Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/84

Rh Smiled admonition, sate uneasily, And talked with measured, emphasised reserve, Of parish news, like doctors to the sick, When not called in,—as if, with leave to speak, They might say something. Nay, the very dog Would watch me from his sun-patch on the floor, In alternation with the large black fly Not yet in reach of snapping. So I lived.

A Roman died so; smeared with honey, teased By insects, stared to torture by the noon: And many patient souls ’neath English roofs Have died like Romans. I, in looking back, Wish only, now, I had borne the plague of all With meeker spirits than were rife in Rome.

For, on the sixth week, the dead sea broke up, Dashed suddenly through beneath the heel of Him Who stands upon the sea and earth, and swears Time shall be nevermore. The clock struck nine That morning, too,—no lark was out of tune; The hidden farms among the hills, breathed straight Their smoke toward heaven; the lime-trees scarcely stirred Beneath the blue weight of the cloudless sky, Though still the July air came floating through The woodbine at my window, in and out, With touches of the out-door country-news For a bending forehead. There I sate, and wished That morning-truce of God would last till eve, Or longer. ‘Sleep,’ I thought, ‘late sleepers,—sleep,