To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,—would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,

To fly my fancies in the open air

And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,-
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'

To choose from.

I pulled the branches down,

'Not the bay! I choose no bay; The fates deny us if we are overbold:

Nor myrtle-which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah-there's my choice,-that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow

But thinking of a wreath. Large leaves, smooth leaves,

Serrated like my vines, and half as green.
I like such ivy; bold to leap a height

'Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too,

(And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb.' Thus speaking to myself, half singing it,

Because some thoughts are fashioned like a bell
To ring with once being touched, I drew a wreath
Drenched, blinding me with dew, across my brow,
And fastening it behind so, turning faced

My public!-Cousin Romney-with a mouth Twice graver than his eyes.

I stood there fixed

My arms up, like the caryatid, sole
Of some abolished temple, helplessly
Persistent in a gesture which derides
A former purpose. Yet my blush was flame,
As if from flax, not stone.

The earliest of Aurora's!'

'Aurora Leigh,

Hand stretched out

I clasped, as shipwrecked men will clasp a hand,
Indifferent to the sort of palm. The tide

Had caught me at my pastime, writing down
My foolish name too near upon the sea

Which drowned me with a blush as foolish. 'You,
My cousin!'

The smile died out in his eyes
And dropped upon his lips, a cold dead weight,
For just a moment. . 'Here's a book, I found!
No name writ on it-poems, by the form;
Some Greek upon the margin,-lady's Greek,
Without the accents. Read it? Not a word.
I saw at once the thing had witchcraft in't,

Whereof the reading calls up dangerous spirits;
I rather bring it to the witch.'

You found it.'. .

'My book!

'In the hollow by the stream,

That beach leans down into-of which you said, The Oread in it has a Naiad's heart

And pines for waters.'

'Thank you.'

'Rather you,

My cousin! that I have seen you not too much
A witch, a poet, scholar, and the rest,

To be a woman also.'

With a glance

The smile rose in his eyes again, and touched
The ivy on my forehead, light as air.

I answered gravely, 'Poets needs must be
Or men or women-more's the pity.'

But men, and still less women, happily,

'Ah,

Scarce need be poets. Keep to the green wreath, Since even dreaming of the stone and bronze

Brings headaches, pretty cousin, and defiles

The clean white morning dresses.'

Because I love the beautiful, I must

'So you judge!

Love pleasure chiefly, and be overcharged
For ease and whiteness! Well-you know the world,
And only miss your cousin; 'tis not much!-
But learn this: I would rather take my part
With God's Dead, who afford to walk in white
Yet spread His glory, than keep quiet here,
And gather up my feet from even a step,
For fear to soil my gown in so much dust.

I choose to walk at all risks.-Here, if heads

That hold a rhythmic thought, must ache perforce, For my part, I choose headaches,—and to-day's My birthday.'

To cure such.

'Dear Aurora, choose instead
You have balsams.'

'I perceive!

The headache is too noble for my sex.
You think the heartache would sound decenter,
Since that's the woman's special, proper ache,
And altogether tolerable, except

To a woman.'

Saying which, I loosed my wreath.

And, swinging it beside me as I walked,
Half petulant, half playful, as we walked,
I sent a sidelong look to find his thought,—
As falcon set on falconer's finger may,

With sidelong head, and startled, braving eye, Which means, 'You'll see-you'll see! I'll soon take flight

You shall not hinder.' He, as shaking out

His hand and answering 'Fly then,' did not speak, Except by such a gesture. Silently

We paced, until, just coming into sight

Of the house-windows, he abruptly caught

At one end of the swinging wreath, and said 'Aurora!' There I stopped short, breath and all.

'Aurora, let's be serious, and throw by

This game of head and heart. Life means, be sure,
Both heart and head,-both active, both complete,
And both in earnest. Men and women make
The world, as head and heart make human life.
Work man, work woman, since there's work to do

In this beleaguered earth, for head and heart,
And thought can never do the work of love!
But work for ends, I mean for uses; not

For such sleek fringes (do you call them ends?
Still less God's glory) as we sew ourselves
Upon the velvet of those baldaquins

Held 'twixt us and the sun. That book of yours,

I have not read a page of; but I toss

A rose up it falls calyx down, you see! ..
The chances are that, being a woman, young,
And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes, .
You write as well. . and ill. . upon the whole,
As other women. If as well, what then?
If even a little better, . . still what then?
We want the Best in art now, or no art.
The time is done for facile settings up

Of minnow gods, nymphs here, and tritons there;
The polytheists have gone out in God,
That unity of Bests. No best, no God!—
And so with art, we say. Give art's divine,
Direct, indubitable, real as grief,-

Or leave us to the grief we grow ourselves
Divine by overcoming with mere hope
And most prosaic patience. You, you are young
As Eve with nature's daybreak on her face;
But this same world you are come to, dearest coz,
Has done with keeping birthdays, saves her wreaths
To hang upon her ruins,-and forgets

To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back
Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down
To the empty grave of Christ. The world's hard
pressed;

The sweat of labour in the early curse

Has (turning acrid in six thousand years)