Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/218

Rh She’s talked of, too, at least as certainly, As Leigh’s disciple. You may find her name On all his missions and commissions, school, Asylums, hospitals,—he has had her down, With other ladies whom her starry lead Persuaded from their spheres, to his country-place In Shropshire, to the famed phalanstery At Leigh Hall, christianised from Fourier’s own, (In which he has planted out his sapling stocks Of knowledge into social nurseries) And there, they say, she has tarried half a week, And milked the cows, and churned, and pressed the curd, And said ‘my sister’ to the lowest drab Of all the assembled castaways; such girls! Ay, sided with them at the washing-tub— Conceive, Sir Blaise, those naked perfect arms, Round glittering arms, plunged elbow-deep in suds, Like wild swans hid in lilies all a-shake.’

Lord Howe came up. ‘What, talking poetry So near the image of the unfavouring Muse? That’s you, Miss Leigh: I’ve watched you half an hour, Precisely as I watched the statue called A Pallas in the Vatican;—you mind The face, Sir Blaise?—intensely calm and sad, As wisdom cut it off from fellowship,— But that spoke louder. Not a word from you! And these two gentlemen were bold, I marked, And unabashed by even your silence.’ ‘Ah,’