Aurora Leigh

Earth's crammed with heaven... But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father’s name; Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!

Witch, scholar, poet, dreamer, and the rest...

OF writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine,- Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.

The world of books is still the world.

She lived, we'll say, A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all (But that she had not lived enough to know)

A cheerful genius suits the times, / And all true poets laugh unquenchably / Like Shakespeare and the gods.

I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.

It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth— ’Tis then we get the right good from a book.

Did you think of that? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know. To cymbals, Romney.

Italy/Is one thing, England one.

[O]ut of books / He taught me all the ignorance of men, / And how God laughs in heaven when any man / Says 'Here I'm learned; this, I understand; / In that, I am never caught at fault or doubt.

The world of books is still the world, I write,
And both worlds have God’s providence, thank God,
To keep and hearten: with some struggle, indeed,
Among the breakers, some hard swimming through
The deeps - I lost breath in my soul sometimes
And cried, ”God save me if there’s any God,”
But even so, God saved me; and, being dashed
From error on to error, every turn
Still brought me nearer to the central truth.

My soul is in haste to leap into the sun.