Цитаты из книги Aurora Leigh

You were wrong In much? you said so. I was wrong in most. Oh, most! You only thought to rescue men By half means, halfway, seeing half their wants,

While thinking nothing of your personal gain. But I who saw the human nature broad At both sides, comprehending too the soul's, And all the high necessities of Art, Betrayed the thing I saw, and wronged my own life For which I pleaded. Passioned to exalt The artist's instinct in me at the cost Of putting down the woman's, I forgot No perfect artist is developed here From any imperfect woman. Flower from root, And spiritual from natural, grade by grade In all our life. A handful of the earth To make God's image!

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. You have 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,

'I have read your book, Aurora.' 'You have read it,' I replied, 'And I have writ it--we have done with it. And now the rest?'

'The rest is like the first,' He answered--'for the book is in my heart, Lives in me, wakes in me, and dreams in me: My daily bread tastes of it--and my wine Which has no smack of it, I pour it out, It seems unnatural drinking.'

Bitterly

I took the word up; 'Never waste your wine. The book lived in me ere it lived in you; I know it closer than another does, And how it's foolish, feeble, and afraid, And all unworthy so much compliment. Beseech you, keep your wine--and, when you drink, Still wish some happier fortune to a friend, Than even to have written a far better book.' He answered gently, 'That is consequent: The poet looks beyond the book he has made,

Or else he had not made it. If a man Could make a man, he'd henceforth be a god In feeling what a little thing is man: It is not my case. And this special book,

'Let us ponder, friend: Whate'er our state we must have made it first; And though the thing displease us, ay, perhaps Displease us warrantably, never doubt Rejected by the instinct of our lives, If then adopted had displeased us more

Than this on which the choice, the will, the love, Has stamped the honour of a patent act From henceforth. What we choose may not be good, But, that we choose it, proves it good for us Potentially, fantastically, now Or last year, rather than a thing we saw, And saw no need for choosing. Moths will burn Their wings--which proves that light is good for moths, Who else had flown not where they agonise.'

'There's nothing great Nor small,' has said a poet of our day, Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve And not be thrown out by the matin's bell: And truly, I reiterate, nothing's small! No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee, But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere; No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim; And (glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist) In such a little tremor of the blood The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

And now I come, my Italy, My own hills! Are you 'ware of me, my hills, How I burn toward you? do you feel tonight The urgency and yearning of my soul,

As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe And smile?--Nay, not so much as when in heat Vain lightnings catch at your inviolate tops And tremble while ye are steadfast. Still ye go Your own determined, calm, indifferent way Toward sunrise, shade by shade, and light by light, Of all the grand progression nought left out, As if God verily made you for yourselves And would not interrupt your life with ours.