Aurora Leigh; A Poem in Nine Books (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THIRD BOOK. Today thou girdest up thy loins thyself And goest where thou wouldest: presently Others shall gird thee, said the Lord, to go Where thou wouldst not. He spoke to Peter thus, To signify the death which he should die When crucified head downward. If he spoke To Peter then, he speaks to us the same. The word suits many different martyrdoms, And signifies a multiform of death, Although we scarcely die apostles, we, And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth. For 'tis not in mere death that men die most; And, after our first girding of the loins In youth's fine linen and fair broidery To run up hill and meet the rising sun, We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool, While others gird us with the violent bands Of social figments, feints, and formalisms, Reversing our straight nature, lifting up Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts, Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world. Yet he can pluck us from that shameful cross. God, set our feet low and our forehead high, And show us how a man was made to walk Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed; The room does very well. I have to write Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away; Your steps, forever buzzing in the room, Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters Throw them down At once, as I must have them, to be sure, Whether I bid you never bring me such At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse; You choose to bring them, as I choose, perhaps, To throw them in the fire. Now get to bed, And dream, if possible, I am not cross. Why, what a pettish, petty thing I grow ? A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve, A 'kerchief left out all night in the rain, Turned soft so, ? overtasked and overstrained And overlived in this close London life. And yet I should be stronger. ...