Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/34

Rh —And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes And think all ended.—Then, Life calls to us, In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice, Above us, or below us, or around. . . Perhaps we name it Nature’s voice, or Love’s, Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed So own our compensations than our griefs: Still, Life’s voice!—still, we make our peace with Life.

And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon I used to get up early, just to sit And watch the morning quicken in the grey, And hear the silence open like a flower, Leaf after leaf,—and stroke with listless hand The woodbine through the window, till at last I came to do it with a sort of love, At foolish unaware: whereat I smiled,— A melancholy smile, to catch myself Smiling for joy. Capacity for joy Admits temptation. It seemed, next, worth while To dodge the sharp sword set against my life; To slip down stairs through all the sleepy house, As mute as any dream there, and escape As a soul from the body, out of doors,— Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane, And wander on the hills an hour or two, Then back again before the house should stir.

Or else I sat on in my chamber green,