Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/79

70 The lighted windows of thy fair June-heaven Where all the souls are happy,—and not one, Not even my father, look from work or play To ask, ‘Who is it that cries after us, Below there, in the dusk?’ Yet formerly He turned his face upon me quick enough, If I said ‘father.’ Now I might cry loud; The little lark reached higher with his song Than I with crying. Oh, alone, alone,— Not troubling any in heaven, nor any on earth, I stood there in the garden, and looked up The deaf blue sky that brings the roses out On such June mornings. You who keep account Of crisis and transition in this life, Set down the first time Nature says plain ‘no’ To some ‘yes’ in you, and walks over you In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin By singing with the birds, and running fast With June-days, hand in hand: but once, for all, The birds must sing against us, and the sun Strike down upon us like a friend’s sword caught By an enemy to slay us, while we read The dear name on the blade which bites at us!— That’s bitter and convincing: after that We seldom doubt that something in the large Smooth order of creation, though no more Than haply a man’s footstep, has gone wrong.

Some tears fell down my cheeks, and then I smiled,