Women know The way to rear up children, (to be just,) They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trifles: children learn by such, Love’s holy earnest in a pretty play, And get not over-early solemnised,- But seeing, as in a rose-bush, Love’s Divine, Which burns and hurts not,-not a single bloom,- Become aware and unafraid of Love. I, Aurora Leigh, was born To make my father sadder, and myself Not overjoyous, truly. As it was, indeed, I felt a mother-want about the world, And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,- As restless as a nest-deserted bird Grown chill through something being away, though what It knows not. If her kiss Had left a longer weight upon my lips, It might have steadied the uneasy breath, And reconciled and fraternised my soul With the new order. She was weak and frail She could not bear the joy of giving life- The mother’s rapture slew her. My mother was a Florentine, Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me When scarcely I was four years old my life, A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp Which went out therefore.
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