‘Even so, dear Romney. Lady Waldemar Has sent me in haste to find a cousin of mine Who shall be.’
‘Lady Waldemar is good.’
‘Here’s one, at least, who is good,’ I sighed, and touched Poor Marian’s happy head, as, doglike, she Most passionately patient, waited on, A-tremble for her turn of greeting words; ‘I’ve sate a full hour with your Marian Erle, And learnt the thing by heart,—and, from my heart, Am therefore competent to give you thanks For such a cousin.’ ‘You accept at last A gift from me, Aurora, without scorn? At last I please you?’—How his voice was changed!
‘You cannot please a woman against her will, And once you vexed me. Shall we speak of that? We’ll say, then, you were noble in it all, And I not ignorant—let it pass. And now, You please me, Romney, when you please yourself; So, please you, be fanatical in love, And I’m well pleased. Ah, cousin! at the old hall, Among the gallery portraits of our Leighs, We shall not find a sweeter signory Than this pure forehead’s.’ Not a word he said. How arrogant men are!—Even philanthropists, Who try to take a wife up in the way They put down a subscription-cheque,—if once She turns and says, ‘I will not tax you so, Most charitable sir,’—feel ill at ease, As though she had wronged them somehow. I suppose We women should remember what we are, And not throw back an obolus inscribed With Cæsar’s image, lightly. I resumed.
‘It strikes me, some of those sublime Vandykes Were not too proud, to make good saints in heaven; And, if so, then they’re not too proud to-day To bow down (now the ruffs are off their necks) And own this good, true, noble Marian, ... yours, And mine, I’ll say!—For poets (bear the word) Half-poets even, are still whole democrats,— Oh, not that we’re disloyal to the high, But loyal to the low, and cognisant Of the less scrutable majesties. For me, I comprehend your choice—I justify Your right in choosing.’ ‘No, no, no,’ he sighed, With a sort of melancholy impatient scorn, As some grown man, who never had a child, Puts by some child who plays at being a man; —‘You did not, do not, cannot comprehend My choice, my ends, my motives, nor myself: No matter now—we’ll let it pass, you say. I thank you for your generous cousinship Which helps this present; I accept for her Your favourable thoughts. We’re fallen on days, We two, who are not poets, when to wed Requires less mutual love than common love, For two together to bear out at once Upon the loveless many. Work in pairs, In galley-couplings or in marriage-rings, The difference lies in the honour, not the work,— And such we’re bound to, I and she. But love, (You poets are benighted in this age; The hour’s too late for catching even moths, You’ve gnats instead,) love!—love’s fool-paradise Is out of date, like Adam’s. Set a swan To swim the Trenton, rather than true love To float its fabulous plumage safely down The cataracts of this loud transition-time,— Whose roar, for ever, henceforth, in my ears, Must keep me deaf to music.’ There, I turned And kissed poor Marian, out of discontent. The man had baffled, chafed me, till I flung For refuge to the woman,—as, sometimes, Impatient of some crowded room’s close smell, You throw a window open, and lean out To breathe a long breath in the dewy night, And cool your angry forehead. She, at least, Was not built up, as walls are, brick by brick; Each fancy squared, each feeling ranged by line, The very heat of burning youth applied To indurate forms and systems! excellent bricks, A well-built wall,—which stops you on the road, And, into which, you cannot see an inch Although you beat your head against it—pshaw!
‘Adieu,’ I said, ‘for this time, cousins both; And, cousin Romney, pardon me the word, Be happy!—oh, in some esoteric sense Of course!—I mean no harm in wishing well. Adieu, my Marian:—may she come to me, Dear Romney, and be married from my house? It is not part of your philosophy To keep your bird upon the blackthorn?’ ‘Ay,’ He answered, ‘but it is:—I take my wife Directly from the people,—and she comes, As Austria’s daughter to imperial France, Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race, From Margaret’s Court at garret-height, to meet And wed me at St. James’s, nor put off Her gown of serge for that. The things we do, We do: we’ll wear no mask, as if we blushed.’
‘Dear Romney, you’re the poet,’ I replied,— But felt my smile too mournful for my word, And turned and went. Ay, masks, I thought,—beware Of tragic masks, we tie before the glass, Uplifted on the cothurn half a yard Above the natural stature! we would play Heroic parts to ourselves,—and end, perhaps, As impotently as Athenian wives Who shrieked in fits at the Eumenides.
His foot pursued me down the stair. ‘At least, You’ll suffer me to walk with you beyond These hideous streets, these graves, where men alive, Packed close with earthworms, burr unconsciously About the plague that slew them; let me go. The very women pelt their souls in mud At any woman who walks here alone. How came you here alone?—you are ignorant.’
We had a strange and melancholy walk: The night came drizzling downward in dark rain; And, as we walked, the colour of the time, The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm, His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense, Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books, And daily papers; Spanish marriage-schemes, And English climate—was’t so cold last year? And will the wind change by to-morrow morn? Can Guizot stand? is London full? is trade Competitive? has Dickens turned his hinge A-pinch upon the fingers of the great? And are potatoes to grow mythical Like moly? will the apple die out too? Which way is the wind to-night? south-east? due east? We talked on fast, while every common word Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end, And ready to pull down upon our heads A terror out of sight. And yet to pause Were surelier mortal: we tore greedily up All silence, all the innocent breathing-points, As if, like pale conspirators in haste, We tore up papers where our signatures Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death.
I cannot tell you why it was. ’Tis plain We had not loved nor hated: wherefore dread To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire? Perhaps we had lived too closely, to diverge So absolutely: leave two clocks, they say, Wound up to different hours, upon one shelf, And slowly, through the interior wheels of each, The blind mechanic motion sets itself A-throb, to feel out for the mutual time. It was not so with us, indeed. While he Struck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn, While he marked judgment, I, redemption-day; And such exception to a general law, Imperious upon inert matter even, Might make us, each to either, insecure, A beckoning mystery, or a troubling fear.