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AURORA LEIGH.
Was scarce my business. Let them order it;Who else should care? I threw myself aside,As one who had done her work and shuts her eyesTo rest the better.I, who should have known,Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavowBeing keeper to our brother, we're his Cain.
I might have held that poor child to my heartA little longer! 'twould have hurt me muchTo have hastened by its beats the marriage day,And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands,Or, peradventure, traps? What drew me backFrom telling Romney plainly, the designsOf Lady Waldemar, as spoken outTo me . . me? had I any right, ay, right,With womanly compassion and reserveTo break the fall of woman's impudence?—To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew,And hear him call her good?Distrust that word.'There is none good save God,' said Jesus Christ.If He once, in the first creation-week,Called creatures good,—for ever, afterward,The Devil only has done it, and his heirs,The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose;The world's grown dangerous. In the middle age,I think they called malignant fays and impsGood people. A good neighbour, even in this,Is fatal sometimes,—cuts your morning up
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