I worked with patience which means almost power. I did some excellent things indifferently, Some bad things excellently. Both were praised, The latter loudest. And by such a time That I myself had set them down as sins Scarce worth the price of sackcloth, week by week, Arrived some letter through the sedulous post, Like these I’ve read, and yet dissimilar, With pretty maiden seals,—initials twined Of lilies, or a heart marked _Emily_, (Convicting Emily of being all heart); Or rarer tokens from young bachelors, Who wrote from college (with the same goosequill, Suppose, they had just been plucked of) and a snatch From Horace, ‘Collegisse juvat,’ set Upon the first page. Many a letter signed Or unsigned, showing the writers at eighteen Had lived too long, though every muse should help The daylight, holding candles,—compliments, To smile or sigh at. Such could pass with me No more than coins from Moscow circulate At Paris. Would ten roubles buy a tag Of ribbon on the boulevard, worth a sou? I smiled that all this youth should love me,—sighed That such a love could scarcely raise them up To love what was more worthy than myself; Then sighed again, again, less generously, To think the very love they lavished so, Proved me inferior. The strong loved me not, And he ... my cousin Romney ... did not write. I felt the silent finger of his scorn Prick every bubble of my frivolous fame As my breath blew it, and resolve it back To the air it came from. Oh, I justified The measure he had taken of my height: The thing was plain—he was not wrong a line; I played at art, made thrusts with a toy-sword, Amused the lads and maidens. Came a sigh Deep, hoarse with resolution,—I would work To better ends, or play in earnest. ‘Heavens, I think I should be almost popular If this went on!’—I ripped my verses up, And found no blood upon the rapier’s point; The heart in them was just an embryo’s heart, Which never yet had beat, that it should die; Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life; Mere tones, inorganised to any tune. And yet I felt it in me where it burnt, Like those hot fire-seeds of creation held In Jove’s clenched palm before the worlds were sown,— But I—I was not Juno even! my hand Was shut in weak convulsion, woman’s ill, And when I yearned to loose a finger—lo, The nerve revolted. ’Tis the same even now: This hand may never, haply, open large, Before the spark is quenched, or the palm charred, To prove the power not else than by the pain.