Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/407

Rh Grew red, then pale, with touches from my hair In which his breath was; while the golden moon Was hung before our faces as the badge Of some sublime inherited despair, Since ever to be seen by only one,— A voice said, low and rapid as a sigh, Yet breaking, I felt conscious, from a smile,— ‘Thank God, who made me blind, to make me see! Shine on, Aurora, dearest light of souls, Which rul’st for evermore both day and night! I am happy.’ I clung closer to his breast, As sword that, after battle, flings to sheathe; And, in that hurtle of united souls, The mystic motions which in common moods Are shut beyond our sense, broke in on us, And, as we sate, we felt the old earth spin, And all the starry turbulence of worlds Swing round us in their audient circles, till If that same golden moon were overhead Or if beneath our feet, we did not know.

And then calm, equal, smooth with weights of joy, His voice rose, as some chief musician’s song Amid the old Jewish temple’s Selah-pause, And bade me mark how we two met at last Upon this moon-bathed promontory of earth, To give up much on each side, then, take all. ‘Beloved,’ it sang, ‘we must be here to work;