Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/389

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AURORA LEIGH.
Maintain it, as she were not changed at all;And though that’s worthy, though that’s full of balmTo any conscious spirit of a girlWho once has loved you as I loved you once,—Yet still it will not make her . . if she’s dead,And gone away where none can give or takeIn marriage,—able to revive, returnAnd wed you,—will, it Romney? Here’s the point;O friend, we’ll see it plainer: you and IMust never, never, never join hands so.Nay, let me say it,—for I said it firstTo God, and placed it, rounded to an oath,Far, far above the moon there, at His feet,As surely as I wept just now at yours,—We never, never, never join hands so.And now, be patient with me; do not thinkI’m speaking from a false humility.The truth is, I am grown so proud with grief,And He has said so often through his nightsAnd through his mornings, ‘Weep a little still,‘Thou foolish Marian, because women must,‘But do not blush at all except for sin,’—That I, who felt myself unworthy onceOf virtuous Romney and his high-born race,Have come to learn, . . a woman poor or rich,Despised or honoured, is a human soul;And what her soul is,—that, she is herself,Although she should be spit upon of men,As is the pavement of the churches here,Still good enough to pray in. And, being chaste
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