“and so, cold, courteous, a mere gentleman,

he bowed, we parted.

parted. face no more,

voice no more, love no more! wiped wholly out

like some ill scholar’s scrawl from heart and slate,—

aye, spit on and so wiped out utterly

by some coarse scholar! i have been too coarse,

too human. have we business, in our rank,

with blood i’ the veins? i will have henceforth none;

not even to keep the colour at my lip.”

aurora leigh.