Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/366

Rh With mended morals, quotha,—fine new lives!— My windows paid for’t. I was shot at, once, By an active poacher who had hit a hare From the other barrel, tired of springeing game So long upon my acres, undisturbed, And restless for the country’s virtue, (yet He missed me)—ay, and pelted very oft In riding through the village. ‘There he goes, ‘Who’d drive away our Christian gentlefolks, ‘To catch us undefended in the trap ‘He baits with poisonous cheese, and locks us up ‘In that pernicious prison of Leigh Hall ‘With all his murderers! Give another name, ‘And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.’ And so they did at last, Aurora.’ ‘Did?’ ‘You never heard it, cousin? Vincent’s news Came stinted, then.’ ‘They did? they burnt Leigh Hall?’

‘You’re sorry, dear Aurora? Yes indeed, They did it perfectly: a thorough work, And not a failure, this time. Let us grant ’Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house Than build a system:—yet that’s easy, too, In a dream. Books, pictures,—ay, the pictures what, You think your dear Vandykes would give them pause? Our proud ancestral Leighs with those peaked beards, Or bosoms white as foam thrown up on rocks