Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/357

Rh But we distracted in the roar of life, Still insolently at God’s adverb snatch, And bruit against Him that his thought is void, His meaning hopeless;—cry, that everywhere The government is slipping from his hand, Unless some other Christ. . say Romney Leigh. . Come up, and toil and moil, and change the world, For which the First has proved inadequate, However we talk bigly of His work And piously of His person. We blaspheme At last, to finish that doxology, Despairing on the earth for which He died.’

‘So now,’ I asked, ‘you have more hope of men?’

‘I hope,’ he answered: ‘I am come to think That God will have his work done, as you said, And that we need not be disturbed too much For Romney Leigh or others having failed With this or that quack nostrum,—recipes For keeping summits by annulling depths, For learning wrestling with long lounging sleeves, And perfect heroism without a scratch. We fail,—what then? Aurora, if I smiled To see you, in your lovely morning-pride, Try on the poet’s wreath which suits the noon,— (Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain Before they grow the ivy!) certainly I stood myself there worthier of contempt, Self-rated, in disastrous arrogance,