Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/24

Rh Came up to float across the English phrase, As lilies, (Bene . . or che ch’è) because She liked my father’s child to speak his tongue. I learnt the collects and the catechism, The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice, The Articles. . the Tracts against the times, (By no means Buonaventure’s ‘Prick of Love,’) And various popular synopses of Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, Because she liked instructed piety. I learnt my complement of classic French (Kept pure of Balzac and neologism,) And German also, since she liked a range Of liberal education,—tongues, not books. I learnt a little algebra, a little Of the mathematics,—brushed with extreme flounce The circle of the sciences, because She misliked women who are frivolous. I learnt the royal genealogies Of Oviedo, the internal laws Of the Burmese Empire,. . by how many feet Mount Chimborazo outsoars Himmeleh, What navigable river joins itself To Lara, and what census of the year five Was taken at Klagenfurt,—because she liked A general insight into useful facts. I learnt much music,—such as would have been As quite impossible in Johnson’day As still it might be wished—fine sleights of hand And unimagined fingering, shuffling off