Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/219

Rh Said I, ‘my dear Lord Howe, you shall not speak To a printing woman who has lost her place, (The sweet safe corner of the household fire Behind the heads of children) compliments As if she were a woman. We who have clipt The curls before our eyes, may see at least As plain as men do: speak out, man to man; No compliments, beseech you.’ ‘Friend to friend, Let that be. We are sad to-night, I saw, (—Good night, Sir Blaise! Ah, Smith—he has slipped away) I saw you across the room, and stayed, Miss Leigh, To keep a crowd of lion-hunters off, With faces toward your jungle. There were three; A spacious lady, five feet ten and fat, Who has the devil in her (and there’s room) For walking to and fro upon the earth, From Chippewa to China; she requires Your autograph upon a tinted leaf ’Twixt Queen Pomare’s and Emperor Soulouque’s; Pray give it; she has energies, though fat: For me, I’d rather see a rick on fire Than such a woman angry. Then a youth Fresh from the backwoods, green as the underboughs, Asks modestly, Miss Leigh, to kiss your shoe, And adds, he has an epic, in twelve parts, Which when you’ve read, you’ll do it for his boot,— All which I saved you, and absorb next week Both manuscript and man,—because a lord