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
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!
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-haired lady's eyeballs pure,
I looked 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 decked the woman thus? and does her head
Swim somewhat for possessions 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.
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheid the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding elders mixed 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 yearned 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!
Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flics.
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 cursed. 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!
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?
MARK where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed 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 ribbed wind-streaks running into white. If I the death of Love had deeply planned,
I never could have made it half so sure,
As by the unblest kisses which upbraid
The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade! 'Tis morning: but no morning can restore
What we have forfeited. I see no sin:
The wrong is mixed.
No villain need be!
In tragic life, God wot, Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.
He found her by the ocean's moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge.
She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in." But there's a strength to help the desperate weak. That night he learned 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 passed 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, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered 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, Thumping like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the shore! George Meredith [1828-1909]
LOVE IN THE WINDS
WHEN I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,- No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.
Richard Hovey [1864-1900]
"OH! DEATH WILL FIND ME"
OH! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream. Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host. Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam- Most individual and bewildering ghost!——— And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.
Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
And Song's nobility and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to busy my heart with quietude.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915]
BREATHLESS, we flung us on the windy hili, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old. . . .' "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
-"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!" "We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here. Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
-And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.
Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]
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