushes, While I in vain touch cymbals. Yet, concede, Such sounding brass has done some actual good, (The application in a woman’s hand, If that were credible, being scarcely spoilt,) In colonising beehives.’ ‘There it is!— You play beside a death-bed like a child, Yet measure to yourself a prophet’s place To teach the living. None of all these things, Can women understand. You generalise Oh, nothing!—not even grief! Your quick-breathed hearts, So sympathetic to the personal pang, Close, on each separate knife-stroke, yielding up A whole life at each wound; incapable Of deepening, widening a large lap of life To hold the world-full woe. The human race To you means, such a child, or such a man, You saw one morning waiting in the cold, Beside that gate, perhaps. You gather up A few such cases, and, when strong, sometimes Will write of factories and of slaves, as if Your father were a negro, and your son A spinner in the mills. All’s yours and you,— All, coloured with your blood, or otherwise Just nothing to you. Why, I call you hard To general suffering. Here’s the world half blind With intellectual light, half brutalised With civilisation, having caught the plague In silks from Tarsus, shrieking east and west Along a thousand railroads, mad with pain And sin too!... does one woman of you all, (You who weep easily) grow pale to see This tiger shake his cage?—does one of you Stand still from dancing, stop from stringing pearls, And pine and die, because of the great sum Of universal anguish?—Show me a tear Wet as Cordelia’s, in eyes bright as yours, Because the world is mad! You cannot count, That you should weep for this account, not you! You weep for what you know. A red-haired child Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, Though but so little as with a finger-tip, Will set you weeping; but a million sick ... You could as soon weep for the rule of three, Or compound fractions. Therefore, this same world Uncomprehended by you, must remain Uninfluenced by you.—Women as you are, Mere women, personal and passionate, You give us doating mothers, and chaste wives, Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints! We get no Christ from you,—and verily We shall not get a poet, in my mind.’

‘With which conclusion you conclude’.... ‘But this— That you, Aurora, with the large live brow And steady eyelids, cannot condescend To play at art, as children play at swords, To show a pretty spirit, chiefly admired Because true action is impossible. You never can be satisfied with praise Which men give women when they judge a book Not as mere work, but as mere woman’s work, Expressing the comparative respect Which means the absolute scorn. ‘Oh, excellent! What grace! what facile turns! what fluent sweeps! What delicate discernment ... almost thought! The book does honour to the sex, we hold. Among our female authors we make room For this fair writer, and congratulate The country that produces in these times Such women, competent to ... spell.’ ‘Stop there!’ I answered—burning through his thread of talk With a quick flame of emotion,—‘You have read My soul, if not my book, and argue well I would not condescend ... we will not say To such a kind of praise, (a worthless end Is praise of all kinds) but to such a use Of holy art and golden life. I am young, And peradventure weak—you tell me so— Through being a woman. And, for all the rest, Take thanks for justice. I would rather dance At fairs on tight-rope, till the babies dropped Their gingerbread for joy,—than shift the types For tolerable verse, intolerable To men who act and suffer. Better far, Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means, Than a sublime art frivolously.’ ‘You, Choose nobler work than either, O moist eyes, And hurrying lips, and heaving heart! We are young Aurora, you and I. The world ... look round ... The world, we’re come to late, is swollen hard With perished generations and their sins: The civiliser’s spade grinds horribly On dead men’s bones, and cannot turn up soil That’s otherwise than fetid. All success Proves partial failure; all advance implies What’s left behind; all triumph, something crushed At the chariot-wheels; all government, some wrong: And rich men make the poor, who curse the rich, Who agonise together, rich and poor, Under and over, in the social spasm And crisis of the ages. Here’s an age, That makes its own vocation! here, we have stepped Across the bounds of time! here’s nought to see, But just the rich man and just Lazarus, And both in torments; with a mediate gulph, Though not a hint of Abraham’s bosom. Who, Being man and human, can stand calmly by And view these things, and never tease his soul For some great cure? No physic for this grief, In all the earth and heavens too?’ ‘You believe In God, for your part?—ay? that He who makes, Can make good things from ill things, best from worst, As men plant tulips upon dunghills when They wish them finest?’ ‘True. A death-heat is The same as life-heat, to be accurate; And in all nature is no death at all, As men account of death, as long as God Stands witnessing for life perpetually, By being just God. That’s abstract truth, I know, Philosophy, or sympathy with God: But I, I sympathise with man, not God, I think I was a man for chiefly this; And when I stand beside a dying bed, It’s death to me. Observe,—it had not much Consoled the race of mastodons to know Before they went to fossil, that anon Their place should quicken with the elephant; They were not elephants but mastodons: And I, a man, as men are now, and not As men may be hereafter, feel with men In the agonising present.’ ‘Is it so,’ I said, ‘my cousin? is the world so bad, While I hear nothing of it through the trees? The world was always evil,—but so bad?’