I, too, at first desponded. To be blind, Turned out of nature, mulcted as a man, Refused the daily largesse of the sun To humble creatures! When the fever’s heat Dropped from me, as the flame did from my house, And left me ruined like it, stripped of all The hues and shapes of aspectable life, A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day, A man, upon the outside of the earth, As dark as ten feet under, in the grave,— Why that seemed hard.’ ‘No hope?’ ‘A tear! you weep, Divine Aurora? tears upon my hand! I’ve seen you weeping for a mouse, a bird,— But, weep for me, Aurora? Yes, there’s hope. Not hope of sight,—I could be learned, dear, And tell you in what Greek and Latin name The visual nerve is withered to the root, Though the outer eyes appear indifferent, Unspotted in their chrystals. But there’s hope. The spirit, from behind this dethroned sense, Sees, waits in patience till the walls break up From which the bas-relief and fresco have dropt: There’s hope. The man here, once so arrogant And restless, so ambitious, for his part, Of dealing with statistically packed Disorders, (from a pattern on his nail,) And packing such things quite another way,— Is now contented. From his personal loss He has come to hope for others when they lose, And wear a gladder faith in what we gain ... Through bitter experience, compensation sweet, Like that tear, sweetest. I am quiet now,— As tender surely for the suffering world, But quiet,—sitting at the wall to learn, Content, henceforth, to do the thing I can: For, though as powerless, said I, as a stone, A stone can still give shelter to a worm, And it is worth while being a stone for that: There’s hope, Aurora.’ ‘Is there hope for me? For me?—and is there room beneath the stone For such a worm?—And if I came and said ... What all this weeping scarce will let me say, And yet what women cannot say at all, But weeping bitterly ... (the pride keeps up, Until the heart breaks under it) ... I love,— I love you, Romney’.... ‘Silence!’ he exclaimed. ‘A woman’s pity sometimes makes her mad. A man’s distraction must not cheat his soul To take advantage of it. Yet, ’tis hard— Farewell, Aurora.’ ‘But I love you, sir; And when a woman says she loves a man, The man must hear her, though he love her not, Which ... hush!... he has leave to answer in his turn; She will not surely blame him. As for me, You call it pity,—think I’m generous? ’Twere somewhat easier, for a woman proud As I am, and I’m very vilely proud, To let it pass as such, and press on you Love born of pity,—seeing that excellent loves Are born so, often, nor the quicklier die,—