Aurora Leigh

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I took him up austerely,—‘You have read My book, but not my heart; for recollect, ’Tis writ in Sanscrit, which you bungle at. I’ve surely failed, I know; if failure means To look back sadly on work gladly done,— To wander on my mountains of Delight, So called, (I can remember a friend’s words As well as you, sir,) weary and in want Of even a sheep-path, thinking bitterly.... Well, well! no matter. I but say so much, To keep you, Romney Leigh, from saying more, And let you feel I am not so high indeed, That I can bear to have you at my foot,— Or safe, that I can help you. That June-day, Too deeply sunk in craterous sunsets now For you or me to dig it up alive; To pluck it out all bleeding with spent flame At the roots, before those moralising stars We have got instead,—that poor lost day, you said Some words as truthful as the thing of mine You care to keep in memory: and I hold If I, that day, and, being the girl I was, Had shown a gentler spirit, less arrogance, It had not hurt me. Ah, you’ll not mistake The point here. I but only think, you see, More justly, that’s more humbly, of myself, Than when I tried a crown on and supposed.... Nay, laugh, sir,—I’ll laugh with you!—pray you, laugh. I’ve had so many birthdays since that day, I’ve learnt to prize mirth’s opportunities, Which come too seldom. Was it you who said I was not changed? the same Aurora? Ah, We could laugh there, too! Why, Ulysses’ dog Knew him, and wagged his tail and died: but if I had owned a dog, I too, before my Troy, And, if you brought him here, ... I warrant you He’d look into my face, bark lustily, And live on stoutly, as the creatures will Whose spirits are not troubled by long loves. A dog would never know me, I’m so changed; Much less a friend ... except that you’re misled By the colour of the hair, the trick of the voice, Like that Aurora Leigh’s.’ ‘Sweet trick of voice! I would be a dog for this, to know it at last, And die upon the falls of it. O love, O best Aurora! are you then so sad, You scarcely had been sadder as my wife?’

‘Your wife, sir! I must certainly be changed, If I, Aurora, can have said a thing So light, it catches at the knightly spurs Of a noble gentleman like Romney Leigh, And trips him from his honourable sense Of what befits’ ... ‘You wholly misconceive,’ He answered. I returned,—‘I’m glad of it; But keep from misconception, too, yourself: I am not humbled to so low a point, Nor so far saddened. If I am sad at all, Ten layers of birthdays on a woman’s head, Are apt to fossilise her girlish mirth, Though ne’er so merry: I’m perforce more wise, And that, in truth, means sadder. For the rest, Look here, sir: I was right upon the whole, That birthday morning. ’Tis impossible To get at men excepting through their souls, However open their carnivorous jaws; And poets get directlier at the soul, Than any of your œconomists:—for which, You must not overlook the poet’s work When scheming for the world’s necessities. The soul’s the way. Not even Christ Himself Can save man else than as He holds man’s soul; And therefore did He come into our flesh, As some wise hunter creeping on his knees With a torch, into the blackness of some cave, To face and quell the beast there,—take the soul, And so possess the whole man, body and soul. I said, so far, right, yes; not farther, though: We both were wrong that June-day,—both as wrong As an east wind had been. I who talked of art, And you who grieved for all men’s griefs ... what then? We surely made too small a part for God In these things. What we are, imports us more Than what we eat; and life, you’ve granted me, Develops from within. But innermost Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, God claims his own, Divine humanity Renewing nature,—or the piercingest verse, Prest in by subtlest poet, still must keep As much upon the outside of a man, As the very bowl, in which he dips his beard. —And then, ... the rest. I cannot surely speak. Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, If I, the poet’s veritable charge, Have borne upon my forehead. If I have, It might feel somewhat liker to a crown, The foolish green one even.—Ah, I think, And chiefly when the sun shines, that I’ve failed. But what then, Romney? Though we fail indeed, You ... I ... a score of such weak workers, ... He Fails never. If He cannot work by us, He will work over us. Does He want a man, Much less a woman, think you? Every time The star winks there, so many souls are born, Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm: We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars, Impatient that we’re nothing.’ ‘Could we sit Just so for ever, sweetest friend,’ he said, ‘My failure would seem better than success. And yet, indeed, your book has dealt with me More gently, cousin, than you ever will! The book brought down entire the bright June-day, And set me wandering in the garden-walks, And let me watch the garland in a place, You blushed so ... nay, forgive me; do not stir: I only thank the book for what it taught, And what, permitted. Poet, doubt yourself; But never doubt that you’re a poet to me From henceforth. Ah, you’ve written poems, sweet, Which moved me in secret, as the sap is moved In still March-branches, signless as a stone: But this last book o’ercame me like soft rain Which falls at midnight, when the tightened bark Breaks out into unhesitating buds, And sudden protestations of the spring. In all your other books, I saw but you: A man may see the moon so, in a pond, And not be nearer therefore to the moon, Nor use the sight ... except to drown himself: And so I forced my heart back from the sight; For what had I, I thought, to do with her,— Aurora ... Romney? But, in this last book, You showed me something separate from yourself, Beyond you; and I bore to take it in, And let it draw me. You have shown me truths, O June-day friend, that help me now at night, When June is over! truths not yours, indeed, But set within my reach by means of you: Presented by your voice and verse the way To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong; And verily, many thinkers of this age, Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line, Form by form, nothing single, nor alone,— The great below clenched by the great above; Shade here authenticating substance there; The body proving spirit, as the effect The cause: we, meantime, being too grossly apt To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, (Though reason and nature beat us in the face); So obstinately, that we’ll break our teeth Or ever we let go. For everywhere We’re too materialistic,—eating clay, (Like men of the west) instead of Adam’s corn And Noah’s wine; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, Until we’re filled up to the throat with clay, And grow the grimy colour of the ground On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist The age’s name is. God himself, with some, Is apprehended as the bare result Of what his hand materially has made, Expressed in such an algebraic sign, Called God;—that is, to put it otherwise, They add up nature to a naught of God And cross the quotient. There are many, even, Whose names are written in the Christian church To no dishonour,—diet still on mud, And splash the altars with it. You might think The clay, Christ laid upon their eyelids when, Still blind, he called them to the use of sight, Remained there to retard its exercise With clogging incrustations. Close to heaven, They see, for mysteries, through the open doors, Vague puffs of smoke from pots of earthenware; And fain would enter, when their time shall come, With quite a different body than St. Paul Has promised,—husk and chaff, the whole barley-corn, Or where’s the resurrection?’ ‘Thus it is,’ I sighed. And he resumed with mournful face. ‘Beginning so, and filling up with clay The wards of this great key, the natural world, And fumbling vainly therefore at the lock Of the spiritual,—we feel ourselves shut in With all the wild-beast roar of struggling life, The terrors and compunctions of our souls, As saints with lions,—we who are not saints, And have no heavenly lordship in our stare To awe them backward! Ay, we are forced, so pent, To judge the whole too partially, ... confound Conclusions. Is there any common phrase Significant, when the adverb’s heard alone, The verb being absent, and the pronoun out? But we, distracted in the roar of life, Still insolently at God’s adverb snatch, And bruit against Him that his thought is void, His meaning hopeless;—cry, that everywhere The government is slipping from his hand, Unless some other Christ ... say Romney Leigh ... Come up, and toil and moil, and change the world, For which the First has proved inadequate, However we talk bigly of His work And piously of His person. We blaspheme At last, to finish that doxology, Despairing on the earth for which He died.’

‘So now,’ I asked, ‘you have more hope of men?’

‘I hope,’ he answered: ‘I am come to think That God will have his work done, as you said, And that we need not be disturbed too much For Romney Leigh or others having failed With this or that quack nostrum,—recipes For keeping summits by annulling depths, For learning wrestling with long lounging sleeves, And perfect heroism without a scratch. We fail,—what, then? Aurora, if I smiled To see you, in your lovely morning-pride, Try on the poet’s wreath which suits the noon,— (Sweet cousin, walls must get the weather-stain Before they grow the ivy!) certainly I stood myself there worthier of contempt, Self-rated, in disastrous arrogance, As competent to sorrow for mankind And even their odds. A man may well despair, Who counts himself so needful to success. I failed. I throw the remedy back on God, And sit down here beside you, in good hope.’

‘And yet, take heed,’ I answered, ‘lest we lean Too dangerously on the other side, And so fail twice. Be sure, no earnest work Of any honest creature, howbeit weak, Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much, It is not gathered as a grain of sand To enlarge the sum of human action used For carrying out God’s end. No creature works So ill, observe, that therefore he’s cashiered. The honest earnest man must stand and work; The woman also; otherwise she drops At once below the dignity of man, Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.’

He cried, ‘True. After Adam, work was curse; The natural creature labours, sweats and frets. But, after Christ, work turns to privilege; And henceforth one with our humanity, The Six-day Worker, working still in us, Has called us freely to work on with Him In high companionship. So, happiest! I count that Heaven itself is only work To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed,— But, no more, work as Adam ... nor as Leigh Erewhile, as if the only man on earth, Responsible for all the thistles blown And tigers couchant,—struggling in amaze Against disease and winter,—snarling on For ever, that the world’s not paradise. Oh cousin, let us be content, in work, To do the thing we can, and not presume To fret because it’s little. ’Twill employ Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin: Who makes the head, content to miss the point,— Who makes the point, agreed to leave the join: And if a man should cry, ‘I want a pin, And I must make it straightway, head and point,’— His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. Seven men to a pin,—and not a man too much! Seven generations, haply, to this world, To right it visibly, a finger’s breadth, And mend its rents a little. Oh, to storm And say,—‘This world here is intolerable; I will not eat this corn, nor drink this wine, Nor love this woman, flinging her my soul Without a bond for’t, as a lover should, Nor use the generous leave of happiness As not too good for using generously’— (Since virtue kindles at the touch of joy, Like a man’s cheek laid on a woman’s hand; And God, who knows it, looks for quick returns From joys)!—to stand and claim to have a life Beyond the bounds of the individual man, And raze all personal cloisters of the soul To build up public stores and magazines, As if God’s creatures otherwise were lost, The builder surely saved by any means! To think,—I have a pattern on my nail, And I will carve the world new after it, And solve so, these hard social questions,—nay, Impossible social questions,—since their roots Strike deep in Evil’s own existence here, Which God permits because the question’s hard To abolish evil nor attaint free-will. Ay, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh! For Romney has a pattern on his nail, (Whatever may be lacking on the Mount) And not being overnice to separate What’s element from what’s convention, hastes By line on line, to draw you out a world, Without your help indeed, unless you take His yoke upon you and will learn of him,— So much he has to teach! so good a world! The same, the whole creation’s groaning for! No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, No potage in it able to exclude A brother’s birthright, and no right of birth, The potage,—both secured to every man; And perfect virtue dealt out like the rest, Gratuitously, with the soup at six, To whoso does not seek it.’ ‘Softly, sir,’ I interrupted,—‘I had a cousin once I held in reverence. If he strained too wide, It was not to take honour, but give help; The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing ... (well, it is not proved) That empty hand thrown impotently out Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in And keeps the scythe’s glow on it. Pray you, then, For my sake merely, use less bitterness In speaking of my cousin.’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Aurora! when the prophet beats the ass, The angel intercedes.’ He shook his head— ‘And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, Expresses ne’er another beast than man; The antithesis is human. Harken, dear; There’s too much abstract willing, purposing, In this poor world. We talk by aggregates, And think by systems; and, being used to face Our evils in statistics, are inclined To cap them with unreal remedies Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate.’

‘That’s true,’ I answered, fain to throw up thought, And make a game of’t; ‘Oh, we generalise Enough to please you. If we pray at all, We pray no longer for our daily bread, But next centenary’s harvests. If we give, Our cup of water is not tendered till We lay down pipes and found a Company With Branches. Ass or angel, ’tis the same: A woman cannot do the thing she ought, Which means whatever perfect thing she can, In life, in art, in science, but she fears To let the perfect action take her part And rest there: she must prove what she can do Before she does it,—prate of woman’s rights, Of woman’s mission, woman’s function, till The men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, ‘A woman’s function plainly is ... to talk.’ Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed! They cannot hear each other speak.’ ‘And you, An artist, judge so?’ ‘I, an artist,—yes, Because, precisely, I’m an artist, sir, And woman,—if another sate in sight, I’d whisper,—Soft, my sister! not a word! By speaking we prove only we can speak; Which he, the man here, never doubted. What He doubts, is whether we can do the thing With decent grace, we’ve not yet done at all: Now, do it; bring your statue,—you have room! He’ll see it even by the starlight here; And if ’tis e’er so little like the god Who looks out from the marble silently Along the track of his own shining dart Through the dusk of ages,—there’s no need to speak; The universe shall henceforth speak for you, And witness, ‘She who did this thing, was born To do it,—claims her license in her work.’ —And so with more works. Whoso cures the plague, Though twice a woman, shall be called a leech: Who rights a land’s finances, is excused For touching coppers, though her hands be white,— But we, we talk!’ ‘It is the age’s mood,’ He said; ‘we boast, and do not. We put up Hostelry signs where’er we lodge a day,— Some red colossal cow, with mighty paps A Cyclops’ fingers could not strain to milk; Then bring out presently our saucer-full Of curds. We want more quiet in our works, More knowledge of the bounds in which we work; More knowledge that each individual man Remains an Adam to the general race, Constrained to see, like Adam, that he keep His personal state’s condition honestly, Or vain all thoughts of his to help the world, Which still must be developed from its one, If bettered in its many. We, indeed, Who think to lay it out new like a park, We take a work on us which is not man’s; For God alone sits far enough above, To speculate so largely. None of us (Not Romney Leigh) is mad enough to say, We’ll have a grove of oaks upon that slope And sink the need of acorns. Government, If veritable and lawful, is not given By imposition of the foreign hand,— Nor chosen from a pretty pattern-book Of some domestic idealogue, who sits And coldly chooses empire, where as well He might republic. Genuine government Is but the expression of a nation, good Or less good,—even as all society, Howe’er unequal, monstrous, crazed, and cursed, Is but the expression of men’s single lives, The loud sum of the silent units. What, We’d change the aggregate and yet retain Each separate figure? Whom do we cheat by that? Now, not even Romney.’ ‘Cousin, you are sad. Did all your social labour at Leigh Hall And elsewhere, come to nought then?’ ‘It was nought,’ He answered mildly. ‘There is room indeed, For statues still, in this large world of God’s, But not for vacuums,—so I am not sad: Not sadder than is good for what I am. My vain phalanstery dissolved itself; My men and women of disordered lives, I brought in orderly to dine and sleep, Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear, With fierce contortions of the natural face; And cursed me for my tyrannous constraint In forcing crooked creatures to live straight; And set the country hounds upon my back To bite and tear me for my wicked deed Of trying to do good without the church Or even the squires, Aurora. Do you mind Your ancient neighbours? The great book-club teems With ‘sketches,’ ‘summaries,’ and ‘last tracts’ but twelve, On socialistic troublers of close bonds Betwixt the generous rich and grateful poor. The vicar preached from ‘Revelations,’ (till The doctor woke) and found me with ‘the frogs’ On three successive Sundays; ay, and stopped To weep a little (for he’s getting old) That such perdition should o’ertake a man Of such fair acres,—in the parish, too! He printed his discourses ‘by request;’ And if your book shall sell as his did, then Your verses are less good than I suppose. The women of the neighbourhood subscribed, And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk, Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh: I own that touched me.’ ‘What, the pretty ones? Poor Romney!’ ‘Otherwise the effect was small. I had my windows broken once or twice By liberal peasants, naturally incensed At such a vexer of Arcadian peace, Who would not let men call their wives their own To kick like Britons,—and made obstacles When things went smoothly as a baby drugged, Toward freedom and starvation; bringing down The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs, To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves With mended morals, quotha,—fine new lives!— My windows paid for’t. I was shot at, once, By an active poacher who had hit a hare From the other barrel, tired of springeing game So long upon my acres, undisturbed, And restless for the country’s virtue, (yet He missed me)—ay, and pelted very oft In riding through the village. ‘There he goes, Who’d drive away our Christian gentlefolks, To catch us undefended in the trap He baits with poisonous cheese, and lock us up In that pernicious prison of Leigh Hall With all his murderers! Give another name, And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.’ And so they did, at last, Aurora.’ ‘Did?’

‘You never heard it, cousin? Vincent’s news Came stinted, then.’ ‘They did? they burnt Leigh Hall?’

‘You’re sorry, dear Aurora? Yes indeed, They did it perfectly: a thorough work, And not a failure, this time. Let us grant ’Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house Than build a system:—yet that’s easy, too, In a dream. Books, pictures,—ay, the pictures! what, You think your dear Vandykes would give them pause? Our proud ancestral Leighs with those peaked beards, Or bosoms white as foam thrown up on rocks From the old-spent wave. Such calm defiant looks They flared up with! now, nevermore they’ll twit The bones in the family-vault with ugly death. Not one was rescued, save the Lady Maud, Who threw you down, that morning you were born, The undeniable lineal mouth and chin, To wear for ever for her gracious sake; For which good deed I saved her: the rest went: And you, you’re sorry, cousin. Well, for me, With all my phalansterians safely out, (Poor hearts, they helped the burners, it was said, And certainly a few clapped hands and yelled) The ruin did not hurt me as it might,— As when for instance I was hurt one day, A certain letter being destroyed. In fact, To see the great house flare so ... oaken floors, Our fathers made so fine with rushes once, Before our mothers furbished them with trains,— Carved wainscoats, panelled walls, the favourite slide For draining off a martyr, (or a rogue) The echoing galleries, half a half-mile long, And all the various stairs that took you up And took you down, and took you round about Upon their slippery darkness, recollect, All helping to keep up one blazing jest; The flames through all the casements pushing forth, Like red-hot devils crinkled into snakes, All signifying,—‘Look you, Romney Leigh, We save the people from your saving, here, Yet so as by fire! we make a pretty show Besides,—and that’s the best you’ve ever done.’— —To see this, almost moved myself to clap! The ‘vale et plaude’ came, too, with effect, When, in the roof fell, and the fire, that paused, Stunned momently beneath the stroke of slates And tumbling rafters, rose at once and roared, And wrapping the whole house, (which disappeared In a mounting whirlwind of dilated flame,) Blew upward, straight, its drift of fiery chaff In the face of Heaven, ... which blenched, and ran up higher.’

‘Poor Romney!’ ‘Sometimes when I dream,’ he said, ‘I hear the silence after; ’twas so still. For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round, Were suddenly silent, while you counted five! So silent, that you heard a young bird fall From the top-nest in the neighbouring rookery Through edging over-rashly toward the light. The old rooks had already fled too far, To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw Some flying on still, like scatterings of dead leaves In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky: All flying,—ousted, like the House of Leigh.’