Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/126

Rh We cover up our face from doing good, As if it were our purse! What brings you here, My lady? is’t to find my gentleman Who visits his tame pigeon in the eaves? Our cholera catch you with its cramps and spasms, And tumble up your good clothes, veil and all, And turn your whiteness dead-blue.’ I looked up; I think I could have walked through hell that day, And never flinched. ‘The dear Christ comfort you,’ I said, ‘you must have been most miserable To be so cruel,’—and I emptied out My purse upon the stones: when, as I had cast The last charm in the cauldron, the whole court Went boiling, bubbling up, from all its doors And windows, with a hideous wail of laughs And roar of oaths, and blows perhaps. . I passed Too quickly for distinguishing. . and pushed A little side-door hanging on a hinge, And plunged into the dark, and groped and climbed The long, steep, narrow stair ’twixt broken rail And mildewed wall that let the plaster drop To startle me in the blackness. Still, up, up! So high lived Romney’s bride. I paused at last Before a low door in the roof, and knocked; There came an answer like a hurried dove— ‘So soon! can that be Mister Leigh? so soon?’ And, as I entered, an ineffable face Met mine upon the threshold. ‘Oh, not you, Not you!’. . . the dropping of the voice implied, ‘Then, if not you, for me not any one.’