Lady Geraldine's Hardship
(E. B. Browning)
I turned—Heaven knows we women turn too much
To broken reeds, mistaken so for pine
That shame forbids confession—a handle I turned
(The wrong one, said the agent afterwards)
And so flung clean across your English street
Through the shrill—tinkling glass of the shop—front—paused,
Artemis mazed ’mid gauds to catch a man,
And piteous baby—caps and christening—gowns,
The worse for being worn on the radiator.
“ ” “ ”
My cousin Romney judged me from the bench:
Propounding one sleek forty—shillinged law
That takes no count of the Woman’s oversoul.
I should have entered, purred he, by the door—
The man’s retort—the open obvious door—
And since I chose not, he—not he—could change
The man’s rule, not the Woman’s, for the case.
Ten pounds or seven days. . . Just that. . . I paid!
