The Victories of Love, and Other Poems
Coventry Patmore




Coventry Patmore

The Victories of Love, and Other Poems





INTRODUCTION


After the very cordial reception given to the poems of “The Angel in the House,” which their author generously made accessible to the readers of these little books, it is evident that another volume from the same clear singer of the purity of household love requires no Introduction.

I have only, in the name of the readers, to thank Mr. Coventry Patmore for his liberality, and wish him—say, rather, assure him of—the best return he seeks in a wide influence for good.



    H. M.




THE VICTORIES OF LOVE





BOOK I





I. FROM FREDERICK GRAHAM


		Mother, I smile at your alarms!
		I own, indeed, my Cousin’s charms,
		But, like all nursery maladies,
		Love is not badly taken twice.
		Have you forgotten Charlotte Hayes,
		My playmate in the pleasant days
		At Knatchley, and her sister, Anne,
		The twins, so made on the same plan,
		That one wore blue, the other white,
		To mark them to their father’s sight;
		And how, at Knatchley harvesting,
		You bade me kiss her in the ring,
		Like Anne and all the others?  You,
		That never of my sickness knew,
		Will laugh, yet had I the disease,
		And gravely, if the signs are these:
		As, ere the Spring has any power,
		The almond branch all turns to flower,
		Though not a leaf is out, so she
		The bloom of life provoked in me
		And, hard till then and selfish, I
		Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
		And service: life was mere delight
		In being wholly good and right,
		As she was; just, without a slur;
		Honouring myself no less than her;
		Obeying, in the loneliest place,
		Ev’n to the slightest gesture, grace,
		Assured that one so fair, so true,
		He only served that was so too.
		For me, hence weak towards the weak,
		No more the unnested blackbird’s shriek
		Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
		Wander’d the gadding butterfly,
		Unscared by my flung cap; the bee,
		Rifling the hollyhock in glee,
		Was no more trapp’d with his own flower,
		And for his honey slain.  Her power,
		From great things even to the grass
		Through which the unfenced footways pass,
		Was law, and that which keeps the law,
		Cherubic gaiety and awe;
		Day was her doing, and the lark
		Had reason for his song; the dark
		In anagram innumerous spelt
		Her name with stars that throbb’d and felt;
		’Twas the sad summit of delight
		To wake and weep for her at night;
		She turn’d to triumph or to shame
		The strife of every childish game;
		The heart would come into my throat
		At rosebuds; howsoe’er remote,
		In opposition or consent,
		Each thing, or person, or event,
		Or seeming neutral howsoe’er,
		All, in the live, electric air,
		Awoke, took aspect, and confess’d
		In her a centre of unrest,
		Yea, stocks and stones within me bred
		Anxieties of joy and dread.
		O, bright apocalyptic sky
		O’erarching childhood!  Far and nigh
		Mystery and obscuration none,
		Yet nowhere any moon or sun!
		What reason for these sighs?  What hope,
		Daunting with its audacious scope
		The disconcerted heart, affects
		These ceremonies and respects?
		Why stratagems in everything?
		Why, why not kiss her in the ring?
		’Tis nothing strange that warriors bold,
		Whose fierce, forecasting eyes behold
		The city they desire to sack,
		Humbly begin their proud attack
		By delving ditches two miles off,
		Aware how the fair place would scoff
		At hasty wooing; but, O child,
		Why thus approach thy playmate mild?
		One morning, when it flush’d my thought
		That, what in me such wonder wrought
		Was call’d, in men and women, love,
		And, sick with vanity thereof,
		I, saying loud, ‘I love her,’ told
		My secret to myself, behold
		A crisis in my mystery!
		For, suddenly, I seem’d to be
		Whirl’d round, and bound with showers of threads,
		As when the furious spider sheds
		Captivity upon the fly
		To still his buzzing till he die;
		Only, with me, the bonds that flew,
		Enfolding, thrill’d me through and through
		With bliss beyond aught heaven can have,
		And pride to dream myself her slave.
		A long, green slip of wilder’d land,
		With Knatchley Wood on either hand,
		Sunder’d our home from hers.  This day
		Glad was I as I went her way.
		I stretch’d my arms to the sky, and sprang
		O’er the elastic sod, and sang
		‘I love her, love her!’ to an air
		Which with the words came then and there;
		And even now, when I would know
		All was not always dull and low,
		I mind me awhile of the sweet strain
		Love taught me in that lonely lane.
		Such glories fade, with no more mark
		Than when the sunset dies to dark.
		They pass, the rapture and the grace
		Ineffable, their only trace
		A heart which, having felt no less
		Than pure and perfect happiness,
		Is duly dainty of delight;
		A patient, poignant appetite
		For pleasures that exceed so much
		The poor things which the world calls such.
		That, when these lure it, then you may
		The lion with a wisp of hay.
		That Charlotte, whom we scarcely knew
		From Anne but by her ribbons blue,
		Was loved, Anne less than look’d at, shows
		That liking still by favour goes!
		This Love is a Divinity,
		And holds his high election free
		Of human merit; or let’s say,
		A child by ladies call’d to play,
		But careless of their becks and wiles,
		Till, seeing one who sits and smiles
		Like any else, yet only charms,
		He cries to come into her arms.
		Then, for my Cousins, fear me not!
		None ever loved because he ought.
		Fatal were else this graceful house,
		So full of light from ladies’ brows.
		There’s Mary; Heaven in her appears
		Like sunshine through the shower’s bright tears;
		Mildred’s of Earth, yet happier far
		Than most men’s thoughts of Heaven are;
		But, for Honoria, Heaven and Earth
		Seal’d amity in her sweet birth.
		The noble Girl!  With whom she talks
		She knights first with her smile; she walks,
		Stands, dances, to such sweet effect,
		Alone she seems to move erect.
		The brightest and the chastest brow
		Rules o’er a cheek which seems to show
		That love, as a mere vague suspense
		Of apprehensive innocence,
		Perturbs her heart; love without aim
		Or object, like the sunlit flame
		That in the Vestals’ Temple glow’d,
		Without the image of a god.
		And this simplicity most pure
		She sets off with no less allure
		Of culture, subtly skill’d to raise
		The power, the pride, and mutual praise
		Of human personality
		Above the common sort so high,
		It makes such homely souls as mine
		Marvel how brightly life may shine.
		How you would love her!  Even in dress
		She makes the common mode express
		New knowledge of what’s fit so well
		’Tis virtue gaily visible!
		Nay, but her silken sash to me
		Were more than all morality,
		Had not the old, sweet, feverous ill
		Left me the master of my will!
		So, Mother, feel at rest, and please
		To send my books on board.  With these,
		When I go hence, all idle hours
		Shall help my pleasures and my powers.
		I’ve time, you know, to fill my post,
		And yet make up for schooling lost
		Through young sea-service.  They all speak
		German with ease; and this, with Greek,
		(Which Dr. Churchill thought I knew,)
		And history, which I fail’d in too,
		Will stop a gap I somewhat dread,
		After the happy life I’ve led
		With these my friends; and sweet ’twill be
		To abridge the space from them to me.




II.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM


		My Child, Honoria Churchill sways
		A double power through Charlotte Hayes.
		In minds to first-love’s memory pledged
		The second Cupid’s born full-fledged.
		I saw, and trembled for the day
		When you should see her beauty, gay
		And pure as apple-blooms, that show
		Outside a blush and inside snow,
		Her high and touching elegance
		Of order’d life as free as chance.
		Ah, haste from her bewitching side,
		No friend for you, far less a bride!
		But, warning from a hope so wild,
		I wrong you.  Yet this know, my Child:
		He that but once too nearly hears
		The music of forefended spheres,
		Is thenceforth lonely, and for all
		His days like one who treads the Wall
		Of China, and, on this hand, sees
		Cities and their civilities,
		And on the other, lions.  Well,
		(Your rash reply I thus foretell.)
		Good is the knowledge of what’s fair,
		Though bought with temporal despair!
		Yes, good for one, but not for two.
		Will it content a wife that you
		Should pine for love, in love’s embrace,
		Through having known a happier grace;
		And break with inward sighs your rest,
		Because, though good, she’s not the best?
		You would, you think, be just and kind,
		And keep your counsel!  You will find
		You cannot such a secret keep;
		’Twill out, like murder, in your sleep;
		A touch will tell it, though, for pride,
		She may her bitter knowledge hide;
		And, while she accepts love’s make-believe,
		You’ll twice despise what you’d deceive.
		I send the books.  Dear Child, adieu!
		Tell me of all you are and do.
		I know, thank God, whate’er it be,
		’Twill need no veil ’twixt you and me.




III.  FROM FREDERICK


		The multitude of voices blithe
		Of early day, the hissing scythe
		Across the dew drawn and withdrawn,
		The noisy peacock on the lawn,
		These, and the sun’s eye-gladding gleam,
		This morning, chased the sweetest dream
		That e’er shed penitential grace
		On life’s forgetful commonplace;
		Yet ’twas no sweeter than the spell
		To which I woke to say farewell.
		Noon finds me many a mile removed
		From her who must not be beloved;
		And us the waste sea soon shall part,
		Heaving for aye, without a heart!
		Mother, what need to warn me so?
		I love Miss Churchill?  Ah, no, no.
		I view, enchanted, from afar,
		And love her as I love a star.
		For, not to speak of colder fear,
		Which keeps my fancy calm, I hear,
		Under her life’s gay progress hurl’d.
		The wheels of the preponderant world,
		Set sharp with swords that fool to slay
		Who blunders from a poor byway,
		To covet beauty with a crown
		Of earthly blessing added on;
		And she’s so much, it seems to me,
		Beyond all women womanly,
		I dread to think how he should fare
		Who came so near as to despair.




IV.  FROM FREDERICK


		Yonder the sombre vessel rides
		Where my obscure condition hides.
		Waves scud to shore against the wind
		That flings the sprinkling surf behind;
		In port the bickering pennons show
		Which way the ships would gladly go;
		Through Edgecumb Park the rooted trees
		Are tossing, reckless, in the breeze;
		On top of Edgecumb’s firm-set tower,
		As foils, not foibles, of its power,
		The light vanes do themselves adjust
		To every veering of the gust:
		By me alone may nought be given
		To guidance of the airs of heaven?
		In battle or peace, in calm or storm,
		Should I my daily task perform,
		Better a thousand times for love,
		Who should my secret soul reprove?
		Beholding one like her, a man
		Longs to lay down his life!  How can
		Aught to itself seem thus enough,
		When I have so much need thereof?
		Blest in her place, blissful is she;
		And I, departing, seem to be
		Like the strange waif that comes to run
		A few days flaming near the sun,
		And carries back, through boundless night,
		Its lessening memory of light.
		Oh, my dear Mother, I confess
		To a deep grief of homelessness,
		Unfelt, save once, before.  ’Tis years
		Since such a shower of girlish tears
		Disgraced me!  But this wretched Inn,
		At Plymouth, is so full of din,
		Talkings and trampings to and fro.
		And then my ship, to which I go
		To-night, is no more home.  I dread,
		As strange, the life I long have led;
		And as, when first I went to school,
		And found the horror of a rule
		Which only ask’d to be obey’d,
		I lay and wept, of dawn afraid,
		And thought, with bursting heart, of one
		Who, from her little, wayward son,
		Required obedience, but above
		Obedience still regarded love,
		So change I that enchanting place,
		The abode of innocence and grace
		And gaiety without reproof,
		For the black gun-deck’s louring roof.
		Blind and inevitable law
		Which makes light duties burdens, awe
		Which is not reverence, laughters gain’d
		At cost of purities profaned,
		And whatsoever most may stir
		Remorseful passion towards her,
		Whom to behold is to depart
		From all defect of life and heart.
		But, Mother, I shall go on shore,
		And see my Cousin yet once more!
		’Twere wild to hope for her, you say.
		I’ve torn and cast those words away.
		Surely there’s hope!  For life ’tis well
		Love without hope’s impossible;
		So, if I love, it is that hope
		Is not outside the outer scope
		Of fancy.  You speak truth: this hour
		I must resist, or lose the power.
		What! and, when some short months are o’er,
		Be not much other than before?
		Drop from the bright and virtuous sphere
		In which I’m held but while she’s dear?
		For daily life’s dull, senseless mood,
		Slay the fine nerves of gratitude
		And sweet allegiance, which I owe
		Whether the debt be weal or woe?
		Nay, Mother, I, forewarn’d, prefer
		To want for all in wanting her.
		For all?  Love’s best is not bereft
		Ever from him to whom is left
		The trust that God will not deceive
		His creature, fashion’d to believe
		The prophecies of pure desire.
		Not loss, not death, my love shall tire.
		A mystery does my heart foretell;
		Nor do I press the oracle
		For explanations.  Leave me alone,
		And let in me love’s will be done.




V.  FROM FREDERICK


		Fashion’d by Heaven and by art
		So is she, that she makes the heart
		Ache and o’erflow with tears, that grace
		So lovely fair should have for place,
		(Deeming itself at home the while,)
		The unworthy earth!  To see her smile
		Amid this waste of pain and sin,
		As only knowing the heaven within,
		Is sweet, and does for pity stir
		Passion to be her minister:
		Wherefore last night I lay awake,
		And said, ‘Ah, Lord, for Thy love’s sake,
		Give not this darling child of Thine
		To care less reverent than mine!’
		And, as true faith was in my word,
		I trust, I trust that I was heard.
		The waves, this morning, sped to land,
		And shouted hoarse to touch the strand,
		Where Spring, that goes not out to sea,
		Lay laughing in her lovely glee;
		And, so, my life was sunlit spray
		And tumult, as, once more to-day,
		For long farewell did I draw near
		My Cousin, desperately dear.
		Faint, fierce, the truth that hope was none
		Gleam’d like the lightning in the sun;
		Yet hope I had, and joy thereof.
		The father of love is hope, (though love
		Lives orphan’d on, when hope is dead,)
		And, out of my immediate dread
		And crisis of the coming hour,
		Did hope itself draw sudden power.
		So the still brooding storm, in Spring,
		Makes all the birds begin to sing.
		Mother, your foresight did not err:
		I’ve lost the world, and not won her.
		And yet, ah, laugh not, when you think
		What cup of life I sought to drink!
		The bold, said I, have climb’d to bliss
		Absurd, impossible, as this,
		With nought to help them but so great
		A heart it fascinates their fate.
		If ever Heaven heard man’s desire,
		Mine, being made of altar-fire,
		Must come to pass, and it will be
		That she will wait, when she shall see.
		This evening, how I go to get,
		By means unknown, I know not yet
		Quite what, but ground whereon to stand,
		And plead more plainly for her hand!
		And so I raved, and cast in hope
		A superstitious horoscope!
		And still, though something in her face
		Portended ‘No!’ with such a grace
		It burthen’d me with thankfulness,
		Nothing was credible but ‘Yes.’
		Therefore, through time’s close pressure bold,
		I praised myself, and boastful told
		My deeds at Acre; strain’d the chance
		I had of honour and advance
		In war to come; and would not see
		Sad silence meant, ‘What’s this to me?’
		When half my precious hour was gone,
		She rose to meet a Mr. Vaughan;
		And, as the image of the moon
		Breaks up, within some still lagoon
		That feels the soft wind suddenly,
		Or tide fresh flowing from the sea,
		And turns to giddy flames that go
		Over the water to and fro,
		Thus, when he took her hand to-night,
		Her lovely gravity of light
		Was scatter’d into many smiles
		And flatting weakness.  Hope beguiles
		No more my heart, dear Mother.  He,
		By jealous looks, o’erhonour’d me.
		With nought to do, and fondly fain
		To hear her singing once again,
		I stay’d, and turn’d her music o’er;
		Then came she with me to the door.
		‘Dearest Honoria,’ I said,
		(By my despair familiar made,)
		‘Heaven bless you!’  Oh, to have back then stepp’d
		And fallen upon her neck, and wept,
		And said, ‘My friend, I owe you all
		I am, and have, and hope for.  Call
		For some poor service; let me prove
		To you, or him here whom you love,
		My duty.  Any solemn task,
		For life’s whole course, is all I ask!’
		Then she must surely have wept too,
		And said, ‘My friend, what can you do!’
		And I should have replied, ‘I’ll pray
		‘For you and him three times a-day,
		And, all day, morning, noon, and night,
		My life shall be so high and right
		That never Saint yet scaled the stairs
		Of heaven with more availing prayers!’
		But this (and, as good God shall bless
		Somehow my end, I’ll do no less,)
		I had no right to speak.  Oh, shame,
		So rich a love, so poor a claim!
		My Mother, now my only friend,
		Farewell.  The school-books which you send
		I shall not want, and so return.
		Give them away, or sell, or burn.
		I’ll write from Malta.  Would I might
		But be your little Child to-night,
		And feel your arms about me fold,
		Against this loneliness and cold!




VI.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM


		The folly of young girls!  They doff
		Their pride to smooth success, and scoff
		At far more noble fire and might
		That woo them from the dust of fight
		But, Frederick, now the storm is past,
		Your sky should not remain o’ercast.
		A sea-life’s dull, and, oh, beware
		Of nourishing, for zest, despair.
		My Child, remember, you have twice
		Heartily loved; then why not thrice,
		Or ten times?  But a wise man shuns
		To cry ‘All’s over,’ more than once.
		I’ll not say that a young man’s soul
		Is scarcely measure of the whole
		Earthly and Heavenly universe,
		To which he inveterately prefers
		The one beloved woman.  Best
		Speak to the senses’ interest,
		Which brooks no mystery nor delay:
		Frankly reflect, my Son, and say,
		Was there no secret hour, of those
		Pass’d at her side in Sarum Close,
		When, to your spirit’s sick alarm,
		It seem’d that all her marvellous charm
		Was marvellously fled?  Her grace
		Of voice, adornment, movement, face
		Was what already heart and eye
		Had ponder’d to satiety;
		Amid so the good of life was o’er,
		Until some laugh not heard before,
		Some novel fashion in her hair,
		Or style of putting back her chair,
		Restored the heavens.  Gather thence
		The loss-consoling inference.
		Yet blame not beauty, which beguiles,
		With lovely motions and sweet smiles,
		Which while they please us pass away,
		The spirit to lofty thoughts that stay
		And lift the whole of after-life,
		Unless you take the vision to wife,
		Which then seems lost, or serves to slake
		Desire, as when a lovely lake
		Far off scarce fills the exulting eye
		Of one athirst, who comes thereby,
		And inappreciably sips
		The deep, with disappointed lips.
		To fail is sorrow, yet confess
		That love pays dearly for success!
		No blame to beauty!  Let’s complain
		Of the heart, which can so ill sustain
		Delight.  Our griefs declare our fall,
		But how much more our joys!  They pall
		With plucking, and celestial mirth
		Can find no footing on the earth,
		More than the bird of paradise,
		Which only lives the while it flies.
		Think, also, how ’twould suit your pride
		To have this woman for a bride.
		Whate’er her faults, she’s one of those
		To whom the world’s last polish owes
		A novel grace, which all who aspire
		To courtliest custom must acquire.
		The world’s the sphere she’s made to charm,
		Which you have shunn’d as if ’twere harm.
		Oh, law perverse, that loneliness
		Breeds love, society success!
		Though young, ’twere now o’er late in life
		To train yourself for such a wife;
		So she would suit herself to you,
		As women, when they marry, do.
		For, since ’tis for our dignity
		Our lords should sit like lords on high,
		We willingly deteriorate
		To a step below our rulers’ state;
		And ’tis the commonest of things
		To see an angel, gay with wings,
		Lean weakly on a mortal’s arm!
		Honoria would put off the charm
		Of lofty grace that caught your love,
		For fear you should not seem above
		Herself in fashion and degree,
		As in true merit.  Thus, you see,
		’Twere little kindness, wisdom none,
		To light your cot with such a sun.




VII.  FROM FREDERICK


		Write not, my Mother, her dear name
		With the least word or hint of blame.
		Who else shall discommend her choice,
		I giving it my hearty voice?
		Wed me?  Ah, never near her come
		The knowledge of the narrow home!
		Far fly from her dear face, that shows
		The sunshine lovelier than the rose,
		The sordid gravity they wear
		Who poverty’s base burthen bear!
		(And all are poor who come to miss
		Their custom, though a crown be this.)
		My hope was, that the wheels of fate,
		For my exceeding need, might wait,
		And she, unseen amidst all eyes,
		Move sightless, till I sought the prize,
		With honour, in an equal field.
		But then came Vaughan, to whom I yield
		With grace as much as any man,
		In such cause, to another can.
		Had she been mine, it seems to me
		That I had that integrity
		And only joy in her delight—
		But each is his own favourite
		In love!  The thought to bring me rest
		Is that of us she takes the best.
		’Twas but to see him to be sure
		That choice for her remain’d no more!
		His brow, so gaily clear of craft;
		His wit, the timely truth that laugh’d
		To find itself so well express’d;
		His words, abundant yet the best;
		His spirit, of such handsome show
		You mark’d not that his looks were so;
		His bearing, prospects, birth, all these
		Might well, with small suit, greatly please;
		How greatly, when she saw arise
		The reflex sweetness of her eyes
		In his, and every breath defer
		Humbly its bated life to her;
		Whilst power and kindness of command.
		Which women can no more withstand
		Than we their grace, were still unquell’d,
		And force and flattery both compell’d
		Her softness!  Say I’m worthy.  I
		Grew, in her presence, cold and shy.
		It awed me, as an angel’s might
		In raiment of reproachful light.
		Her gay looks told my sombre mood
		That what’s not happy is not good;
		And, just because ’twas life to please,
		Death to repel her, truth and ease
		Deserted me; I strove to talk,
		And stammer’d foolishness; my walk
		Was like a drunkard’s; if she took
		My arm, it stiffen’d, ached, and shook:
		A likely wooer!  Blame her not;
		Nor ever say, dear Mother, aught
		Against that perfectness which is
		My strength, as once it was my bliss.
		And do not chafe at social rules.
		Leave that to charlatans and fools.
		Clay grafts and clods conceive the rose,
		So base still fathers best.  Life owes
		Itself to bread; enough thereof
		And easy days condition love;
		And, kindly train’d, love’s roses thrive,
		No more pale, scentless petals five,
		Which moisten the considerate eye
		To see what haste they make to die,
		But heavens of colour and perfume,
		Which, month by month, renew the bloom
		Of art-born graces, when the year
		In all the natural grove is sere.
		Blame nought then!  Bright let be the air
		About my lonely cloud of care.




VIII.  FROM FREDERICK


		Religion, duty, books, work, friends,—
		’Tis good advice, but there it ends.
		I’m sick for what these have not got.
		Send no more books: they help me not;
		I do my work: the void’s there still
		Which carefullest duty cannot fill.
		What though the inaugural hour of right
		Comes ever with a keen delight?
		Little relieves the labour’s heat;
		Disgust oft crowns it when complete;
		And life, in fact, is not less dull
		For being very dutiful.
		‘The stately homes of England,’ lo,
		‘How beautiful they stand!’  They owe
		How much to nameless things like me
		Their beauty of security!
		But who can long a low toil mend
		By looking to a lofty end?
		And let me, since ’tis truth, confess
		The void’s not fill’d by godliness.
		God is a tower without a stair,
		And His perfection, love’s despair.
		’Tis He shall judge me when I die;
		He suckles with the hissing fly
		The spider; gazes calmly down.
		Whilst rapine grips the helpless town.
		His vast love holds all this and more.
		In consternation I adore.
		Nor can I ease this aching gulf
		With friends, the pictures of myself.
		Then marvel not that I recur
		From each and all of these to her.
		For more of heaven than her have I
		No sensitive capacity.
		Had I but her, ah, what the gain
		Of owning aught but that domain!
		Nay, heaven’s extent, however much,
		Cannot be more than many such;
		And, she being mine, should God to me
		Say ‘Lo! my Child, I give to thee
		‘All heaven besides,’ what could I then,
		But, as a child, to Him complain
		That whereas my dear Father gave
		A little space for me to have
		In His great garden, now, o’erblest,
		I’ve that, indeed, but all the rest,
		Which, somehow, makes it seem I’ve got
		All but my only cared-for plot.
		Enough was that for my weak hand
		To tend, my heart to understand.
		Oh, the sick fact, ’twixt her and me
		There’s naught, and half a world of sea.




IX.  FROM FREDERICK


		In two, in less than two hours more
		I set my foot on English shore,
		Two years untrod, and, strange to tell,
		Nigh miss’d through last night’s storm!  There fell
		A man from the shrouds, that roar’d to quench
		Even the billows’ blast and drench.
		Besides me none was near to mark
		His loud cry in the louder dark,
		Dark, save when lightning show’d the deeps
		Standing about in stony heaps.
		No time for choice!  A rope; a flash
		That flamed as he rose; a dizzy splash;
		A strange, inopportune delight
		Of mounting with the billowy might,
		And falling, with a thrill again
		Of pleasure shot from feet to brain;
		And both paced deck, ere any knew
		Our peril.  Round us press’d the crew,
		With wonder in the eyes of most.
		As if the man who had loved and lost
		Honoria dared no more than that!
		My days have else been stale and flat.
		This life’s at best, if justly scann’d,
		A tedious walk by the other’s strand,
		With, here and there cast up, a piece
		Of coral or of ambergris,
		Which, boasted of abroad, we ignore
		The burden of the barren shore.
		I seldom write, for ’twould be still
		Of how the nerves refuse to thrill;
		How, throughout doubly-darken’d days,
		I cannot recollect her face;
		How to my heart her name to tell
		Is beating on a broken bell;
		And, to fill up the abhorrent gulf,
		Scarce loving her, I hate myself.
		Yet, latterly, with strange delight,
		Rich tides have risen in the night,
		And sweet dreams chased the fancies dense
		Of waking life’s dull somnolence.
		I see her as I knew her, grace
		Already glory in her face;
		I move about, I cannot rest,
		For the proud brain and joyful breast
		I have of her.  Or else I float,
		The pilot of an idle boat,
		Alone, alone with sky and sea,
		And her, the third simplicity.
		Or Mildred, to some question, cries,
		(Her merry meaning in her eyes,)
		‘The Ball, oh, Frederick will go;
		Honoria will be there! and, lo,
		As moisture sweet my seeing blurs
		To hear my name so link’d with hers,
		A mirror joins, by guilty chance,
		Either’s averted, watchful glance!
		Or with me, in the Ball-Room’s blaze,
		Her brilliant mildness threads the maze;
		Our thoughts are lovely, and each word
		Is music in the music heard,
		And all things seem but parts to be
		Of one persistent harmony,
		By which I’m made divinely bold;
		The secret, which she knows, is told;
		And, laughing with a lofty bliss
		Of innocent accord, we kiss:
		About her neck my pleasure weeps;
		Against my lip the silk vein leaps;
		Then says an Angel, ‘Day or night,
		If yours you seek, not her delight,
		Although by some strange witchery
		It seems you kiss her, ’tis not she;
		But, whilst you languish at the side
		Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride,
		Surely a dragon and strong tower
		Guard the true lady in her bower.’
		And I say, ‘Dear my Lord.  Amen!’
		And the true lady kiss again.
		Or else some wasteful malady
		Devours her shape and dims her eye;
		No charms are left, where all were rife,
		Except her voice, which is her life,
		Wherewith she, for her foolish fear,
		Says trembling, ‘Do you love me.  Dear?’
		And I reply, ‘Sweetest, I vow
		I never loved but half till now.’
		She turns her face to the wall at this,
		And says, ‘Go, Love, ’tis too much bliss.’
		And then a sudden pulse is sent
		About the sounding firmament
		In smitings as of silver bars;
		The bright disorder of the stars
		Is solved by music; far and near,
		Through infinite distinctions clear,
		Their twofold voices’ deeper tone
		Utters the Name which all things own,
		And each ecstatic treble dwells
		On one whereof none other tells;
		And we, sublimed to song and fire,
		Take order in the wheeling quire,
		Till from the throbbing sphere I start,
		Waked by the heaving of my heart.
		Such dreams as these come night by night,
		Disturbing day with their delight.
		Portend they nothing?  Who can tell!’
		God yet may do some miracle.
		’Tis nigh two years, and she’s not wed,
		Or you would know!  He may be dead,
		Or mad, and loving some one else,
		And she, much moved that nothing quells
		My constancy, or, simply wroth
		With such a wretch, accept my troth
		To spite him; or her beauty’s gone,
		(And that’s my dream!) and this man Vaughan
		Takes her release: or tongues malign,
		Confusing every ear but mine,
		Have smirch’d her: ah, ’twould move her, sure,
		To find I loved her all the more!
		Nay, now I think, haply amiss
		I read her words and looks, and his,
		That night!  Did not his jealousy
		Show—Good my God, and can it be
		That I, a modest fool, all blest,
		Nothing of such a heaven guess’d?
		Oh, chance too frail, yet frantic sweet,
		To-morrow sees me at her feet!
		Yonder, at last, the glad sea roars
		Along the sacred English shores!
		There lies the lovely land I know,
		Where men and women lordliest grow;
		There peep the roofs where more than kings
		Postpone state cares to country things,
		And many a gay queen simply tends
		The babes on whom the world depends;
		There curls the wanton cottage smoke
		Of him that drives but bears no yoke;
		There laughs the realm where low and high
		Are lieges to society,
		And life has all too wide a scope,
		Too free a prospect for its hope,
		For any private good or ill,
		Except dishonour, quite to fill! [1 - Written in 1856.]

		—Mother, since this was penn’d, I’ve read
		That ‘Mr. Vaughan, on Tuesday, wed
		The beautiful Miss Churchill.’  So
		That’s over; and to-morrow I go
		To take up my new post on board
		The Wolf, my peace at last restored;
		My lonely faith, like heart-of-oak,
		Shock-season’d.  Grief is now the cloak
		I clasp about me to prevent
		The deadly chill of a content
		With any near or distant good,
		Except the exact beatitude
		Which love has shown to my desire.
		Talk not of ‘other joys and higher,’
		I hate and disavow all bliss
		As none for me which is not this.
		Think not I blasphemously cope
		With God’s decrees, and cast off hope.
		How, when, and where can mine succeed?

		I’ll trust He knows who made my need.
		Baseness of men!  Pursuit being o’er,
		Doubtless her Husband feels no more
		The heaven of heavens of such a Bride,
		But, lounging, lets her please his pride
		With fondness, guerdons her caress
		With little names, and turns a tress
		Round idle fingers.  If ’tis so,
		Why then I’m happier of the two!
		Better, for lofty loss, high pain,
		Than low content with lofty gain.
		Poor, foolish Dove, to trust from me
		Her happiness and dignity!




X.  FROM FREDERICK


		I thought the worst had brought me balm:
		’Twas but the tempest’s central calm.
		Vague sinkings of the heart aver
		That dreadful wrong is come to her,
		And o’er this dream I brood and dote,
		And learn its agonies by rote.
		As if I loved it, early and late
		I make familiar with my fate,
		And feed, with fascinated will,
		On very dregs of finish’d ill.
		I think, she’s near him now, alone,
		With wardship and protection none;
		Alone, perhaps, in the hindering stress
		Of airs that clasp him with her dress,
		They wander whispering by the wave;
		And haply now, in some sea-cave,
		Where the ribb’d sand is rarely trod,
		They laugh, they kiss, Oh, God! oh, God!
		There comes a smile acutely sweet
		Out of the picturing dark; I meet
		The ancient frankness of her gaze,
		That soft and heart-surprising blaze
		Of great goodwill and innocence.
		And perfect joy proceeding thence!
		Ah! made for earth’s delight, yet such
		The mid-sea air’s too gross to touch.
		At thought of which, the soul in me
		Is as the bird that bites a bee,
		And darts abroad on frantic wing,
		Tasting the honey and the sting;
		And, moaning where all round me sleep
		Amidst the moaning of the deep,
		I start at midnight from my bed—
		And have no right to strike him dead.
		What world is this that I am in,
		Where chance turns sanctity to sin!
		’Tis crime henceforward to desire
		The only good; the sacred fire
		That sunn’d the universe is hell!
		I hear a Voice which argues well:
		‘The Heaven hard has scorn’d your cry;
		Fall down and worship me, and I
		Will give you peace; go and profane
		This pangful love, so pure, so vain.
		And thereby win forgetfulness
		And pardon of the spirit’s excess,
		Which soar’d too nigh that jealous Heaven
		Ever, save thus, to be forgiven.
		No Gospel has come down that cures
		With better gain a loss like yours.
		Be pious!  Give the beggar pelf,
		And love your neighbour as yourself!
		You, who yet love, though all is o’er,
		And she’ll ne’er be your neighbour more,
		With soul which can in pity smile
		That aught with such a measure vile
		As self should be at all named “love!”
		Your sanctity the priests reprove;
		Your case of grief they wholly miss;
		The Man of Sorrows names not this.
		The years, they say, graft love divine
		On the lopp’d stock of love like thine;
		The wild tree dies not, but converts.
		So be it; but the lopping hurts,
		The graft takes tardily!  Men stanch
		Meantime with earth the bleeding branch.
		There’s nothing heals one woman’s loss,
		And lightens life’s eternal cross
		With intermission of sound rest,
		Like lying in another’s breast.
		The cure is, to your thinking, low!
		Is not life all, henceforward, so?’
		Ill Voice, at least thou calm’st my mood:
		I’ll sleep!  But, as I thus conclude,
		The intrusions of her grace dispel
		The comfortable glooms of hell.
		A wonder!  Ere these lines were dried,
		Vaughan and my Love, his three-days’ Bride,
		Became my guests.  I look’d, and, lo,
		In beauty soft as is the snow
		And powerful as the avalanche,
		She lit the deck.  The Heav’n-sent chance!
		She smiled, surprised.  They came to see
		The ship, not thinking to meet me.
		At infinite distance she’s my day:
		What then to him?  Howbeit they say
		’Tis not so sunny in the sun
		But men might live cool lives thereon!
		All’s well; for I have seen arise
		That reflex sweetness of her eyes
		In his, and watch’d his breath defer
		Humbly its bated life to her,
		His wife.  My Love, she’s safe in his
		Devotion!  What ask’d I but this?
		They bade adieu; I saw them go
		Across the sea; and now I know
		The ultimate hope I rested on,
		The hope beyond the grave, is gone,
		The hope that, in the heavens high,
		At last it should appear that I
		Loved most, and so, by claim divine,
		Should have her, in the heavens, for mine,
		According to such nuptial sort
		As may subsist in the holy court,
		Where, if there are all kinds of joys
		To exhaust the multitude of choice
		In many mansions, then there are
		Loves personal and particular,
		Conspicuous in the glorious sky
		Of universal charity,
		As Phosphor in the sunrise.  Now
		I’ve seen them, I believe their vow
		Immortal; and the dreadful thought,
		That he less honour’d than he ought
		Her sanctity, is laid to rest,
		And blessing them I too am blest.
		My goodwill, as a springing air,
		Unclouds a beauty in despair;
		I stand beneath the sky’s pure cope
		Unburthen’d even by a hope;
		And peace unspeakable, a joy
		Which hope would deaden and destroy,
		Like sunshine fills the airy gulf
		Left by the vanishing of self.
		That I have known her; that she moves
		Somewhere all-graceful; that she loves,
		And is belov’d, and that she’s so
		Most happy, and to heaven will go,
		Where I may meet with her, (yet this
		I count but accidental bliss,)
		And that the full, celestial weal
		Of all shall sensitively feel
		The partnership and work of each,
		And thus my love and labour reach
		Her region, there the more to bless
		Her last, consummate happiness,
		Is guerdon up to the degree
		Of that alone true loyalty
		Which, sacrificing, is not nice
		About the terms of sacrifice,
		But offers all, with smiles that say,
		’Tis little, but it is for aye!




XI.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM


		You wanted her, my Son, for wife,
		With the fierce need of life in life.
		That nobler passion of an hour
		Was rather prophecy than power;
		And nature, from such stress unbent,
		Recurs to deep discouragement.
		Trust not such peace yet; easy breath,
		In hot diseases, argues death;
		And tastelessness within the mouth
		Worse fever shows than heat or drouth.
		Wherefore take, Frederick, timely fear
		Against a different danger near:
		Wed not one woman, oh, my Child,
		Because another has not smiled!
		Oft, with a disappointed man,
		The first who cares to win him can;
		For, after love’s heroic strain,
		Which tired the heart and brought no gain.
		He feels consoled, relieved, and eased
		To meet with her who can be pleased
		To proffer kindness, amid compute
		His acquiescence for pursuit;
		Who troubles not his lonely mood;
		And asks for love mere gratitude.
		Ah, desperate folly!  Yet, we know,
		Who wed through love wed mostly so.
		At least, my Son, when wed you do,
		See that the woman equals you,
		Nor rush, from having loved too high,
		Into a worse humility.
		A poor estate’s a foolish plea
		For marrying to a base degree.
		A woman grown cannot be train’d,
		Or, if she could, no love were gain’d;
		For, never was a man’s heart caught
		By graces he himself had taught.
		And fancy not ’tis in the might
		Of man to do without delight;
		For, should you in her nothing find
		To exhilarate the higher mind,
		Your soul would deaden useless wings
		With wickedness of lawful things,
		And vampire pleasure swift destroy
		Even the memory of joy.
		So let no man, in desperate mood,
		Wed a dull girl because she’s good.
		All virtues in his wife soon dim,
		Except the power of pleasing him,
		Which may small virtue be, or none!
		I know my just and tender Son,
		To whom the dangerous grace is given
		That scorns a good which is not heaven;
		My Child, who used to sit and sigh
		Under the bright, ideal sky,
		And pass, to spare the farmer’s wheat,
		The poppy and the meadow-sweet!
		He would not let his wife’s heart ache
		For what was mainly his mistake;
		But, having err’d so, all his force
		Would fix upon the hard, right course.
		She’s graceless, say, yet good and true,
		And therefore inly fair, and, through
		The veils which inward beauty fold,
		Faith can her loveliness behold.
		Ah, that’s soon tired; faith falls away
		Without the ceremonial stay
		Of outward loveliness and awe.
		The weightier matters of the law
		She pays: mere mint and cumin not;
		And, in the road that she was taught,
		She treads, and takes for granted still
		Nature’s immedicable ill;
		So never wears within her eyes
		A false report of paradise,
		Nor ever modulates her mirth
		With vain compassion of the earth,
		Which made a certain happier face
		Affecting, and a gayer grace
		With pathos delicately edged!
		Yet, though she be not privileged
		To unlock for you your heart’s delight,
		(Her keys being gold, but not the right,)
		On lower levels she may do!
		Her joy is more in loving you
		Than being loved, and she commands
		All tenderness she understands.
		It is but when you proffer more
		The yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore.
		It’s weary work enforcing love
		On one who has enough thereof,
		And honour on the lowlihead
		Of ignorance!  Besides, you dread,
		In Leah’s arms, to meet the eyes
		Of Rachel, somewhere in the skies,
		And both return, alike relieved,
		To life less loftily conceived.
		Alas, alas!
		Then wait the mood
		In which a woman may be woo’d
		Whose thoughts and habits are too high
		For honour to be flattery,
		And who would surely not allow
		The suit that you could proffer now.
		Her equal yoke would sit with ease;
		It might, with wearing, even please,
		(Not with a better word to move
		The loyal wrath of present love);
		She would not mope when you were gay,
		For want of knowing aught to say;
		Nor vex you with unhandsome waste
		Of thoughts ill-timed and words ill-placed;
		Nor reckon small things duties small,
		And your fine sense fantastical;
		Nor would she bring you up a brood
		Of strangers bound to you by blood,
		Boys of a meaner moral race,
		Girls with their mother’s evil grace.
		But not her chance to sometimes find
		Her critic past his judgment kind;
		Nor, unaccustom’d to respect,
		Which men, where ’tis not claim’d, neglect,




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notes



1


Written in 1856.


