Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/327

Rh As surely as to others. Musing so, I walked the narrow unrecognising streets, Where many a palace-front peers gloomily Through stony vizors iron-barred, (prepared Alike, should foe or lover pass that way, For guest or victim) and came wandering out Upon the churches with mild open doors And plaintive wail of vespers, where a few, Those chiefly women, sprinkled round in blots Upon the dusk pavement, knelt and prayed Toward the altar’s silver glory. Oft a ray (I liked to sit and watch) would tremble out, Just touch some face more lifted, more in need, Of course a woman’s—while I dreamed a tale To fit its fortunes. There was one who looked As if the earth had suddenly grown too large For such a little humpbacked thing as she; The pitiful black kerchief round her neck Sole proof she had had a mother. One, again, Looked sick for love,—seemed praying some soft saint To put more virtue in the new fine scarf She spent a fortnight’s meals on, yesterday, That cruel Gigi might return his eyes From Giuliana. There was one, so old, So old, to kneel grew easier than to stand.— So solitary, she accepts at last Our Lady for her gossip, and frets on Against the sinful world which goes its rounds In marrying and being married, just the same