Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/67

58 Your cause is noble, your ends excellent, But I, being most unworthy of these and that, Do otherwise conceive of love. Farewell.’

‘Farewell, Aurora, you reject me thus?’ He said. ‘Why, sir, you are married long ago. You have a wife already whom you love, Your social theory. Bless you both, I say. For my part, I am scarcely meek enough To be the handmaid of a lawful spouse. Do I look a Hagar, think you?’ ‘So, you jest!’

‘Nay so, I speak in earnest,’ I replied. ‘You treat of marriage too much like, at least, A chief apostle; you would bear with you A wife. . a sister. . shall we speak it out? A sister of charity.’ ‘Then, must it be Indeed farewell? And was I so far wrong In hope and in illusion, when I took The woman to be nobler than the man, Yourself the noblest woman,—in the use And comprehension of what love is,—love, That generates the likeness of itself Through all heroic duties? so far wrong In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, ‘Come, human creature, love and work with me,’— Instead of, ‘Lady, thou art wondrous fair,