Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/248

Rh Since when was genius found respectable? It passes in its place, indeed,—which means The seventh floor back, or else the hospital; Revolving pistols are ingenious things, But prudent men (Academicians are) Scare keep them in the cupboard, next the prunes.

And so, abandoned to a bitter mirth, I loitered to my inn. O world, O world, O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, We play a weary game of hide and seek! We shape a figure of our fantasy, Call nothing something, and run after it And lose it, lose ourselves too in the search, Till clash against us, comes a somebody Who also has lost something and is lost, Philosopher against philanthropist, Academician against poet, man Against woman, against the living, the dead,— Then home, with a bad headache and worse jest!

To change the water for my heliotropes And yellow roses. Paris has such flowers, But England, also. ’Twas a yellow rose, By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays for me, save the last; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, For roses to stay after. Now, my maps