Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/66

Rh By using truth in courtship) it is strong For life and duty. Place your fecund heart In mine, and let us blossom for the world That wants love’s colour in the grey of time. With all my talk I can but set you where You look down coldly on the arena-heaps Of headless bodies, shapeless, indistinct! The Judgment-Angel scarce would find his way Through such a heap of generalised distress, To the individual man with lips and eyes— Much less Aurora. Ah, my sweet, come down, And, hand in hand, we’ll go where yours shall touch These victims, one by one! till, one by one, The formless, nameless trunk of every man Shall seem to wear a head, with hair you know, And every woman catch your mother’s face To melt you into passion.’ ‘I am a girl,’ I answered slowly; ’you do well to name My mother’s face. Though far too early, alas, God’s hand did interpose ’twixt it and me, I know so much of love, as used to shine In that face and another. Just so much; No more indeed at all. I have not seen So much love since, I pray you pardon me, As answers even to make a marriage with, In this cold land of England. What you love, Is not a woman, Romney, but a cause: You want a helpmate, not a mistress, sir,— A wife to help your ends. . in her no end!