Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/160

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AURORA LEIGH.
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How strange his good-night sounded,—like good-nightBeside a deathbed, where the morrow's sunIs sure to come too late for more good days:—And all that night I thought . . 'Good-night,' said he.
And so, a month passed. Let me set it downAt once,—I have been wrong, I have been wrong.We are wrong always, when we think too muchOf what we think or are; albeit our thoughtsBe verily bitter as self-sacrifice,We're no less selfish. If we sleep on rocksOr roses, sleeping past the hour of noonWe're lazy. This I write against myself.I had done a duty in the visit paidTo Marian, and was ready otherwiseTo give the witness of my presence and nameWhenever she should marry.—Which, I thoughtSufficed. I even had cast into the scaleAn overweight of justice toward the match;The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool,Had broken it in the lock as being too straightFor a crooked purpose, while poor Marian ErleMissed nothing in my accents or my acts:I had not been ungenerous on the whole,Nor yet untender; so, enough. I feltTired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred;Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise . .The pricking of the map of life with pins,In schemes of . . 'Here we'll go,' and 'There we'll stay,'And 'Everywhere we'll prosper in our love,'
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