M 
 
 ODERN LOVE BY 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 
 E. CAVAZZA 
 
TH€ 
 UNIY€RSITY Of CALlfORNlfl 
 LIBRARY 
 
 lOn'MLL7!r\HRMeS| 
 
• 
 
MODERN LOVE 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 
NOTE. It may be interesting to lecall the date of the 
 volume of Meredith's verse, which includes Modern Love. 
 It was published in 1862, four years after William Morris' 
 Defence of Guenevere, and one year later than Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti's translations from the Early Italian Poets, and 
 Algernon C. Swinburne's Queen Mother and Rosamond — 
 three names which are of morning stars of modern poetry 
 singing together with voices harmonious, yet distinct, 
 raining their influence upon the entire art of contemporary 
 verse. 
 
Only Fifty copies of this Large Paper Edition 
 {Post 4to.) have been printed, ten of which are 
 on Japan vellum, and forty on Van Gelder''s 
 hand-made paper. Each copy numbered, and the 
 type distributed. 
 
 No.iJ 
 
M 
 
 ODERN LOVE BY 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 
 WITH FOREWORD BY 
 E. CAVAZZA 
 
 PRINTED FOR THOMAS B. MOSHER AND 
 & PUBLISHED BY HIM AT 37 EXCHANGE 
 STREET PORTLAND MAINE MDCCCXCI 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 397178 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 IN these times which rear temples of praise, 
 adorned with intricate carven work of com- 
 ment, to Robert Browning, George Meredith also 
 may well claim here and there a wayside shrine. 
 He has, indeed, a group of worshipers, who make 
 up in fervor what they lack in number ; and these 
 celebrate the master in accents frequently bor- 
 rowed from his own, chanting what a corypheus 
 of theirs, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, has cleverly 
 called the Meredithyrambic. It is possible, how- 
 ever, that for the purpose of commending to the 
 general reader one of Mr. Meredith's most sig- 
 nificant and artistic works — the cycle of sonnets 
 called Modem Love — there may not be needed 
 the utterances of a ministrant deeply initiate, but 
 rather the appreciations of one who, listening to 
 the general choir of poets, hears in the voice of 
 Meredith a powerful and unique tone. 
 I 
 
It is chiefly due to the vast bulk and the diffi- 
 cult idiom of his novels that these have been se^ 
 tardy of acceptance with the public ; a measure 
 of condescension toward the common uses of the 
 English language ought not to be impossible to 
 him ; and there is much excuse for those persons 
 who fail to find the time remunerative which is 
 spent in seeking to follow the superabundant 
 metaphor and suggestion of Mr. Meredith's work, 
 continually taxing the intellect and the mental 
 agility of the reader. Sometimes this author's 
 recognition of the value of every fact delays him 
 disproportionately upon trifles ; he retouches the 
 record of an impression, lingeringly, minutely, as 
 if for his own pleasure of extreme analysis. But 
 he is a genius and a giant, a far-searching and 
 wholesome philosopher, one of the few fire- 
 bringers of a tentative age. A reason why he has 
 not shared the popular honors paid to Browning 
 may be that their ideals — parallel in adoration of 
 nature and its laws — diverge when they come to 
 the question of the aim of human life. Meredith 
 has for guide the love of law ; Browning's faith 
 
 V 
 
was in the law of love. In existence, with all its 
 good and its evil, Browning beheld only a series 
 of opportunities to learn the divine art of love 
 which, to his mind, appeared the fulfilling, even 
 when the apparent negation of every law. Mere- 
 dith's goddess, on the contrary, is Reason. It 
 cannot be denied that he sometimes celebrates 
 her in a verbal anarchy, which recalls her worship 
 in the days of the French revolution ! To her he 
 is vowed ; for him, her hands alone divide the 
 material of life between tragedy and comedy. 
 Yet if we pursue the thought of the two poets, 
 they are seen to unite in an impassioned belief 
 in the final good and the unquenchable life of 
 the soul. 
 
 Sentimentality that would close its eyes to un- 
 comfortable facts, that dares not follow every 
 least hint of nature to its final analysis, is the 
 continual object of Mr. Meredith's solemn warn- 
 ing and bitter contempt. "More brain, more 
 brain !" is his reiterate cry. He is profoundly 
 impressed with the changes which are the systole 
 III 
 
and diastole of the heart of nature and would 
 have men unafraid, conformable : 
 
 Faith in ourselves is faith in Time ! 
 And faith in nature keeps the force 
 We have in us for daily use . . . 
 Teach me to fee! myself the tree 
 And not the wither'd leaf. 
 Fixed am I and await the dark to be. 
 
 It is with utterances like this, that he confirms 
 the faith in ultimate things. Reason and nature 
 form the principle of Meredith's philosophy as 
 exemplified in his novels — of which there is no 
 occasion here to speak in detail — and inspire 
 also his Modern Love. This " great progres- 
 sional poem," as Mr. Swinburne has called it, 
 connected " by links of the finest and most 
 studied workmanship," ought by virtue of its 
 essential qualities to remain the perdurable ex- 
 ample of its author's poetry. If time, even, that 
 must load itself lightly as may be for its flight, 
 should carry down to the future centuries only 
 this of all Meredith's work, the author would not 
 have cause to complain of misrepresentation. 
 Modern Love is the compact expression of his 
 theory ; it is constructed with most careful art ; 
 
the sonnets which compose its sequence are like 
 so many pictures by a master of the impres- 
 sionist school. Precisely here may be noted a 
 certain relation of Mr. Meredith's work to that of 
 his contemporaries in other branches of art : He 
 is not content to use only the means commonly 
 allotted to his own department, but also imports 
 forcibly material and methods from the neigh- 
 boring fields. It is not at all certain, however, 
 that the curse of art falls upon him who removes 
 the landmarks ! To speak now exclusively of the 
 cycle of poems named Modern Love, it must first 
 be admitted that although they have the value 
 of sonnets and Mr. Swinburne himself, close 
 craftsman of poetic form, has not withheld from 
 them that title — they are, in fact, a half-hundred 
 strophes composed of four quatrains, the first 
 line rhymed with the fourth and the second and 
 third together. But the spirit is entirely that of 
 the sonnet : each strophe presenting a sole pic- 
 ture, with a certain reenforcement of its purpose 
 in the final sestet. The subject of this tragedy in 
 fifty brief scenes, largely imagined and forcibly 
 
compressed, is the story of the wedded misery of 
 two persons, whose natures were finely strung 
 instruments for fate to play upon. The senti- 
 mentality of the feminine mind, that feeds on il- 
 lusions and fears development as it fears death ; 
 the man's intellect that cannot trust nature, but 
 will question and analyze ; both of them recal- 
 citrant against change, are the motives of this sub- 
 dramatic study. The sonnets are so subtle and 
 charged with secondary and often vague mean- 
 ings, which are rather the stimulus to thought 
 than its articulate expression, that a precise in- 
 terpretation is hardly to be attempted. A few 
 general outlines may be a sufficient guide to the 
 reader. 
 
 The tragedy begins amid the silent solemnity 
 of the night, when the wakeful husband is con- 
 scious of the " strange low sobs " of the wife at 
 his side. His quivering hand near her head 
 questions her mutely; her only reply is to silence 
 her sobs. Imperfect demand and pathetic dumb- 
 ness remain thus to baffle each other from first 
 to last. The husband is aware that his wife loves 
 
him no longer, that she is even wooed by 
 another man. "Each suck'd a secret and each 
 wore a mask," and he — for it is the husband's 
 mind that is the stage for this drama — beholds 
 her as a lurid star gleaming above the pit of 
 infamy, and instantly hates himself for his anger. 
 He cannot even despise his rival, for the rich 
 light of her eyes is upon this lover and distin- 
 guishes him "leaving dark all else." The hus- 
 band, by a fine scruple, is withheld from a kiss 
 upon the brow of his wife, lest he meet there 
 that other. For him, to whom she is bound by 
 a vow become empty, she is now 
 
 .... A phantom-woman in the Past. 
 The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell ! 
 
 He does not even know, that he might blame, 
 the moment when she was lost to him, lost more 
 irredeemably than if her fault were more flagrant. 
 
 The misery is greater, as I live ! 
 To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense 
 That she does penance now for no offence 
 Save against Love. 
 
 " It is no vulgar nature " that he has taken to 
 wife ; her fault and her remorse are alike intan- 
 
gible. Her familiar beauty, " her shoulder in the 
 glass," tempts him with the illusion that nothing 
 is changed, that all remains as it was for him. 
 While they sit by the fireside, " she laughing at a 
 quiet joke," horrible reiterations of suffering and 
 shame are in his mind as he watches her ; and 
 though he will not, even in thought, defame her, 
 her adornments appear to him a meretricious ap- 
 peal to the eye. It is not he alone who struggles^ 
 his doubts and her silence are equally uncon- 
 querable ; without her, he feels himself more and 
 more the clay which he strives to master. What 
 was his crime ? 
 
 .... In Love's deep woods 
 I dreamt of loyal Life : — the offence is there ! 
 
 If he could have renounced the world and its 
 facts, been content to dwell amid a fairy forest 
 of illusions, she might still have been his. Here 
 the poet makes a severe arraignment of women, 
 whose timid conservatism and reliance on the 
 senses he has noted in his prose : "Alas for us," 
 he has said, " This, our awful baggage in the rear 
 of humanity, these women . . . perpetually 
 pulling us backward on the march." 
 
The husband, looking to life's westward, per- 
 ceives that his wife has killed his future, taken 
 away the joy of the present, mixed even the past 
 with illusion. Yet he will live his entire life, 
 dares not cancel even one day of its course. 
 Next, he looks upon a gold-haired lady, and 
 learns what he later finds within himself, that 
 without love it is possible to be jealous. It is a 
 modern Othello, with no harmfulness against the 
 life of the body, who — in the superb fourteenth 
 sonnet — creeps to the bedside of his wife, to 
 awaken her to the sight of love letters written by 
 her, but to a new address. 
 
 The world still views them as happy host and 
 hostess. 
 Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shme ! 
 
 Rustic bumpkins, dancing on the village green, 
 inspired by beer, the born idiot " rubbing his 
 hands before him like a fly," are objects of envy 
 to this man of morbid heart and brain. A poig- 
 nant moment for husband and wife is in the 
 unconscious irony of a friend's demand for their 
 blessing upon his approaching marriage. In the 
 
twenty- second and twenty-third sonnets are beau- 
 tiful expressions of the humility and the reserve 
 of the poor woman, but pride remains the barrier 
 between these two, and will not yield. He needs 
 distraction ; and the gold-haired lady is at hand. 
 She is intelligent, charming. Love, indeed, has 
 lost all its illusions ; under the gold hair and the 
 white forehead is apparent to this man the grin 
 of the skull ; yet he is grimly content to sit beside 
 her 
 
 And eat our pot of honey on the grave. 
 His philosophy is cynical : 
 
 What are we first ? First, animals ; and next, 
 Intelligences at a leap ; on whom 
 Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, 
 And all that draweth on the tomb for text. 
 
 Lady, this is my Sonnet to your eyes. 
 
 He may say to her these evil things, for her 
 
 golden head has wit in it — precisely enough to 
 
 admire jejune philosophy, he is aware. To her 
 
 also he repeats that 
 
 .... While mind is mastering clay, 
 Gross clay invades it. 
 
 When the poor wife seeks him with the hope 
 
that speech may at last be possible between them, 
 he responds with commonplaces, the topics of the 
 day, an expected eruption of Vesuvius, news from 
 Niagara. He freezes her tongue and sense, 
 smothers the flame of her passion, checks the 
 stream of her speech, 
 
 Niagara, or Vesuvius, is deferr'd. 
 Madam and the Lady meet and confide to him 
 their mutual impressions, attacking with keen 
 rapiers of praise each other's weak points. Af- 
 terward, he argues with the Lady that the old 
 marriage-bond is past renewal, and she must let 
 him love her in order to give light to his imag- 
 ination, that otherwise must turn to clay or to 
 stone. Yet the sight of the unloved wife, who 
 touches the hand of that other man, is able to 
 change the moon to a dancing spectre before his 
 eyes. Then there is a mournful mocking sem- 
 blance of reunion, and their love is killed by their 
 kisses. By the sea, troubled and terrible, shall 
 be its grave — a scene greatly portrayed in the 
 forty-third sonnet. 
 
 We must go to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's verse, 
 
 XI 
 
or to that of the Italian poets of the trecento his 
 masters, for a sonnet-opening like the first six 
 lines of the forty-fourth sonnet, 
 
 They say that Pity in Love's service dwells, 
 with its quaint, pure outline and sweet primitive 
 color. Finally a chance meeting with her, and 
 not alone, impels the husband to declare his faith 
 in the wife. This inspired moment enlarges into 
 a timeless experience of love's power, depicted 
 in the sonnet of which Mr. Swinburne has de- 
 clared : " A more perfect piece of writing no man 
 alive has ever turned out : " 
 
 We saw the swallows gathering in the skies. 
 Of this supreme hour, an exterior image — as 
 in Rossetti's Woodspurge — remains startlingly 
 impressed : 
 
 And still I see across the twilight wave, 
 
 The swan sail with her young beneath her wings. 
 
 Rapidly upon this respite follows the original 
 arraignment of the feminine mind : 
 
 Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, 
 Destroyed by subtleties these women are ! 
 More brain, O Lord, more brain ! or we shall mar 
 Utterly this fair garden we might win. 
 
For with the first words of honest speech of 
 the man's confession, the jealous devotion of the 
 wife bids him seek that Lady. Truly masculine 
 is his judgment of this fantasy of her sentiment : 
 
 I do adore the nobleness ! despise 
 The act ! 
 
 She has left him ; let the world guess at her 
 motives, he knows them pure, even too subtly 
 strained. He follows her and finds her near the 
 sea ; and she " though shadowlike and dry," re- 
 turns with him. The midnight sees the end, ^s it 
 saw the beginning of their tragedy. 
 
 " Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now! " she said. 
 Lethe had pass'd those lips, and he knew all. 
 
 In the closing sonnet are magnificently summed 
 up the causes of the tragedy, of which the poet 
 has not given us to hear the prologue. The fault 
 of those two who suffered was in their lack of 
 trust in themselves, in each other and in time ; 
 bewildered, confused, they tried by feeble expe- 
 dients to stay the motion of their spirits. Cling- 
 ing timorously to yesterday 
 
 .... They fed not on the advancing hours, 
 
 XIII 
 
they dared not obey "Necessity's instinct, true, 
 though unsteady" (as Mr. Meredith has else- 
 where written). They repeated the ancient error 
 of Psyche, scanning the sleep of Love with a 
 lamp, from which the burning drops of doubtful- 
 ness fall, sear his white shoulder and wake him 
 to flight. 
 
 A grim lesson it is which this oversubtle and 
 analytical end of the century may read in the 
 " tragic hints" of Mr. Meredith's story of Modem 
 Love. 
 
 E. CAVAZZA. 
 
 November, 1891. 
 
MODERN LOVE 
 
This is not meat 
 For little people or for fools. 
 
 Book of the Sages. 
 
I 
 
 BY this he knew she wept with waking eyes : 
 That, at his hand's light quiver by her head. 
 The strange low sobs that shook their common bed 
 Were called into her with a sharp surprise, 
 And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, 
 Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay 
 Stone-still, and the long darkness flow'd away 
 With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes 
 Her giant heart of Memory and Tears 
 Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat 
 Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet 
 Were moveless, looking thro' their dead black years, 
 By vain regret scrawl'd over the blank wall. 
 Like sculptured effigies they might be seen 
 Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between ; 
 Each wishing for the sword that severs all. 
 
11 
 
 IT ended, and the morrow brought the task : 
 Her eyes were guilty gates that let him in 
 By shutting all too zealous for their sin : 
 Each suck'd a secret, and each wore a mask. 
 But, oh the bitter taste her beauty had ! 
 He sicken'd as at breath of poison-flowers : 
 A languid humour stole among the hours. 
 And if their smiles encounter'd, he went mad, 
 And raged, deep inward, till the light was brown 
 Before his vision, and the world forgot, 
 Look'd wicked as some old dull murder spot. 
 A star with lurid beams, she seem'd to crown 
 The pit of infamy : and then again 
 He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove 
 To ape the magnanimity of love. 
 And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain. 
 
Ill 
 
 '""T'^HIS was the woman ; what now of the man? 
 
 X But pass him ! If he comes beneath our heel 
 He shall be crush'd until he cannot feel, 
 Or, being callous, haply till he can. 
 But he is nothing : — nothing ? Only mark 
 The rich light striking from her unto him : 
 Ha ! what a sense it is when her eyes swim 
 Across the man she singles, leaving dark 
 All else ! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair, 
 See that I am drawn to her even now ! 
 It cannot be such harm on her cool brow 
 To put a kiss ? Yet if I meet him there ! 
 But she is mine ! Ah, no ! I know too well 
 I claim a star whose light is overcast : 
 I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. 
 The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell I 
 
IV • 
 
 ALL other joys of life he strove to warm, 
 And magnify, and catch them to his lip 
 But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, 
 And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. 
 Or if Delusion came, 'twas but to show 
 The coming minute mock the one that went. 
 Cold as a mountain in its star-pitch'd tent 
 Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe : 
 Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars, 
 Is always watching with a wondering hate. 
 Not till the fire is dying in the grate, 
 Look we for any kinship with the stars. 
 Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, ^ 
 And the great price we pay for it full worth. 
 We have it only when we are half earth. 
 Little avails that coinage to the old ! 
 
A message from her set his brain aflame. 
 A world of household matters fill'd her mind, 
 Wherein he saw h)rpocrisy design'd : 
 She treated him as something that is tame, 
 And but at other provocation bites. 
 Familiar was her shoulder in the glass 
 Through that dark rain : yet it may come to pass 
 That a changed eye finds such familiar sights, 
 More keenly tempting than new loveliness. 
 The ' What has been ' a moment seem'd his own : 
 The splendours, mysteries, dearer because known, 
 Nor less divine : Love's inmost sacredness, 
 Call'd to him, " Come ! " — In that restraining start, 
 Eyes nurtured to be look'd at, scarce could see 
 A wave of the great waves of Destiny 
 Convulsed at a check'd impulse of the heart. 
 
VI 
 
 IT chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. 
 She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. 
 Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die : 
 And most she punishes the tender fool 
 Who will believe what honours her the most ! 
 Dead ! is it dead ? She has a pulse, and flow 
 Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know 
 For whom the midnight sobs around Love's ghost, 
 Since then I heard her, and so will sob on. 
 The love is here ; it has but changed its aim. 
 O bitter barren woman ! what's the name ? 
 The name, the name, the new name thou hast won ? 
 Behold me striking the world's coward stroke ! 
 That will I not do, though the sting is dire. 
 — Beneath the surface this, while by the fire 
 They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke. 
 
VII 
 
 SHE issues radiant from her dressing room, 
 Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere 
 — By stirring up a lower, much I fear ! 
 How deftly that oil'd barber lays his bloom ! 
 That long-shank'd dapper Cupid with frisk'd curls, 
 Can make known women torturingly fair ; 
 The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair, 
 Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls. 
 His art can take the eyes from out my head. 
 Until I see with eyes of other men ; 
 While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, 
 And sends a spark up : — is it true we're wed ? 
 Yea ! filthiness of body is most vile. 
 But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse. 
 The former, it were not so great a curse 
 To read on the steel-mirror of her smile. 
 
VIII 
 
 YET it was plain she struggled, and that salt 
 Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. 
 
 abject worm, so queenly beautiful ! 
 
 Where came the cleft between us ? whose the fault ? 
 My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropp'd 
 As balm for any bitter wound of mine : 
 My breast will open for thee at a sign ! 
 But, no : we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopp'd : 
 The God once filled them with his mellow breath ; 
 And they were music till he flung them down, 
 Used ! used ! Hear now the discord-loving clown 
 Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death ! 
 
 1 do not know myself without thee more : 
 In this unholy battle I grow base : 
 
 If the same soul be under the same face, 
 Speak, and a taste of that old time restore ! 
 
IX 
 
 HE felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles 
 So masterfully rude, that he would grieve 
 To see the helpless delicate thing receive 
 His guardianship through certain dark defiles. 
 Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too ? 
 But still he spared her. Once : " Have you no fear ? " 
 He said : 'twas dusk ; she in his grasp ; none near. 
 She laughed : " No, surely ; am I not with you ? " 
 And uttering that soft starry ' you,' she lean'd 
 Her gentle body near him, looking up ; 
 And from her eyes, as from a poisori-cup. 
 He drank until the flittering eyelids screen'd. 
 Devilish malignant witch ! And oh, young beam 
 Of H eaven's circle-glory ! Here thy shape 
 To squeeze like an intoxicating grape — 
 I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme. 
 
BUT where began the change ; and what's my crime ? 
 The wretch condemn'd, who has not been arraign'd, 
 Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustain'd, 
 Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time? 
 I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, 
 You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods : 
 Not like hard life, of laws. In Love's deep woods 
 I dreamt of loyal Life : — the offence is there ! 
 Love's jealous woods about the sun are curl'd ; 
 At least, the sun far brighter there did beam. — 
 My crime is that, the puppet of a dream, 
 I plotted to be worthy of the world. 
 Oh, had I with my darling help'd to mince 
 The facts of life, you still had seen me go 
 With hindward feather and with forward toe, 
 Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince ! 
 
XI 
 
 OUT in the yellow meadows where the bee 
 Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, 
 And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing, 
 Are dropping like a noon-dew wander we. 
 Or is it now ? or was it then ? for now, 
 As then, the larks from running rings send showers : 
 The golden foot of May is on the flowers. 
 And friendly shadows dance upon her brow. 
 What's this, when Nature swears there is no change 
 To challenge eyesight ? Now, as then, the grace 
 Of Heaven seems holding Earth in its embrace. 
 Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange ? 
 Look, woman, in the west. There wilt thou see 
 An amber cradle near the sun's decline : 
 Within it, featured even in death divine, 
 Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee ! 
 
XII 
 
 NOT solely that the Future she destroys, 
 And the fair life which in the distance lies 
 For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies : 
 Nor that the passing hour's supporting joys 
 Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat 
 Distinction in old time, and still should breed 
 Sweet Memory, and Hope, — Earth's modest seed, 
 And Heaven's high-prompting : not that the world is flat 
 Since that soft-luring creature I embraced, 
 Among the children of Illusion went : 
 Methinks with all this loss I were content. 
 If the mad Past, on which my foot is based, 
 Were firm, or might be blotted : but the whole 
 Of life is mixed : the mocking Past must stay : 
 And if I drink oblivion of a day, 
 So shorten I the stature of my soul. 
 
XIII 
 
 " T play for Seasons ; not Eternities ! " 
 
 X Says Nature, laughing on her way. " So must 
 All those whose stake is nothing more than dust ! " 
 And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies 
 She is full sure ! Upon her dying rose 
 She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, 
 Scarce any retrospection in her eye ; 
 For she the laws of growth most deeply knows, 
 Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag ; there, an urn. 
 Pledged she herself to aught, 'twould mark her end ! 
 This lesson of our only visible friend, 
 Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn ? 
 Yes ! yes ! — but oh, our human rose is fair 
 Surpassingly ! Lose calmly Love's great bliss, 
 When the renew'd forever of a kiss 
 Sounds thro' the listless hurricane of hair ! 
 
XIV 
 
 WHAT soul would bargain for a cure that brings 
 Contempt the nobler agony to kill ? 
 Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, 
 And strike this rusty bosom with new stings ! 
 It seems there is another veering fit, 
 Since on a gold-hair'd lady's eyeballs pure, 
 I look'd with little prospect of a cure, 
 The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit. 
 Just Heaven ! can it be true that jealousy 
 Has deck'd the woman thus ? and does her head 
 Whirl giddily for what she forfeited ? 
 Madam ! you teach me many things that be. 
 I open an old book, and there I find 
 That ' Women still may love whom they deceive.* 
 Such love I prize not, Madam : by your leave, 
 The game you play at is not to my mind. 
 
XV 
 
 I think she sleeps : it must be sleep, when low 
 Hangs that abandon'd arm towards the floor : 
 The head turn'd with it. Now make fast the door. 
 Sleep on : it is your husband, not your foe ! 
 The Poet's black stage-lion of wrong'd love, 
 Frights not our modern dames : — well, if he did ! 
 Now will I pour new light upon that lid. 
 Full-sloping like the breasts beneath. " Sweet dove, 
 " Your sleep is pure. Nay, pardon : I disturb. 
 " I do not ? well ! " Her waking infant stare 
 Grows woman to the burden my hands bear : 
 Her own handwriting to me when no curb 
 Was left on Passion's tongue. She trembles thro' ; 
 A woman's tremble — ^the whole instrument : — 
 I show another letter lately sent. 
 The words are very like : the name is new. 
 
XVI 
 
 IN our old shipwreck'd days there was an hour, 
 When in the firelight steadily aglow, 
 Join'd slackly, we beheld the chasm grow 
 Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower 
 That eve was left to us : and hush'd we sat 
 As lovers to whom Time is whispering. 
 From sudden-open'd doors we heard them sing : 
 The nodding elders mix'd good wine with chat. 
 Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay 
 With us, and of it was our talk. " Ah, yes ! 
 " Love dies ! " I said : I never thought it less. 
 She yearn'd to me that sentence to unsay. 
 Then when the fire domed blackening, I found 
 Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift 
 Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift : — 
 Now am I haunted by that taste ! that sound ! 
 
XVII 
 
 AT dinner she is hostess, I am host. 
 Went the feast ever cheerfuller ? She keeps 
 The Topic over intellectual deeps 
 In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. 
 With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball : 
 It is in truth a most contagious game ; 
 Hiding the Skeleton shall be its name. 
 Such play as this the devils might appal ! 
 But here's the greater wonder ; in that we, 
 Enamour'd of our acting and our wits, 
 Admire each other like true hypocrites. 
 Warm-lighted glances, Love's Ephemerae, 
 Shoot gaily o'er the dishes and the wine. 
 We waken envy of our happy lot. 
 Fast, sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot. 
 Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine j 
 
XVIII 
 
 HERE Jack and Tom are pair'd with Moll and Meg. 
 Curved open to the river-reach is seen 
 A country merry-making on the green. 
 Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. 
 That little screwy fiddler from his booth, 
 Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints 
 Of all who caper here at various points. 
 I have known rustic revels in my youth : 
 The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. 
 An early goddess was a country lass : 
 A charm'd Amphion-oak she tripped the grass. 
 What life was that I lived ? The life of these ? 
 God keep them happy ! Nature they are near. 
 They must, I think, be wiser than I am : 
 They have the secret of the bull and lamb. 
 'Tis true that when we trace its source, 'tis beer. 
 
XIX 
 
 No state is enviable. To the luck alone 
 Of some few favour'd men I would put claim. 
 I bleed, but she who wounds I will not blame. 
 Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own, 
 Beat thro' me ? could I hurt her ? Heaven and Hell ! 
 But I could hurt her cruelly ! Can I let 
 My Love's old time-piece to another set, 
 Swear it can't stop, and must for ever swell ? 
 Sure, that's one way Love drifts into the mart 
 Where goat-legg'd buyers throng. I see not plain : — 
 My meaning is, it must not be again. 
 Great God ! the maddest gambler throws his heart. 
 If any state be enviable on earth, 
 'Tis yon born idiot's, who, as days go by, 
 Still rubs his hands before him like a fly, 
 In a queer sort of meditative mirth. 
 
XX 
 
 I am not of those miserable males 
 Who sniff at vice, and, daring not to snap, 
 Do therefore hope for Heaven. I take the hap 
 Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails, 
 Propels ; but I am helmsman. Am I wreck'd, 
 I know the devil has sufficient weight 
 To bear : I lay it not on him, or fate. 
 Besides, he's damn'd. That man I do suspect 
 A coward, who would burden the poor deuce 
 With what ensues from his own slipperiness. 
 I have just found a wanton-scented tress 
 In an old desk, dusty for lack of use. 
 Of days and nights it is demonstrative. 
 That like a blasted star gleam luridly. 
 If for that time I must ask charity, 
 Have I not any charity to give? 
 
XXI 
 
 WE three are on the cedar-shadow'd lawn ; 
 My friend being third. He who at love once laugh'd, 
 Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft 
 Struck through and tells his passion's bashful dawn, 
 And radiant culmination, glorious crown, 
 When ' this ' she said : went ' thus : ' most wondrous she I 
 Our eyes grow white, encountering ; that we are three, 
 Forgetful ; then together we look down. 
 But he demands our blessing ; is convinced 
 That words of wedded lovers must bring good. 
 We question : if we dare ! or if we should ! 
 And pat him, with light laugh. We have not winced. 
 Next, she has fallen. Fainting points the sign 
 To happy things in wedlock. When she wakes 
 She looks the star that thro' the cedar shakes : 
 Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine. 
 
XXII 
 
 WHAT may this woman labour to confess ? 
 There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. 
 'Tis something to be told, or hidden : — which ? 
 I get a glimpse of Hell in this mild guess. 
 She has desires of touch, as if to feel 
 That all the household things are things she knew. 
 She stops before the glass. What does she view ? 
 A face that seems the latest to reveal ! 
 For she turns from it hastily, and toss'd 
 Irresolute, steals shadow-like to where 
 I stand ; and wavering pale before me there, 
 Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.. 
 She will not speak. I will not ask. We are 
 League-sunder'd by the silent gulf between. 
 You burly lovers on the village green, 
 Yours is a lower, but a happier star ! 
 
XXIII 
 
 "~r^IS Christmas weather, and a country house 
 
 X Receives us : rooms are full : we can but get 
 An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret 
 At that, it is half-said. The great carouse 
 Knocks hard upon the midnight's hollow door. 
 But when I knock at hers, I see the pit. 
 Why did I come here in that dullard fit ? 
 I enter, and lie couch'd upon the floor. 
 Passing, I caught the coverlid's quick beat : — 
 Come, Shame, bum to my soul ! and Pride, and Pain 
 Foul demons that have tortured me, sustain ! 
 Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat. 
 The small bird stiffens in the low starlight. 
 I know not how, but, shuddering as I slept, 
 I dream'd a banish'd Angel to me crept : 
 My feet were nourish'd on her breasts all night. 
 
XXIV 
 
 THE misery is greater, as I live ! 
 To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense, 
 That she does penai>ce now for no offence, 
 Save against Love, The less can I forgive ! 
 The less can I forgive, though I adore 
 That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds 
 Her footsteps ; and the low vibrating sounds 
 That come on me, as from a magic shore. 
 Low are they, but most subtle to find out 
 The shrinking soul. Madam, 'tis understood 
 When women play upon their womanhood. 
 It means, a Season gone. And yet I doubt 
 But I am duped. That nun-like look waylays > 
 My fancy. Oh ! I do but wait a sign ! 
 Pluck out the eyes of Pride ! thy mouth to mine ! 
 Never ! though I die thirsting. Go thy ways ! 
 
XXV 
 
 You like not that French novel ? Tell me why. 
 You think it most unnatural. Let us see. 
 The actors are, it seems, the usual three : 
 Husband, and wife, and lover. She — but fie ! 
 In England we'll not hear of it. Edmond, 
 The lover, her devout chagrin doth share ; 
 Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare, 
 Till his pale aspect makes her overfond : 
 So, to preclude fresh sin, he tries rosbif. 
 Meantime the husband is no more abused : 
 Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used. 
 Then hangeth all on one tremendous If : — 
 If she will choose between them ! She does choose ; 
 And takes her husband like a proper wife. 
 Unnatural ? My dear, these things are life : 
 And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse. 
 
XXVI 
 
 LOVE ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, 
 Has earth beneath his wings : from redden'd eve 
 He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave 
 The fatal web below while far he flies. 
 But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change. 
 He moves but in the track of his spent pain, 
 Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain, 
 Binding him to the ground with narrow range. 
 A subtle serpent then has Love become. 
 I had the eagle in my bosom erst. 
 Henceforward with the serpent I am curs'd. 
 I can interpret where the mouth is dumb. 
 Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth. 
 Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed : «. 
 But be no coward : — you that made Love bleed, 
 You must bear all the venom of his tooth ! 
 
\ 
 
XXVII 
 
 DISTRACTION is the panacea, Sir ! 
 I hear my Oracle of Medicine say. 
 Doctor ! that same specific yesterday 
 I tried, and the result will not deter 
 A second trial. Is the devil's line 
 Of golden hair, or raven black, composed ? 
 And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed, 
 Or fair as widow'd Heaven, seem most divine ? 
 No matter, so I taste forgetfulness. 
 And if the devil snare me, body and mind, 
 Here gratefully I score : — he seemed kind, 
 When not a soul would comfort my distress ! 
 O sweet new world in which I rise new made ! 
 O Lady, once I gave love : now I take ! 
 Lady, I must be flatter'd. Shouldst thou wake 
 The passion of a demon, be not afraid. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 I must be tlatter'd. The imperious 
 Desire speaks out. Lady, I am content 
 To play with you the game of Sentiment, 
 And with you enter on paths perilous : 
 But if across your beauty I throw light, 
 To make it threefold, it must be all mine. 
 First secret ; then avow'd. For I must shine 
 Envied, — I, lessen'd in my proper sight ! 
 Be watchful of your beauty. Lady dear ! 
 How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell. 
 Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well : 
 And men shall see me like the burning sphere : 
 And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groan 
 To be the God of such a grand sunflower ! 
 I feel the promptings of Satanic power. 
 While you do homage unto me alone. 
 
XXIX 
 
 AM I failing ? for no longer can I cast 
 A glory round about this head of gold. 
 Glory she wears, but springing from the mould : 
 Not like the consecration of the Past ! 
 Is my soul beggar'd ? Something more than earth 
 I cry for still : I cannot be at peace 
 In having Love upon a mortal lease. 
 I cannot take the woman at her worth ! 
 Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed 
 Our human nakedness, and could endow 
 With spiritual splendour a white brow 
 That else had grinn'd at me the fact I loath'd > 
 A kiss is but a kiss now ! and no wave 
 Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea. 
 But, as you will ! we'll sit contentedly. 
 And eat our pot of honey on the grave. 
 
XXX 
 
 WHAT are we first ? First, animals ; and next, 
 Intelligences at a leap ; on whom 
 Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, 
 And all that draweth on the tomb for text. 
 Into this state comes Love, the crowning sun : 
 Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. 
 We are the lords of life, and life is warm. 
 Intelligence and instinct now are one. 
 But Nature says : ' My children most they seem 
 When they least know me : therefore I decree 
 That they shall suffer.' Swift doth young Love flee : 
 And we stand waken'd, shivering from our dream. 
 Then if we study Nature we are wise. 
 Thus do the few who live but with the day. 
 The scientific animals are they. — 
 Lady, this is my Sonnet to your eyes. 
 
XXXI 
 
 THIS golden head has wit in it. I live 
 Again, and a far higher life, near her. 
 Some women like a young philosopher ; 
 Perchance because he is diminutive. 
 For woman's manly god must not exceed 
 Proportions of the natural nursing size. 
 Great poets and great sages draw no prize 
 With women : but the little lap-dog breed, 
 Who can be hugg'd, or on a mantel-piece 
 Perch'd up for adoration, these obtain 
 Her homage. And of this we men are vain ? 
 Of this ! 'Tis order'd for the world's increase ! 
 Small flattery ! Yet she has that rare gift 
 To beauty. Common Sense. I am approved. 
 It is not half so nice as being loved, 
 And yet I do prefer it. What's my drift ? 
 
XXXII 
 
 FULL faith I have she holds that rarest gift 
 To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie 
 With her fair visage an inverted sky 
 Bloom-cover'd, while the underlids uplift, 
 Would almost wreck the faith ; but when her mouth 
 (Can it kiss sweetly ? sweetly !) would address 
 The inner me that thirsts for her no less, 
 And has so long been languishing in drouth, 
 I feel that I am match'd : that I am man ! 
 One restless corner of my heart, or head, 
 That holds a dying something never dead, 
 Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can. 
 It means, that woman is not, I opine, 
 Her sex's antidote. Who seeks the asp 
 For serpents' bites ? 'Twould calm me could I clasp 
 Shrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine ! 
 
XXXIII 
 
 ^ T N Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen 
 A The sumptuously-feather'd angel pierce 
 Prone Lucifer, descending. Look'd he fierce, 
 Showing the fight a fair one ? Too serene ! 
 The young Pharsalians did not disarray 
 Less willingly their locks of floating silk : 
 That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk 
 Of stars might still be feasting through the fray. 
 Oh, Raphael ! when men the Fiend do fight. 
 They conquer not upon such easy terms. 
 Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms. 
 And does he grow half human, all is right.' 
 This to my Lady in a distant spot, 
 Upon the theme : ' While mind is mastering day, 
 Gross clay invades it.^ If the spy you play. 
 My wife, read this ! Strange love-talk, is it not ? 
 
XXXIV 
 
 MADAM would speak with me. So, now it comes : 
 The Deluge, or else Fire ! She's well ; she thanks 
 My husbandship. Our chain through silence clanks. 
 Time leers between us, twiddling his thumbs. 
 Am I quite well .'' Most excellent in health ! 
 The journals, too, I diligently peruse. 
 Vesuvius is expected to- give news : 
 Niagara is no noisier. By stealth 
 Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She's glad 
 I'm happy, says her quivering under-lip. 
 "And are not you ? " " How can I be ? " ** Take ship ! 
 " For happiness is somewhere to be had." 
 " Nowhere for me ! " Her voice is barely heard. 
 I am not melted, and make no pretence. 
 With truisms I freeze her, tongue and sense. 
 Niagara, or Vesuvius, is deferr'd. 
 
XXXV 
 
 IT is no vulgar nature I have wived. 
 Secretive, sensitive, she takes a wound 
 Deep to her soul, as if the sense had swoon'd, 
 And not a thought of vengeance had survived. 
 No confidences has she : but relief 
 Must come to one whose suffering is acute. 
 O have a care of natures that are mute ! 
 They punish you in acts : their steps are brief. 
 What is she doing ? What does she demand 
 From Providence, or me ? She is not one 
 Long to endure this torpidly, and shun 
 The drugs that crowd about a woman's hand. 
 At Forfeits during snow we play'd, and I 
 Must kiss her. " Well perform'd ! " I said : then she 
 " 'Tis hardly worth the money, you agree ? " 
 Save her ? What for ? To act this wedded lie ! 
 
XXXVI 
 
 MY Lady unto Madam makes her bow. 
 The charm of women is, that even while 
 You're probed by them for tears, you yet may smile, 
 Nay, laugh outright, as I have done just now. 
 The interview was gracious : they anoint 
 (To me aside) each other with fine praise : 
 Discriminating compliments they raise, 
 That hit with wondrous aim on the weak point. 
 My Lady's nose of nature might complain. 
 It is not fashion'd aptly to express 
 Her character of large-brow'd stedfastness. 
 But Madam says : Thereof she may be vain ! 
 Now, Madam's faulty feature is a glazed 
 And inaccessible eye, that has soft fires. 
 Wide gates, at love-time only. This admires 
 My Lady. At the two I stand amazed. 
 
XXXVII 
 
 ALONG the garden terrace, under which 
 A purple valley (lighted at its edge 
 By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge 
 Whereunder dropp'd the chariot), glimmers rich, 
 A quiet company we pace, and wait 
 The dinner-bell in pre-digestive calm. 
 So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm 
 Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late : 
 Tho' here and there gray seniors question Time 
 In irritable coughings. With slow foot 
 The low, rosed moon, the face of Music mute, 
 Begins among her silent bars to climb. 
 As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread, 
 I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern 
 My Lady's heel before me at each turn. 
 Our Tragedy, is it alive or dead ? 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 GIVE to imagination some pure light 
 In human form to fix it, or you shame 
 The devils with that hideous human game : — 
 Imagination urging appetite ! 
 Thus fallen have earth's greatest Gogmagogs, 
 Who dazzle us, whom we cannot revere. 
 Imagination is the charioteer 
 That, in default of better, drives the hogs. 
 So, therefore, my dear Lady, let me love ! 
 My soul is arrow'd to the light in you. 
 You know me that I never can renew 
 The bond that woman broke : what would you have ? 
 'Tis Love, or Vileness ! not a choice between, 
 Save petrifaction ! What does Pity here ? 
 She kill'd a thing, and now it's dead, 'tis dear. 
 O, when you counsel me,,think what you mean ! 
 

XXXIX 
 
 SHE yields : my Lady in her noblest mood 
 Has yielded : she, my golden-crowned rose ! 
 The bride of every sense ! more sweet than those 
 Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood. 
 O visage of still music in the sky ! 
 Soft moon ! I feel thy song, my fairest friend ! 
 True harmony within can apprehend 
 Dumb harmony without. And hark ! 'tis nigh ! 
 Belief has struck the note of sound : a gleam 
 Of living silver shows me where she shook 
 Her long white fingers down the shadowy brook, 
 That sings her song, half waking, half in dream. 
 What two come here to mar this heavenly tune ? 
 A man is one : the woman bears my name, 
 And honour. Their hands touch ! Am I still tame ? 
 God. what a dancing spectre seems the moon ! 
 
XL 
 
 I bade my Lady think what she might mean. 
 Know I my meaning, // Can I love one, 
 And yet be jealous of another ? None 
 Commit such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, 
 Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave 
 The lightless seas of selfishness amain : 
 Seas that in a man's heart have no rain 
 To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve 
 By turning to this fountain-source of woe. 
 This woman, who's to Love as fire to wood ? 
 She breath'd the violet breath of maidenhood 
 Against my kisses once ! but I say, No ! 
 The thing is mock'd at ! Helplessly afloat, 
 I know not what I do, whereto I strive. 
 The dread that my old love may be alive. 
 Has seiz'd my nursling new love by the throat. 
 
XLI 
 
 HOW many a thing which we cast to the ground, 
 When others pick it up becomes a gem ! 
 We grasp at all the wealth it is to them ; 
 And by reflected light its worth is found. 
 Yet for us still 'tis nothing ! and that zeal 
 Of false appreciation quickly fades. 
 This truth is little known to human shades, 
 How rare from their own instinct 'tis to feel ! 
 They waste the soul with spurious desire, 
 That is not the ripe flame upon the bough : 
 We two have taken up a lifeless vow 
 To rob a living passion : dust for fire ! 
 Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells 
 Approaching midnight. We have struck despair 
 Into two hearts. O, look we like a pair 
 Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else ? 
 
XLII 
 
 I am to follow her. There is much grace 
 In women when thus bent on martyrdom. 
 They think that dignity of soul may come, 
 Perchance, with dignity of body. Base ! 
 But I was taken by that air of cold 
 And statuesque sedateness, when she said, 
 " I'm going ; " lit the taper, bow'd her head. 
 And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold. 
 Fleshly indifference horrible ! The hands 
 Of Time now signal : O, she's safe from me ! 
 Within those secret walls what do I see ? 
 Where first she set the taper down she stands : 
 Not Pallas : Hebe shamed ! Thoughts black as death, 
 Like a stirr'd pool in sunshine break. Her wrists 
 I catch : she faltering, as she half resists, 
 " You love . . . ? love . . . ? love . . . ? " all in an indrawn breath. 
 
XLIII 
 
 MARK where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, 
 Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back'd wave ! 
 Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave ; 
 Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, 
 And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand : 
 In hearing of the ocean, and in sight 
 Of those ribb'd wind-streaks running into white. 
 If I the death of Love had deeply plann'd, 
 I never could have made it half so sure, 
 As by the unbless'd kisses which upbraid 
 The full-waked sense ; or, failing that, degrade ! 
 T is morning : but no morning can restore 
 What we have forfeited. I see no sin : 
 'The wrong is mix'd. In tragic life, God wot. 
 No villain need be ! Passions spin the plot : 
 We are betray'd by what is false within. 
 
XLIV 
 
 THEY say that Pity in Love's service dwells, 
 A porter at the rosy temple's gate, 
 I miss'd him going : but it is my fate 
 To come upon him now beside his wells ; 
 Whereby I know that I Love's temple leave, 
 And that the purple doors have closed behind. 
 Poor soul ! if in those early days unkind, 
 Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve, 
 We now might with an equal spirit meet, 
 And not be match'd like innocence and vice. 
 She for the Temple's worship has paid price, 
 And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat. 
 She sees thro' simulation to the bone : 
 What's best in her impels her to the worst. 
 Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love's thirst, 
 Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone ! 
 
XLV 
 
 IT is the season of the sweet wild rose, 
 My Lady's emblem in the heart of me ! 
 So golden-crowned shines she gloriously, 
 And with that softest dream of blood she glows : 
 Mild as an evening Heaven round Hesper bright ! 
 I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive 
 The time when in her eyes I stood alive. 
 I seem to look upon it out of Night. 
 Here's Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims 
 Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop. 
 As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop, 
 And crush it under heel with trembling limbs. 
 She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks 
 Of company, and even condescends 
 To utter laughing scandal of old friends. 
 These are the summer days, and these our walks. 
 
XLVI 
 
 AT last we parley : we so strangely dumb 
 In such a close communion ! It befell 
 About the sounding of the Matin-bell, 
 And lo ! her place was vacant, and the hum 
 Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, 
 And my disorder'd brain did guide my foot 
 To that old wood where our first love-salute 
 Was interchanged : the source of many throes ! 
 There did I see her, not alone. I moved 
 Towards her, and made proffer of my arm. 
 She took it simply, with no rude alarm ; 
 And that disturbing shadow pass'd reproved, 
 I felt the pain'd speech coming, and declared 
 My firm belief in her, ere she could speak, 
 A ghastly morning came into her cheek, 
 While with a widening soul on me she stared. 
 
XLVII 
 
 WE saw the swallows gathering in the sky, 
 And in the osier-isle we heard their noise. 
 We had not to look back on summer joys, 
 Or forward to a summer of bright dye. 
 But in the largeness of the evening earth 
 Our spirits grew as we went side by side. 
 The hour became her husband, and my bride. 
 Love that had robb'd us so, thus bless'd our dearth ! 
 The pilgrims of the year wax'd very loud 
 In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood 
 Full brown came from the west, and like pale blood 
 Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. 
 Love that had robb'd us of immortal things. 
 This little moment mercifully gave. 
 And still I see across the twilight wave, 
 The swan sail with her young beneath her wings. 
 
XLVIII 
 
 THEIR sense is with their senses all mix'd in. 
 Destroy'd by subtleties these women are ! 
 More brain, O Lord, more brain ! or we shall mar 
 Utterly this fair garden we might win. 
 Behold ! I looked for peace, and thought it near. 
 Our inmost hearts had open'd, each to each. 
 We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. 
 Alas ! that was the fatal draught, I fear. 
 For when of my lost Lady came the word, 
 This woman, O this agony of flesh ! 
 Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh, 
 That I might seek that other like a bird. 
 I do adore the nobleness ! despise 
 The act ! She has gone forth, I know not where. 
 Will the hard world my sentience of her share ? 
 I feel the truth ; so let the world surmise. 
 
XLIX 
 
 HE found her by the ocean's moaning verge. 
 Nor any wicked change in her discern'd ; 
 And she believed his old love had return'd, 
 Which was her exultation, and her scourge. 
 She took his hand, and walked with him, and seem'd 
 The wife he sought, tho' shadowlike and dry. 
 She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, 
 And tell her loudly she no longer dream'd. 
 She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in." 
 But there's a strength to help the desperate weak. * 
 That night he learnt how silence best can speak 
 The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. 
 About the middle of the night her call 
 Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. 
 " Now kiss me, dear ! it may be, now ! " she said. 
 Lethe had pass'd those lips, and he knew all. 
 
THUS piteously Love closed what he begat : 
 The union of this ever-diverse pair ! 
 These two were rapid falcons in a snare, 
 Condemn'd to do the flitting of the bat. 
 Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, 
 They wander'd once ; clear as the dew on flowers 
 But they fed not on the advancing hours : 
 Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. 
 Then each applied to each that fatal knife, 
 Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. 
 Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul 
 When hot for certainties in this our life ! — 
 In tragic hints here see what evermore 
 Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force. 
 Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, 
 To throw that faint thin line upon the shore ! 
 
Press of Brown Thurston Company Portland Maine 
 
397178 ft; 
 
 n Cuz:^^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY