Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/129

120 Her father earned his life by random jobs Despised by steadier workmen—keeping swine On commons, picking hops, or hurrying on The harvest at wet seasons,—or, at need, Assisting the Welsh drovers, when a drove Of startled horses plunged into the mist Below the mountain-road, and sowed the wind With wandering neighings. In between the gaps Of such irregular work, he drank and slept, And cursed his wife because, the pence being out, She could not buy more drink. At which she turned, (The worm) and beat her baby in revenge For her own broken heart. There’s not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime, If once rung on the counter of this world; Let sinners look to it. Yet the outcast child, For whom the very mother’s face forewent The mother’s special patience, lived and grew; Learnt early to cry low, and walk alone, With that pathetic vacillating roll Of the infant body on the uncertain feet, (The earth being felt unstable ground so soon) At which most women’s arms unclose at once With irrepressive instinct. Thus, at three, This poor weaned kid would run off from the fold, This babe would steal off from the mother’s chair, And, creeping through the golden walls of gorse, Would find some keyhole toward the secrecy Of Heaven’s high blue, and, nestling down, peer out—