The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-05-13
For the ! ,tional Era.
A U R RE LElGH.
BY THE AUTHOR oFs'sUsY LIS DIARY"

BY THE AUTHOR OFF, sUsY LIS DIARY"
Mrs. Brownipg's lat work is the Story OF
Art and Love-" othekyise, Aurora Leigh and
Romney Leigh, startiks in life. Art, on her
twentieth birthday, fuli,of herself, puts on her
l,ng white morning robes that brush grand
trail across the dewy lawn, goes hummiae,
sometimes warbling out heartily her descant
upon singing thrush and blackbird, upon beau
teous guelderrose, sweet verbena, and acacia /;
upon poet-wreaths, put mostly, 80 she muir
murs, upon the brows that lie dead, and past the
feeling and gladness Of them, as Dante's. So,
as she sings, she hunts for leaves wherewith to
crown herself, catches joyfully at the ivy, of
which {" not leaf will grow but thinking of a
wreath" and crowns her.forehesd, and there
she is-Art; and, in, all the big, swarmiug
world, there is no one else beside her.
Love, concerned for her, tender toward her,
follows, points to the jraggled skirts, talks of
headaches, tells her Of the cork there is for
men and women to do ,ere on this beleaguered
earth.
s'You, you young
As Eve with natures daybreak her face;
But this same world you've come to, dearest coz,
Has done with keeping birthdays saves her wreaths
To hang upon her ruins, and forgets .
To rhyme the cry with which she still beats back
Those savage, hungry dogs that hunt her down
To the empty grace of Chrst The worlds hardpressed
The sweat of labor in the early curse
Has turning acrd in six thousand years.
Become the sweat of torture. Who has time,
An hours ,ime-thnk to sit upon n bank
And hear the cymbal rnklr in while hands
When Egypts slain, say, Get Miriam sing
And he adds
"May choose indeed,
But now away my years, my means, my aims,
Among the helpers II there's any help
In such a social strait? yhe common blood
Tha, swings along my veins is snong enough
To draw me TO this duty"
After he has painted all the pains, sins, and
wrongs, before her eyes, and said how terrible
they are
"For one who lie not God, and cannot right
The wrong he looks on" +
work; to let him come to her, and lean upon
her, and rest when he is aweary with his tasks
among men. "Love and work with me-" he
he says. With indignation, quiet, but strong,
Art, young, untried, undisciplined, yet having
intuitions of individual powers for individual
attainment and achieJement, breaks in and
tells him that if man says to loyal woman, if
Love says to loyal An, Love and work with
me-" he
"wiil get fair ansV err, if the work and love,
Being good themselves, are good for her-the best
She was born ior.but t$s your work
Is not the best for"
And then she says" Farewell" 8
She is torn in the parting; but wonders why,
since his chosen work and life are not her
chosen work and life since, with all the inten-
tons that have come to teach her and be guides
to her, this has not come, that they, too, Love
and Art, we're joined together in the beginning
of God, and can never, % the end, be put asun.
der, without sense of loss and pain, more or
less acute. So, standing erect, she says
Farewell"
He, with pain expressed in his words, his
tones, his sorrowfully bent head, answered..
Then, farewell"
She goes her way he, his. he goes alone,
With his heartache, and works works all the
harder, that, if possible, he may out-work, out
1--we the heartache. BE parts his ancestral hall
into almshouses, and fills them with the Door
When Art heard Of it, abe said
:" He made an almshouse of his heart one dsv
winch ever since is loose upon the latch
FOR nose who pull the string. l never did,
MOI cold, proud, arrogant But this is what
she said about the Same time, after she had been
q long, long time, at her chosen most successful
artwork:
40, my Col, my God
o, Supreme Artist whss as sole return
70, al the eosTlc wo~,er Of Thy work,
Commander OF US lusta words name
MY Father Thou hast knowledge Thou
How dreary us for sit STILL ~
On winter nights, by solitary fires,
And hear the nations p,aising them far of!
Too far! ny, praising quick sense of love
Oar very heart of passionate woma nhood,
Which could not beat % in the verse without
Being present also in TIE unkissed lips - n
And eyes undried bee 1se there's none to ask
The reason they grew moist. t'
"The love Of all q
Cro risk in turn Q womhn's parodoxl
Is but small thing TO tae love of one.
You bid q hungry child be satisfied
With heritage Of msry comhelds nay, .-s
He saws he's hungry-he would rather have
That ltte barley-eake .1ou keep from him
While reckoning up hit harvests SO with us;
Here, Romney, too, We fail to genersiize9 Fl
We're hungry" c# #fI Il
One time aAerxara she said, sit always
makes me sad to 90 k,osd; and before abe is
through with the low ssail, heart end pen take
mp over the sadness. She lets it be seen thai,
that evening, when shs was at Lord Howe's,
my Lady Waldemar WIS there; was very pretty,
with tressss 20 abun9 ant, her maid must use
both hands to coil thsm; and that the young
man, with the German studeut'e look, SAID With