Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/398

Rh Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man, Refused the daily largesse of the sun To humble creatures! When the fever’s heat Dropped from me, as the flame did from my house, And left me ruined like it, stripped of all The hues and shapes of aspectable life, A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day, A man, upon the outside of the earth, As dark as ten feet under, in the grave,— Why that seemed hard.’ ‘No hope?’ ‘A tear! you weep, Divine Aurora? tears upon my hand! I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,— But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope. Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear, And tell you in what Greek and Latin name The visual nerve is withered to the root, Though the outer eyes appear indifferent, Unspotted in their crystals. But there’s hope. The spirit, from behind this dethroned sense, Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt. There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogant And restless, so ambitious, for his part, Of dealing with statistically packed Disorders, (from a pattern on his nail,) And packing such things quite another way,— Is now contented. From his personal loss He has come to hope for others when they lose,