Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/175

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AURORA LEIGH.
With yelling hound jaws,—his indignant words,His piteous words, his most pathetic words,Whereof I caught the meaning here and thereBy his gesture . . torn in morsels, yelled across,And so devoured. From end to end, the churchRocked round us like the sea in storm, and thenBroke up like the earth in earthquake. Men cried out'Police!'—and women stood and shrieked for God,Or dropt and swooned; or, like a herd of deer,(For whom the black woods suddenly grow alive,Unleashing their wild shadows down the windTo hunt the creatures into corners, backAnd forward) madly fled, or blindly fell,Trod screeching underneath the feet of thoseWho fled and screeched.The last sight left to meWas Romney's terrible calm face aboveThe tumult!—the last sound was 'Pull him down!Strike—Kill him!' Stretching my unreasoning arms,As men in dreams, who vainly interpose'Twixt gods and their undoing, with a cryI struggled to precipitate myselfHead-foremost to the rescue of my soulIn that white face, . . till some one caught me back,And so the world went out,—I felt no more.
What followed, was told after by Lord Howe,Who bore me senseless from the strangling crowdIn church and street, and then returned aloneTo see the tumult quelled. The men of law
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