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,Confirm you selfish and morose,And slowly, by contagion, gross;But, glad and able to receiveThe honour you would long to give,Would hasten on to justifyExpectancy, however high,Whilst you would happily incurCompulsion to keep up with her.

XII.  FROM FREDERICK

Your letter, Mother, bears the dateOf six months back, and comes too late.My Love, past all conceiving lost,A change seem’d good, at any cost,From lonely, stupid, silent grief,Vain, objectless, beyond relief,And, like a sea-fog, settled denseOn fancy, feeling, thought, and sense.I grew so idle, so despisedMyself, my powers, by Her unprized,Honouring my post, but nothing more,And lying, when I lived on shore,So late of mornings: weak tears stream’dFor such slight came,—if only gleam’d,Remotely, beautifully bright,On clouded eves at sea, the lightOf English headlands in the sun,—That soon I deem’d ’twere better doneTo lay this poor, complaining wraithOf unreciprocated faith:And so, with heart still bleeding quick.But strengthen’d by the comfort sickOf knowing that She could not care,I turn’d away from my despair,And told our chaplain’s daughter, Jane,—A dear, good girl, who saw my pain,And look’d as if she pitied me,—How glad and thankful I should beIf some kind woman, not aboveMyself in rank, would give her loveTo one that knew not how to woo.Whereat she, without more ado,Blush’d, spoke of love return’d, and closedWith what I meant to have proposed.   And, trust me, Mother, I and Jane,We suit each other well.  My gainIs very great in this good Wife,To whom I’m bound, for natural life,By hearty faith, yet crossing notMy faith towards—I know not what!As to the ether is the air,Is her good to Honoria’s fair;One place is full of both, yet eachLies quite beyond the other’s reachAnd recognition.      If you say,Am I contented?  Yea and nay!For what’s base but content to growWith less good than the best we know?But think me not from life withdrawn.By passion for a hope that’s gone,So far as to forget how muchA woman is, as merely such,To man’s affection.  What is best,In each, belongs to all the rest;And though, in marriage, quite to kissAnd half to love the custom is,’Tis such dishonour, ruin bare,The soul’s interior despair,And life between two troubles toss’d,To me, who think not with the most;Whatever ’twould have been, beforeMy Cousin’s time, ’tis now so soreA treason to the abiding throneOf that sweet love which I have known,I cannot live so, and I bendMy mind perforce to comprehendThat He who gives command to loveDoes not require a thing aboveThe strength He gives.  The highest degreeOf the hardest grace, humility;The step t’ward heaven the latest trod,And that which makes us most like God,And us much more than God behoves,Is, to be humble in our loves.Henceforth for ever therefore IRenounce all partialityOf passion.  Subject to controlOf that perspective of the soulWhich God Himself pronounces good.Confirming claims of neighbourhood.And giving man, for earthly life,The closest neighbour in a wife,I’ll serve all.  Jane be munch more dearThan all as she is much more near!I’ll love her!  Yea, and love’s joy comesEver from self-love’s martyrdoms!   Yet, not to lie for God, ’tis trueThat ’twas another joy I knewWhen freighted was my heart with fireOf fond, irrational desireFor fascinating, female charms,And hopeless heaven in Her mild arms.Nor wrong I any, if I professThat care for heaven with me were lessBut that I’m utterly imbuedWith faith of all Earth’s hope renew’dIn realms where no short-coming painsExpectance, and dear love disdainsTime’s treason, and the gathering dross,And lasts for ever in the glossOf newness.      All the bright past seems,Now, but a splendour in my dreams,Which shows, albeit the dreamer wakes,The standard of right life.  Life achesTo be therewith conform’d; but, oh,The world’s so stolid, dark, and low!That and the mortal elementForbid the beautiful intent,And, like the unborn butterfly,It feels the wings, and wants the sky.   But perilous is the lofty moodWhich cannot yoke with lowly good.Right life, for me, is life that wendsBy lowly ways to lofty ends.I will perceive, at length, that hasteT’ward heaven itself is only waste;And thus I dread the impatient spurOf aught that speaks too plain of Her.There’s little here that story tells;But music talks of nothing else.Therefore, when music breathes, I say,(And urge my task,) Away, away!Thou art the voice of one I knew,But what thou say’st is not yet true;Thou art the voice of her I loved,And I would not be vainly moved.   So that which did from death set freeAll things, now dons death’s mockery,And takes its place with tunings that areBut little noted.  Do not marFor me your peace!  My health is high.The proud possession of mine eyeDeparted, I am much like oneWho had by haughty custom grownTo think gilt rooms, and spacious grounds,Horses, and carriages, and hounds.Fine linen, and an eider bedAs much his need as daily bread,And honour of men as much or more.Till, strange misfortune smiting sore,His pride all goes to pay his debts,A lodging anywhere he gets,And takes his family theretoWeeping, and other relics few,Allow’d, by them that seize his pelf,As precious only to himself.Yet the sun shines; the country greenHas many riches, poorly seenFrom blazon’d coaches; grace at meatGoes well with thrift in what they eat;And there’s amends for much bereftIn better thanks for much that’s left!   Jane is not fair, yet pleases wellThe eye in which no others dwell;And features somewhat plainly set,And homely manners leave her yetThe crowning boon and most expressOf Heaven’s inventive tenderness,A woman.  But I do her wrong,Letting the world’s eyes guide my tongue!She has a handsomeness that paysNo homage to the hourly gaze,And dwells not on the arch’d brow’s heightAnd lids which softly lodge the light,Nor in the pure field of the cheekFlow’rs, though the soul be still to seek;But shows as fits that solemn placeWhereof the window is the face:Blankness and leaden outlines markWhat time the Church within is dark:Yet view it on a Festal night,Or some occasion else for light,And each ungainly line is seenA special character to meanOf Saint or Prophet, and the wholeBlank window is a living scroll.   For hours, the clock upon the shelf,Has all the talking to itself;But to and fro her needle runsTwice, while the clock is ticking once;And, when a wife is well in reach,Not silence separates, but speech;And I, contented, read, or smoke,And idly think, or idly strokeThe winking cat, or watch the fire,In social peace that does not tire;Until, at easeful end of day,She moves, and puts her work away,And, saying ‘How cold ’tis,’ or ‘How warm,’Or something else as little harm,Comes, used to finding, kindly press’d,A woman’s welcome to my breast,With all the great advantage clearOf none else having been so near.   But sometimes, (how shall I deny!)There falls, with her thus fondly by,Dejection, and a chilling shade.Remember’d pleasures, as they fade,Salute me, and colossal grow,Like foot-prints in the thawing snow.I feel oppress’d beyond my forceWith foolish envy and remorse.I love this woman, but I mightHave loved some else with more delight;And strange it seems of God that HeShould make a vain capacity.   Such times of ignorant relapse,’Tis well she does not talk, perhaps.The dream, the discontent, the doubt,To some injustice flaming out,Were’t else, might leave us both to moanA kind tradition overthrown,And dawning promise once more deadIn the pernicious lowliheadOf not aspiring to be fair.And what am I, that I should dareDispute with God, who moulds one clayTo honour and shame, and wills to payWith equal wages them that delveAbout His vines one hour or twelve!

XIII.  FROM LADY CLITHEROE TO MARY CHURCHILL

I’ve dreadful news, my Sister dear!Frederick has married, as we hear,Oh, such a girl!  This fact we getFrom Mr. Barton, whom we metAt Abury once.  He used to know,At Race and Hunt, Lord Clitheroe,And writes that he ‘has seen Fred Graham,Commander of the Wolf,—the sameThe Mess call’d Joseph,—with his WifeUnder his arm.’  He ‘lays his life,The fellow married her for love,For there was nothing else to move.H is her Shibboleth.  ’Tis saidHer Mother was a Kitchen-Maid.’   Poor Fred!  What will Honoria say?She thought so highly of him.  PrayTell it her gently.  I’ve no right,I know you hold, to trust my sight;But Frederick’s state could not be hid!Awl Felix, coming when he did,Was lucky; for Honoria, too,Was half in love.  How warm she grewOn ‘worldliness,’ when once I saidI fancied that, in ladies, FredHad tastes much better than his means!His hand was worthy of a Queen’s,Said she, and actually shed tearsThe night he left us for two years,And sobb’d, when ask’d the cause to tell,That ‘Frederick look’d so miserable.’He did look very dull, no doubt,But such things girls don’t cry about.   What weathercocks men always prove!You’re quite right not to fall in love.I never did, and, truth to tell,I don’t think it respectable.The man can’t understand it, too.He likes to be in love with you,But scarce knows how, if you love him,Poor fellow.  When ’tis woman’s whimTo serve her husband night and day,The kind soul lets her have her way!So, if you wed, as soon you should,Be selfish for your husband’s good.Happy the men who relegateTheir pleasures, vanities, and stateTo us.  Their nature seems to beTo enjoy themselves by deputy,For, seeking their own benefit,Dear, what a mess they make of it!A man will work his bones away,If but his wife will only play;He does not mind how much he’s teased,So that his plague looks always pleased;And never thanks her, while he lives,For anything, but what he gives!’Tis hard to manage men, we hear!Believe me, nothing’s easier, Dear.The most important step by farIs finding what their colours are.The next is, not to let them knowThe reason why they love us so.The indolent droop of a blue shawl,Or gray silk’s fluctuating fall,Covers the multitude of sinsIn me.  Your husband, Love, might winceAt azure, and be wild at slate,And yet do well with chocolate.Of course you’d let him fancy heAdored you for your piety.

XIV.  FROM JANE TO HER MOTHER

Dear Mother, as you write, I seeHow glad and thankful I should beFor such a husband.  Yet to tellThe truth, I am so miserable!How could he—I remember, though,He never said me loved me!  No,He is so right that all seems wrongI’ve done and thought my whole life long!I’m grown so dull and dead with fearThat Yes and No, when he is near,Is all I have to say.  He’s quiteUnlike what most would call polite,And yet, when first I saw him comeTo tea in Aunt’s fine drawing-room,He made me feel so common!  Oh,How dreadful if he thinks me so!It’s no use trying to behaveTo him.  His eye, so kind and grave,Sees through and through me!  Could not you,Without his knowing that I knew,Ask him to scold me now and then?Mother, it’s such a weary strainThe way he has of treating meAs if ’twas something fine to beA woman; and appearing notTo notice any faults I’ve got!I know he knows I’m plain, and small,Stupid and ignorant, and allAwkward and mean; and, by degrees,I see a beauty which he sees,When often he looks strange awhile,Then recollects me with a smile.   I wish he had that fancied Wife,With me for Maid, now! all my lifeTo dress her out for him, and makeHer looks the lovelier for his sake;To have her rate me till I cried;Then see her seated by his side,And driven off proudly to the Ball;Then to stay up for her, whilst allThe servants were asleep; and hearAt dawn the carriage rolling near,And let them in; and hear her laugh,And boast, he said that none was halfSo beautiful, and that the Queen,Who danced with him the first, had seenAnd noticed her, and ask’d who wasThat lady in the golden gauze?And then to go to bed, and lieIn a sort of heavenly jealousy,Until ’twas broad day, and I guess’dShe slept, nor knew how she was bless’d.   Pray burn this letter.  I would notComplain, but for the fear I’ve gotOf going wild, as we hear tellOf people shut up in a cell,With no one there to talk to.  HeMust never know he is loved by meThe most; he’d think himself to blame;And I should almost die for shame.   If being good would serve insteadOf being graceful, ah, then, Fred—But I, myself, I never couldSee what’s in women’s being good;For all their goodness is to doJust what their nature tells them to.Now, when a man would do what’s right,He has to try with all his might.   Though true and kind in deed and word,Fred’s not a vessel of the Lord.But I have hopes of him; for, oh,How can we ever surely knowBut that the very darkest placeMay be the scene of saving grace!

XV.  FROM FREDERICK

‘How did I feel?’  The little wightFill’d me, unfatherly, with fright!So grim it gazed, and, out of the sky,There came, minute, remote, the cry,Piercing, of original pain.I put the wonder back to Jane,And her delight seem’d dash’d, that I,Of strangers still by nature shy,Was not familiar quite so soonWith her small friend of many a moon.But, when the new-made Mother smiled,She seem’d herself a little child,Dwelling at large beyond the lawBy which, till then, I judged and saw;And that fond glow which she felt stirFor it, suffused my heart for her;To whom, from the weak babe, and thenceTo me, an influent innocence,Happy, reparative of life,Came, and she was indeed my wife,As there, lovely with love she lay,Brightly contented all the dayTo hug her sleepy little boy,In the reciprocated joyOf touch, the childish sense of love,Ever inquisitive to proveIts strange possession, and to knowIf the eye’s report be really so.

XVI.  FROM JANE TO MRS. GRAHAM

Dear Mother,—such if you’ll allow,In love, not law, I’ll call you now,—I hope you’re well.  I write to sayFrederick has got, besides his pay,A good appointment in the Docks;Also to thank you for the frocksAnd shoes for Baby.  I, (D.V.,)Shall soon be strong.  Fred goes to seaNo more.  I am so glad; because,Though kinder husband never was,He seems still kinder to becomeThe more he stays with me at home.When we are parted, I see plainHe’s dull till he gets used againTo marriage.  Do not tell him, though;I would not have him know I know,For all the world.      I try to mindAll your advice; but sometimes findI do not well see how.  I thoughtTo take it about dress; so boughtA gay new bonnet, gown, and shawl;But Frederick was not pleased at all;For, though he smiled, and said, ‘How smart!’I feel, you know, what’s in his heart.But I shall learn!  I fancied longThat care in dress was very wrong,Till Frederick, in his startling way,When I began to blame, one day,The Admiral’s Wife, because we hearShe spends two hours, or something near,In dressing, took her part, and saidHow all things deck themselves that wed;How birds and plants grow fine to pleaseEach other in their marriages;And how (which certainly is true—It never struck me—did it you?)Dress was, at first, Heaven’s ordinance,And has much Scripture countenance.For Eliezer, we are told,Adorn’d with jewels and with goldRebecca.  In the Psalms, again,How the King’s Daughter dress’d!  And, then,The Good Wife in the Proverbs, sheMade herself clothes of tapestry,Purple and silk: and there’s much moreI had not thought about before!But Fred’s so clever!  Do you know,Since Baby came, he loves me so!I’m really useful, now, to Fred;And none could do so well instead.It’s nice to fancy, if I died,He’d miss me from the Darling’s side!Also, there’s something now, you see,On which we talk, and quite agree;On which, without pride too, I canHope I’m as wise as any man.I should be happy now, if quiteSure that in one thing Fred was right.But, though I trust his prayers are said,Because he goes so late to bed,I doubt his Calling.  Glad to findA text adapted to his mind,—That where St. Paul, in Man and Wife,Allows a little worldly life,—He smiled, and said that he knew allSuch things as that without St. Paul!And once he said, when I with painHad got him just to read Romaine,‘Men’s creeds should not their hopes condemn.Who wait for heaven to come to themAre little like to go to heaven,If logic’s not the devil’s leaven!’I cried at such a wicked joke,And he, surprised, went out to smoke.   But to judge him is not for me,Who myself sin so dreadfullyAs half to doubt if I should careTo go to heaven, and he not there.He must be right; and I dare sayI shall soon understand his way.To other things, once strange, I’ve grownAccustom’d, nay, to like.  I own’Twas long before I got well usedTo sit, while Frederick read or musedFor hours, and scarcely spoke.  When he,For all that, held the door to me,Pick’d up my handkerchief, and roseTo set my chair, with other showsOf honour, such as men, ’tis true,To sweethearts and fine ladies do,It almost seem’d an unkind jest;But now I like these ways the best.They somehow make me gentle and good;And I don’t mind his quiet mood.If Frederick does seem dull awhile,There’s Baby.  You should see him smile!I’m pretty and nice to him, sweet Pet,And he will learn no better yet:Indeed, now little Johnny makesA busier time of it, and takesOur thoughts off one another more,In happy as need be, I’m sure!