Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/183

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AURORA LEIGH.
'The figure's happy. Well—a dozen cartsAnd trampers will secure you presentlyA fine white snow-drift. Leave it there, your snow!'Twill pass for soot ere sunset. Pure in aim?She's pure in aim, I grant you,—like myself,Who thought to take the world upon my backTo carry it o'er a chasm of social ill,And end by letting slip through impotenceA single soul, a child's weight in a soul,Straight down the pit of hell! yes, I and sheHave reason to be proud of our pure aims.'Then softly, as the last repenting dropsOf a thunder-shower, he added, 'The poor child;Poor Marian! 'twas a luckless day for her,When first she chanced on my philanthropy.'
He drew a chair beside me, and sate down;And I, instinctively, as women useBefore a sweet friend's grief,—when, in his ear,They hum the tune of comfort, though themselvesMost ignorant of the special words of such,And quiet so and fortify his brainAnd give it time and strength for feeling outTo reach the availing sense beyond that sound,—Went murmuring to him, what, if written here,Would seem not much, yet fetched him better helpThan, peradventure, if it had been more.
I've known the pregnant thinkers of this time,And stood by breathless, hanging on their lips,
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