4. What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat; 5. To teach them. . . . It stings there. I made them indeed The tyrant turned out. And, when their eyes flashed, 6. oh my beautiful eyes!forth at the wheels But then the surprise then one weeps, then one kneels. God! how the house feels! 7. At first, happy news came, in gay letters, moiled 8. Then was triumph at Turin. "Ancona was free!" 9. I bore it friends soothed me. My grief looked sublime To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time 10. shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand. "I was not to faint. And letters still came, One loved me for two; would be with me ere long: And Viva Italia' he died for, our saint, Who forbids our complaint." 11. My Nanni would add, "He was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls; was imprest 12. On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line 13. Are souls straight so happy, that, dizzy with heaven, 14. O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate; mark Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say! 15. Both boys dead! But that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots; yet each house must always keep one: "Twere imbecile hewing out roads to a wall. And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done 16. Ah, ah, ah! when Gaëta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport 17. When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee ; When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red; When you have your country from mountain to sea; When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, -- (And I have my dead,) — What then? 18. Do not mock me. Ah! ring your bells low, And burn your lights faintly. My country is there, Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow; My Italy's there with my brave civic pair, To disfranchise despair. 19. Forgive me! Some women bear children in strength, When the man-child is born. 20. Dead! - one of them shot by the sea in the west, AURORA LEIGH. AND I-I was a good child, on the whole, - So it was. I broke the copious curls upon my head In braids, because she liked smooth-ordered hair. She liked my father's child to speak his tongue. The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice,- (By no means Buonaventure's "Prick of Love,") And various popular synopses of I learnt my complement of classic French I learnt a little algebra, a little Of the mathematics, brushed with extreme flounce She misliked women who are frivolous. I learnt the royal genealogies Of Oviedo, the internal laws Of the Burmese Empire, by how many feet To Lara, and what census of the year five Was taken at Klagenfurt, because she liked I learnt much music, — such as would have been As still it might be wished, fine sleights of hand The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes From French engravings, Nereids neatly draped, Spun glass, stuffed birds, and modelled flowers in wax,- I read a score of books on womanhood, And never say "No" when the world says "Ay," Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn, And fatten household sinners; their, in brief, Potential faculty in every thing Of abdicating power in it. She owned She liked a woman to be womanly; And English women - she thanked God and sighed (Some people always sigh in thanking God) Were models to the universe. And, last, I learnt cross-stitch, because she did not like Adoing nothing. So my shepherdess Was something after all, (the pastoral saints Which slew the tragic poet. By the way, The works of women are symbolical. We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, To put on when you're weary, or a stool To tumble over and vex you; (“Curse that stool !") Or else, at best, a cushion, where you lean And sleep, and dream of something we are not, But would be for your sake. Alas, alas! This hurts most,—this, that, after all, we are paid The worth of our work, perhaps. In looking down Those years of education (to return), I wonder if Brinvilliers suffered more In the water torture, flood succeeding flood To drench the incapable throat and split the veins, Go out in such a process; many pine To a sick, inodorous light: my own endured. From Nature, as earth feels the sun at nights, I thank thee for that grace of thine! At first, I felt no life which was not patience; did Which seemed to have come on purpose from the woods Demurely in her carpeted low rooms As if I should not, hearkening my own steps, |