Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/401

Rh From any imperfect woman. Flower from root, And spiritual from natural, grade by grade In all our life. A handful of the earth To make God’s image! the despised poor earth, The healthy odorous earth,—I missed, with it, The divine Breath that blows the nostrils out To ineffable inflatus: ay, the breath Which love is. Art is much, but love is more. O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more! Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God And makes heaven. I, Aurora, fell from mine: I would not be a woman like the rest, A simple woman who believes in love, And owns the right of love because she loves, And, hearing she’s beloved, is satisfied With what contents God: I must analyse, Confront, and question; just as if a fly Refused to warm itself in any sun Till such was in leone: I must fret Forsooth, because the month was only May; Be faithless of the kind of proffered love, And captious, lest it miss my dignity, And scornful, that my lover sought a wife To use. . to use! O Romney, O my love, I am changed since then, changed wholly,—for indeed, If now you’d stoop so low to take my love, And use it roughly, without stint or spare, As men use common things with more behind, (And, in this, ever would be more behind) To any mean and ordinary end,—