Aurora lee. Aurora Leigh 2019-01-14

AuRorA

A chill froze the farmer's spine, and then he turned around and fled into his house, leaving his beloved prize rabbit to cough, convulse, and die, in the dust and the grass of the rabbit hutch. Here's a proof of gift, But here's no proof, sir, of acceptancy, But rather, disproof. They yelled at her, As famished hounds at a hare. No place for her, By man's law! You think a woman ripens as a peach,— In the cheeks, chiefly. For me, Aurora, I've my work; you know my work; And having missed this year some personal hope, I must beware the rather that I miss No reasonable duty.

Aurora Leigh

Her cousin, Romney Leigh, proposes marriage to her. Love, to him, was made A simple law-clause. When he came From college to the country, very oft He crossed the hills on visits to my aunt, With gifts of blue grapes from the hothouses, A book in one hand,—mere statistics, if I chanced to lift the cover count of all The goats whose beards are sprouting down toward hell. Then, at last, I do remember clearly, how there came A stranger with authority, not right, I thought not who commanded, caught me up From old Assunta's neck; how, with a shriek, She let me go,—while I, with ears too full Of my father's silence, to shriek back a word, In all a child's astonishment at grief Stared at the wharfage where she stood and moaned, My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned! To see it down in figures on a page, Plain, silent, clear. 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. Giles in frieze Was bidden to meet St. Or else I sat on in my chamber green, And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed My prayers without the vicar; read my books, Without considering whether they were fit To do me good.

Aurora Lee

Mad fear Was running in her feet and killing the ground; The white roads curled as if she burnt them up, The green fields melted, wayside trees fell back To make room for her. And yet I should be stronger. The heir came over on the funeral day, And we two cousins met before the dead, With two pale faces. What brings you here, My lady? She tells how she is determined not to be constricted by her woman's role but is doubtful that the modern age presents opportunities for epic poetry. A nature tamed And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, Which does not awe you with its claws and beak, Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up, But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause Of finer meditation. Touch and hold' And if you weep still, weep where John was laid While Jesus loved him.

AuRorA

And she, she almost loved him,—even allowed That sometimes he should seem to sigh my way; It made him easier to be pitiful, And sighing was his gift. You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps To throw them in the fire. In my ears, my father's word Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells, 'Love, love, my child,' She, black there with my grief, Might feel my love—she was his sister once— I clung to her. You're treading on my shawl—I thank you, sir. Six weeks ago It was not tendered. We're nettles, some of us, And give offence by the act of springing up; And, if we leave the damp side of the wall, The hoes, of course, are on us. I am like, They tell me, my dear father.

Fear Poem by Aurora Lee

I Who love my art, would never wish it lower To suit my stature. I might have been a common woman now, And happier, less known and less left alone; Perhaps a better woman after all,— With chubby children hanging on my neck To keep me low and wise. There's no marriage—none She leaves me,—she departs,—she disappears,— I lose her. In which long wanderings, Marian lived and learned, Endured and learned. Then catching up her smile to ravishment, She added quickly, 'I repeat his words, But not his tones: can any one repeat The music of an organ, out of church? There I sate, and wished That morning-truce of God would last till eve, Or longer. You think the heartache would sound decenter, Since that's the woman's special, proper ache, And altogether tolerable, except To a woman.

Aurora Lee

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. Then I said, 'Farewell, my cousin. I broke in at that. So, my shepherdess Was something after all, the pastoral saints Be praised for't leaning lovelorn with pink eyes To match her shoes, when I mistook the silks; Her head uncrushed by that round weight of hat So strangely similar to the tortoise-shell Which slew the tragic poet. I like you'— there, she took my hands 'And now my lioness, help Androcles, For all your roaring. I felt Tired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred; Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise.

Fear Poem by Aurora Lee

Does honour to his royal highness. The old idiot wretch Screamed feebly, like a baby overlain, 'Sir, sir, you won't mistake me for the corpse? I'm still too young, too young to sit alone. As easy pluck The golden stars from heaven's embroidered stole, To pin them on the grey side of this earth, As make you poor again, thank God. We'll be calm, And know that, when indeed our Joves come down. We were once just people who were skilled in working with gunpowder. All the fields Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like; The hills are crumpled plains—the plains, parterres— The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped; And if you seek for any wilderness You find, at best, a park.

Aurora Leigh.

There's many a papist she, would rather die Than own to her maid she put a ribbon on To catch the indifferent eye of such a man,— Who yet would count adulteries on her beads At holy Mary's shrine, and never blush; Because the saints are so far off, we lose All modesty before them. The living boor Who brews your ale, exceeds in vital worth Dead Caesar who 'stops bungholes' in the cask; And also, to do good is excellent, For persons of his income, even to boors: I sympathise with all such things. Indeed, The academic law convinced of sin; The critics cried out on the falling off Regretting the first manner. Many dreams I dreamt again and again, That came true. Oh, I comprehend The whole position from your point of sight.