Pompilia tells the story of her life.

For friend and lover,—leech and man of law

Do service; busy helpful ministrants

As varied in their calling as their mind,

Temper and age: and yet from all of these,

About the white bed under the arched roof,

Is somehow, as it were, evolved a one,—

Small separate sympathies combined and large,

Nothings that were, grown something very much:

As if the bystanders gave each his straw,