The Victories of Love, and Other Poems

X.  FROM FREDERICK

I thought the worst had brought me balm:’Twas but the tempest’s central calm.Vague sinkings of the heart averThat 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 lateI 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 stressOf 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 sweetOut of the picturing dark; I meetThe ancient frankness of her gaze,That soft and heart-surprising blazeOf great goodwill and innocence.And perfect joy proceeding thence!Ah! made for earth’s delight, yet suchThe mid-sea air’s too gross to touch.At thought of which, the soul in meIs 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 sleepAmidst 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 desireThe only good; the sacred fireThat 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 IWill give you peace; go and profaneThis pangful love, so pure, so vain.And thereby win forgetfulnessAnd pardon of the spirit’s excess,Which soar’d too nigh that jealous HeavenEver, save thus, to be forgiven.No Gospel has come down that curesWith 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 smileThat aught with such a measure vileAs 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 divineOn 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 stanchMeantime with earth the bleeding branch.There’s nothing heals one woman’s loss,And lightens life’s eternal crossWith 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 dispelThe 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 snowAnd powerful as the avalanche,She lit the deck.  The Heav’n-sent chance!She smiled, surprised.  They came to seeThe 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 sunBut men might live cool lives thereon!   All’s well; for I have seen ariseThat reflex sweetness of her eyesIn his, and watch’d his breath deferHumbly its bated life to her,His wife.  My Love, she’s safe in hisDevotion!  What ask’d I but this?   They bade adieu; I saw them goAcross the sea; and now I knowThe 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 ILoved most, and so, by claim divine,Should have her, in the heavens, for mine,According to such nuptial sortAs may subsist in the holy court,Where, if there are all kinds of joysTo exhaust the multitude of choiceIn many mansions, then there areLoves personal and particular,Conspicuous in the glorious skyOf universal charity,As Phosphor in the sunrise.  NowI’ve seen them, I believe their vowImmortal; and the dreadful thought,That he less honour’d than he oughtHer 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 copeUnburthen’d even by a hope;And peace unspeakable, a joyWhich hope would deaden and destroy,Like sunshine fills the airy gulfLeft by the vanishing of self.That I have known her; that she movesSomewhere all-graceful; that she loves,And is belov’d, and that she’s soMost happy, and to heaven will go,Where I may meet with her, (yet thisI count but accidental bliss,)And that the full, celestial wealOf all shall sensitively feelThe partnership and work of each,And thus my love and labour reachHer region, there the more to blessHer last, consummate happiness,Is guerdon up to the degreeOf that alone true loyaltyWhich, sacrificing, is not niceAbout 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 hourWas 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 mouthWorse fever shows than heat or drouth.Wherefore take, Frederick, timely fearAgainst 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 easedTo meet with her who can be pleasedTo proffer kindness, amid computeHis 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 pleaFor 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 caughtBy graces he himself had taught.And fancy not ’tis in the mightOf man to do without delight;For, should you in her nothing findTo exhilarate the higher mind,Your soul would deaden useless wingsWith wickedness of lawful things,And vampire pleasure swift destroyEven 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 givenThat scorns a good which is not heaven;My Child, who used to sit and sighUnder 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 acheFor what was mainly his mistake;But, having err’d so, all his forceWould fix upon the hard, right course.   She’s graceless, say, yet good and true,And therefore inly fair, and, throughThe veils which inward beauty fold,Faith can her loveliness behold.Ah, that’s soon tired; faith falls awayWithout the ceremonial stayOf outward loveliness and awe.The weightier matters of the lawShe pays: mere mint and cumin not;And, in the road that she was taught,She treads, and takes for granted stillNature’s immedicable ill;So never wears within her eyesA false report of paradise,Nor ever modulates her mirthWith vain compassion of the earth,Which made a certain happier faceAffecting, and a gayer graceWith pathos delicately edged!Yet, though she be not privilegedTo 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 youThan being loved, and she commandsAll tenderness she understands.It is but when you proffer moreThe yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore.It’s weary work enforcing loveOn one who has enough thereof,And honour on the lowliheadOf ignorance!  Besides, you dread,In Leah’s arms, to meet the eyesOf Rachel, somewhere in the skies,And both return, alike relieved,To life less loftily conceived.Alas, alas!   Then wait the moodIn which a woman may be woo’dWhose thoughts and habits are too highFor honour to be flattery,And who would surely not allowThe 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 moveThe 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 wasteOf 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 broodOf 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 findHer critic past his judgment kind;Nor, unaccustom’d to respect,Which men, where ’tis not claim’d, neglect,

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  Written in 1856.