To all the tender pricking of such leaves? Such leaves! what leaves?’ I pulled the branches down, To choose from. ‘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 dares 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. ‘Aurora Leigh, The earliest of Auroras!’ 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.’ ‘My book! You found it‘.... ‘In the hollow by the stream, That beech 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.’