I should have thought ... a woman of the world Like her I’m meaning,—centre to herself, Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life In isolated self-love and self-will, As a windmill seen at distance radiating Its delicate white vans against the sky, So soft and soundless, simply beautiful,— Seen nearer ... what a roar and tear it makes, How it grinds and bruises!... if she loves at last, Her love’s a re-adjustment of self-love, No more; a need felt of another’s use To her one advantage,—as the mill wants grain, The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey; And none of these is more unscrupulous Than such a charming woman when she loves. She’ll not be thwarted by an obstacle So trifling as ... her soul is, ... much less yours!— Is God a consideration?—she loves _you_, Not God; she will not flinch for Him indeed: She did not for the Marchioness of Perth, When wanting tickets for the birthnight-ball. She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy; She loves you like her diamonds ... almost. Well, A month passed so, and then the notice came; On such a day the marriage at the church. I was not backward. Half St. Giles in frieze Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold, And, after contract at the altar, pass To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath. Of course the people came in uncompelled, Lame, blind, and worse—sick, sorrowful, and worse, The humours of the peccant social wound All pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed air With hideous interfusion: you’d suppose A finished generation, dead of plague, Swept outward from their graves into the sun, The moil of death upon them. What a sight! A holiday of miserable men Is sadder than a burial-day of kings.