The Victories of Love, and Other Poems

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 daysAt 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 sheThe bloom of life provoked in meAnd, hard till then and selfish, IWas thenceforth nought but sanctityAnd service: life was mere delightIn 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 shriekStartled the light-leaved wood; on highWander’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 grassThrough which the unfenced footways pass,Was law, and that which keeps the law,Cherubic gaiety and awe;Day was her doing, and the larkHad reason for his song; the darkIn anagram innumerous speltHer name with stars that throbb’d and felt;’Twas the sad summit of delightTo wake and weep for her at night;She turn’d to triumph or to shameThe strife of every childish game;The heart would come into my throatAt 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’dIn her a centre of unrest,Yea, stocks and stones within me bredAnxieties of joy and dread.   O, bright apocalyptic skyO’erarching childhood!  Far and nighMystery and obscuration none,Yet nowhere any moon or sun!What reason for these sighs?  What hope,Daunting with its audacious scopeThe disconcerted heart, affectsThese 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 beholdThe city they desire to sack,Humbly begin their proud attackBy delving ditches two miles off,Aware how the fair place would scoffAt hasty wooing; but, O child,Why thus approach thy playmate mild?   One morning, when it flush’d my thoughtThat, what in me such wonder wroughtWas call’d, in men and women, love,And, sick with vanity thereof,I, saying loud, ‘I love her,’ toldMy secret to myself, beholdA crisis in my mystery!For, suddenly, I seem’d to beWhirl’d round, and bound with showers of threads,As when the furious spider shedsCaptivity upon the flyTo still his buzzing till he die;Only, with me, the bonds that flew,Enfolding, thrill’d me through and throughWith 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 dayGlad was I as I went her way.I stretch’d my arms to the sky, and sprangO’er the elastic sod, and sang‘I love her, love her!’ to an airWhich with the words came then and there;And even now, when I would knowAll was not always dull and low,I mind me awhile of the sweet strainLove taught me in that lonely lane.   Such glories fade, with no more markThan when the sunset dies to dark.They pass, the rapture and the graceIneffable, their only traceA heart which, having felt no lessThan pure and perfect happiness,Is duly dainty of delight;A patient, poignant appetiteFor pleasures that exceed so muchThe poor things which the world calls such.That, when these lure it, then you mayThe lion with a wisp of hay.   That Charlotte, whom we scarcely knewFrom Anne but by her ribbons blue,Was loved, Anne less than look’d at, showsThat liking still by favour goes!This Love is a Divinity,And holds his high election freeOf 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 smilesLike 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 appearsLike sunshine through the shower’s bright tears;Mildred’s of Earth, yet happier farThan most men’s thoughts of Heaven are;But, for Honoria, Heaven and EarthSeal’d amity in her sweet birth.The noble Girl!  With whom she talksShe knights first with her smile; she walks,Stands, dances, to such sweet effect,Alone she seems to move erect.The brightest and the chastest browRules o’er a cheek which seems to showThat love, as a mere vague suspenseOf apprehensive innocence,Perturbs her heart; love without aimOr object, like the sunlit flameThat in the Vestals’ Temple glow’d,Without the image of a god.And this simplicity most pureShe sets off with no less allureOf culture, subtly skill’d to raiseThe power, the pride, and mutual praiseOf human personalityAbove the common sort so high,It makes such homely souls as mineMarvel how brightly life may shine.How you would love her!  Even in dressShe makes the common mode expressNew knowledge of what’s fit so well’Tis virtue gaily visible!Nay, but her silken sash to meWere more than all morality,Had not the old, sweet, feverous illLeft me the master of my will!   So, Mother, feel at rest, and pleaseTo send my books on board.  With these,When I go hence, all idle hoursShall help my pleasures and my powers.I’ve time, you know, to fill my post,And yet make up for schooling lostThrough young sea-service.  They all speakGerman 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 ledWith these my friends; and sweet ’twill beTo abridge the space from them to me.

II.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM

My Child, Honoria Churchill swaysA double power through Charlotte Hayes.In minds to first-love’s memory pledgedThe second Cupid’s born full-fledged.I saw, and trembled for the dayWhen you should see her beauty, gayAnd pure as apple-blooms, that showOutside a blush and inside snow,Her high and touching eleganceOf 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 hearsThe music of forefended spheres,Is thenceforth lonely, and for allHis days like one who treads the WallOf China, and, on this hand, seesCities 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 youShould 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 findYou 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 blitheOf early day, the hissing scytheAcross the dew drawn and withdrawn,The noisy peacock on the lawn,These, and the sun’s eye-gladding gleam,This morning, chased the sweetest dreamThat e’er shed penitential graceOn life’s forgetful commonplace;Yet ’twas no sweeter than the spellTo which I woke to say farewell.   Noon finds me many a mile removedFrom 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 slayWho blunders from a poor byway,To covet beauty with a crownOf earthly blessing added on;And she’s so much, it seems to me,Beyond all women womanly,I dread to think how he should fareWho came so near as to despair.

IV.  FROM FREDERICK

Yonder the sombre vessel ridesWhere my obscure condition hides.Waves scud to shore against the windThat flings the sprinkling surf behind;In port the bickering pennons showWhich way the ships would gladly go;Through Edgecumb Park the rooted treesAre 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 adjustTo every veering of the gust:By me alone may nought be givenTo 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 manLongs to lay down his life!  How canAught to itself seem thus enough,When I have so much need thereof?Blest in her place, blissful is she;And I, departing, seem to beLike the strange waif that comes to runA few days flaming near the sun,And carries back, through boundless night,Its lessening memory of light.   Oh, my dear Mother, I confessTo a deep grief of homelessness,Unfelt, save once, before.  ’Tis yearsSince such a shower of girlish tearsDisgraced 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 goTo-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 ruleWhich only ask’d to be obey’d,I lay and wept, of dawn afraid,And thought, with bursting heart, of oneWho, from her little, wayward son,Required obedience, but aboveObedience still regarded love,So change I that enchanting place,The abode of innocence and graceAnd gaiety without reproof,For the black gun-deck’s louring roof.Blind and inevitable lawWhich makes light duties burdens, aweWhich is not reverence, laughters gain’dAt cost of purities profaned,And whatsoever most may stirRemorseful passion towards her,Whom to behold is to departFrom 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 wellLove without hope’s impossible;So, if I love, it is that hopeIs not outside the outer scopeOf fancy.  You speak truth: this hourI 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 sphereIn which I’m held but while she’s dear?For daily life’s dull, senseless mood,Slay the fine nerves of gratitudeAnd sweet allegiance, which I oweWhether the debt be weal or woe?Nay, Mother, I, forewarn’d, preferTo want for all in wanting her.   For all?  Love’s best is not bereftEver from him to whom is leftThe trust that God will not deceiveHis creature, fashion’d to believeThe prophecies of pure desire.Not loss, not death, my love shall tire.A mystery does my heart foretell;Nor do I press the oracleFor explanations.  Leave me alone,And let in me love’s will be done.

V.  FROM FREDERICK

Fashion’d by Heaven and by artSo is she, that she makes the heartAche and o’erflow with tears, that graceSo lovely fair should have for place,(Deeming itself at home the while,)The unworthy earth!  To see her smileAmid this waste of pain and sin,As only knowing the heaven within,Is sweet, and does for pity stirPassion 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 ThineTo 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 sprayAnd tumult, as, once more to-day,For long farewell did I draw nearMy Cousin, desperately dear.Faint, fierce, the truth that hope was noneGleam’d like the lightning in the sun;Yet hope I had, and joy thereof.The father of love is hope, (though loveLives orphan’d on, when hope is dead,)And, out of my immediate dreadAnd 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 thinkWhat cup of life I sought to drink!The bold, said I, have climb’d to blissAbsurd, impossible, as this,With nought to help them but so greatA 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 beThat she will wait, when she shall see.This evening, how I go to get,By means unknown, I know not yetQuite what, but ground whereon to stand,And plead more plainly for her hand!   And so I raved, and cast in hopeA superstitious horoscope!And still, though something in her facePortended ‘No!’ with such a graceIt burthen’d me with thankfulness,Nothing was credible but ‘Yes.’Therefore, through time’s close pressure bold,I praised myself, and boastful toldMy deeds at Acre; strain’d the chanceI had of honour and advanceIn war to come; and would not seeSad 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 moonBreaks up, within some still lagoonThat feels the soft wind suddenly,Or tide fresh flowing from the sea,And turns to giddy flames that goOver the water to and fro,Thus, when he took her hand to-night,Her lovely gravity of lightWas scatter’d into many smilesAnd flatting weakness.  Hope beguilesNo more my heart, dear Mother.  He,By jealous looks, o’erhonour’d me.   With nought to do, and fondly fainTo 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’dAnd fallen upon her neck, and wept,And said, ‘My friend, I owe you allI am, and have, and hope for.  CallFor some poor service; let me proveTo 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 rightThat never Saint yet scaled the stairsOf heaven with more availing prayers!’But this (and, as good God shall blessSomehow 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 sendI shall not want, and so return.Give them away, or sell, or burn.I’ll write from Malta.  Would I mightBut 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 doffTheir pride to smooth success, and scoffAt far more noble fire and mightThat 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, bewareOf nourishing, for zest, despair.My Child, remember, you have twiceHeartily loved; then why not thrice,Or ten times?  But a wise man shunsTo cry ‘All’s over,’ more than once.I’ll not say that a young man’s soulIs scarcely measure of the wholeEarthly and Heavenly universe,To which he inveterately prefersThe one beloved woman.  BestSpeak to the senses’ interest,Which brooks no mystery nor delay:Frankly reflect, my Son, and say,Was there no secret hour, of thosePass’d at her side in Sarum Close,When, to your spirit’s sick alarm,It seem’d that all her marvellous charmWas marvellously fled?  Her graceOf voice, adornment, movement, faceWas what already heart and eyeHad 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 thenceThe 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 stayAnd lift the whole of after-life,Unless you take the vision to wife,Which then seems lost, or serves to slakeDesire, as when a lovely lakeFar off scarce fills the exulting eyeOf one athirst, who comes thereby,And inappreciably sipsThe deep, with disappointed lips.To fail is sorrow, yet confessThat love pays dearly for success!No blame to beauty!  Let’s complainOf the heart, which can so ill sustainDelight.  Our griefs declare our fall,But how much more our joys!  They pallWith plucking, and celestial mirthCan 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 prideTo have this woman for a bride.Whate’er her faults, she’s one of thoseTo whom the world’s last polish owesA novel grace, which all who aspireTo 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 lonelinessBreeds love, society success!Though young, ’twere now o’er late in lifeTo train yourself for such a wife;So she would suit herself to you,As women, when they marry, do.For, since ’tis for our dignityOur lords should sit like lords on high,We willingly deteriorateTo a step below our rulers’ state;And ’tis the commonest of thingsTo see an angel, gay with wings,Lean weakly on a mortal’s arm!Honoria would put off the charmOf lofty grace that caught your love,For fear you should not seem aboveHerself 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 nameWith 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 comeThe knowledge of the narrow home!Far fly from her dear face, that showsThe sunshine lovelier than the rose,The sordid gravity they wearWho poverty’s base burthen bear!(And all are poor who come to missTheir 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 yieldWith grace as much as any man,In such cause, to another can.Had she been mine, it seems to meThat I had that integrityAnd only joy in her delight—But each is his own favouriteIn love!  The thought to bring me restIs that of us she takes the best.   ’Twas but to see him to be sureThat choice for her remain’d no more!His brow, so gaily clear of craft;His wit, the timely truth that laugh’dTo find itself so well express’d;His words, abundant yet the best;His spirit, of such handsome showYou mark’d not that his looks were so;His bearing, prospects, birth, all theseMight well, with small suit, greatly please;How greatly, when she saw ariseThe reflex sweetness of her eyesIn his, and every breath deferHumbly its bated life to her;Whilst power and kindness of command.Which women can no more withstandThan we their grace, were still unquell’d,And force and flattery both compell’dHer softness!  Say I’m worthy.  IGrew, in her presence, cold and shy.It awed me, as an angel’s mightIn raiment of reproachful light.Her gay looks told my sombre moodThat what’s not happy is not good;And, just because ’twas life to please,Death to repel her, truth and easeDeserted me; I strove to talk,And stammer’d foolishness; my walkWas like a drunkard’s; if she tookMy arm, it stiffen’d, ached, and shook:A likely wooer!  Blame her not;Nor ever say, dear Mother, aughtAgainst that perfectness which isMy 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 owesItself to bread; enough thereofAnd easy days condition love;And, kindly train’d, love’s roses thrive,No more pale, scentless petals five,Which moisten the considerate eyeTo see what haste they make to die,But heavens of colour and perfume,Which, month by month, renew the bloomOf art-born graces, when the yearIn all the natural grove is sere.   Blame nought then!  Bright let be the airAbout 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 stillWhich carefullest duty cannot fill.What though the inaugural hour of rightComes ever with a keen delight?Little relieves the labour’s heat;Disgust oft crowns it when complete;And life, in fact, is not less dullFor being very dutiful.‘The stately homes of England,’ lo,‘How beautiful they stand!’  They oweHow much to nameless things like meTheir beauty of security!But who can long a low toil mendBy looking to a lofty end?And let me, since ’tis truth, confessThe 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 flyThe 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 gulfWith friends, the pictures of myself.   Then marvel not that I recurFrom each and all of these to her.For more of heaven than her have INo sensitive capacity.Had I but her, ah, what the gainOf owning aught but that domain!Nay, heaven’s extent, however much,Cannot be more than many such;And, she being mine, should God to meSay ‘Lo! my Child, I give to thee‘All heaven besides,’ what could I then,But, as a child, to Him complainThat whereas my dear Father gaveA little space for me to haveIn His great garden, now, o’erblest,I’ve that, indeed, but all the rest,Which, somehow, makes it seem I’ve gotAll but my only cared-for plot.Enough was that for my weak handTo tend, my heart to understand.   Oh, the sick fact, ’twixt her and meThere’s naught, and half a world of sea.

IX.  FROM FREDERICK

In two, in less than two hours moreI set my foot on English shore,Two years untrod, and, strange to tell,Nigh miss’d through last night’s storm!  There fellA man from the shrouds, that roar’d to quenchEven the billows’ blast and drench.Besides me none was near to markHis loud cry in the louder dark,Dark, save when lightning show’d the deepsStanding about in stony heaps.No time for choice!  A rope; a flashThat flamed as he rose; a dizzy splash;A strange, inopportune delightOf mounting with the billowy might,And falling, with a thrill againOf pleasure shot from feet to brain;And both paced deck, ere any knewOur peril.  Round us press’d the crew,With wonder in the eyes of most.As if the man who had loved and lostHonoria 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 pieceOf coral or of ambergris,Which, boasted of abroad, we ignoreThe burden of the barren shore.I seldom write, for ’twould be stillOf how the nerves refuse to thrill;How, throughout doubly-darken’d days,I cannot recollect her face;How to my heart her name to tellIs 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 denseOf waking life’s dull somnolence.I see her as I knew her, graceAlready glory in her face;I move about, I cannot rest,For the proud brain and joyful breastI 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 blursTo 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 wordIs music in the music heard,And all things seem but parts to beOf one persistent harmony,By which I’m made divinely bold;The secret, which she knows, is told;And, laughing with a lofty blissOf 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 witcheryIt seems you kiss her, ’tis not she;But, whilst you languish at the sideOf a fair-foul phantasmal bride,Surely a dragon and strong towerGuard the true lady in her bower.’And I say, ‘Dear my Lord.  Amen!’And the true lady kiss again.Or else some wasteful maladyDevours 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 vowI 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 sentAbout the sounding firmamentIn smitings as of silver bars;The bright disorder of the starsIs solved by music; far and near,Through infinite distinctions clear,Their twofold voices’ deeper toneUtters the Name which all things own,And each ecstatic treble dwellsOn 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 quellsMy constancy, or, simply wrothWith such a wretch, accept my trothTo spite him; or her beauty’s gone,(And that’s my dream!) and this man VaughanTakes 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 amissI read her words and looks, and his,That night!  Did not his jealousyShow—Good my God, and can it beThat 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 roarsAlong the sacred English shores!There lies the lovely land I know,Where men and women lordliest grow;There peep the roofs where more than kingsPostpone state cares to country things,And many a gay queen simply tendsThe babes on whom the world depends;There curls the wanton cottage smokeOf him that drives but bears no yoke;There laughs the realm where low and highAre 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   —Mother, since this was penn’d, I’ve readThat ‘Mr. Vaughan, on Tuesday, wedThe beautiful Miss Churchill.’  SoThat’s over; and to-morrow I goTo take up my new post on boardThe Wolf, my peace at last restored;My lonely faith, like heart-of-oak,Shock-season’d.  Grief is now the cloakI clasp about me to preventThe deadly chill of a contentWith any near or distant good,Except the exact beatitudeWhich love has shown to my desire.Talk not of ‘other joys and higher,’I hate and disavow all blissAs none for me which is not this.Think not I blasphemously copeWith 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 moreThe heaven of heavens of such a Bride,But, lounging, lets her please his prideWith fondness, guerdons her caressWith little names, and turns a tressRound 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 meHer happiness and dignity!