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AURORA LEIGH.
Its delicate white vans against the sky,So soft and soundless, simply beautiful,—Seen nearer . . what a roar and tear it makes,How it grinds and bruises! . . if she loves at last,Her love's a re-adjustment of self-love,No more; a need felt of another's useTo her one advantage,—as the mill wants grain,The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey;And none of these is more unscrupulousThan such a charming woman when she loves.She'll not be thwarted by an obstacleSo trifling as . . her soul is, . . much less yours!—Is God a consideration?—she loves you,Not God; she will not flinch for him indeed:She did not for the Marchioness of Perth,When wanting tickets for the birthnight-ball.She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy;She loves you like her diamonds . . almost.Well,A month passed so, and then the notice came;On such a day the marriage at the church.I was not backward.Half St. Giles in friezeWas bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold,And, after contract at the altar, passTo eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath.Of course the people came in uncompelled,Lame, blind, and worse—sick, sorrowful, and worse,The humours of the peccant social woundAll pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico,
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