The Victories of Love, and Other Poems

XVII.  FROM FELIX TO HONORIA

Let me, Beloved, while gratitudeIs garrulous with coming good,Or ere the tongue of happinessBe silenced by your soft caress,Relate how, musing here of you,The clouds, the intermediate blue,The air that rings with larks, the graveAnd distant rumour of the wave,The solitary sailing skiff,The gusty corn-field on the cliff,The corn-flower by the crumbling ledge,Or, far-down at the shingle’s edge,The sighing sea’s recurrent crestBreaking, resign’d to its unrest,All whisper, to my home-sick thought,Of charms in you till now uncaught,Or only caught as dreams, to dieEre they were own’d by memory.   High and ingenious DecreeOf joy-devising Deity!You whose ambition only isThe assurance that you make my bliss,(Hence my first debt of love to show,That you, past showing indeed do so!)Trust me the world, the firmament,With diverse-natured worlds besprent,Were rear’d in no mere undivineBoast of omnipotent design,The lion differing from the snakeBut for the trick of difference sake,And comets darting to and froBecause in circles planets go;But rather that sole love might beRefresh’d throughout eternityIn one sweet faith, for ever strange,Mirror’d by circumstantial change.For, more and more, do I perceiveThat everything is relativeTo you, and that there’s not a star,Nor nothing in’t, so strange or far,But, if ’twere scanned, ’twould chiefly meanSomewhat, till then, in you unseen,Something to make the bondage straitOf you and me more intimate,Some unguess’d opportunityOf nuptials in a new degree.   But, oh, with what a novel forceYour best-conn’d beauties, by remorseOf absence, touch; and, in my heart,How bleeds afresh the youthful smartOf passion fond, despairing stillTo utter infinite goodwillBy worthy service!  Yet I knowThat love is all that love can owe,And this to offer is no lessOf worth, in kind speech or caress,Than if my life-blood I should give.For good is God’s prerogative,And Love’s deed is but to prepareThe flatter’d, dear Belov’d to dareAcceptance of His gifts.  When firstOn me your happy beauty burst,Honoria, verily it seem’dThat naught beyond you could be dream’dOf beauty and of heaven’s delight.Zeal of an unknown infiniteYet bade me ever wish you moreBeatified than e’er before.Angelical, were your repliesTo my prophetic flatteries;And sweet was the compulsion strongThat drew me in the course alongOf heaven’s increasing bright allure,With provocations fresh of yourVictorious capacity.Whither may love, so fledged, not fly?   Did not mere Earth hold fast the stringOf this celestial soaring thing,So measure and make sensitive,And still, to the nerves, nice notice giveOf each minutest incrementOf such interminable ascent,The heart would lose all count, and beatUnconscious of a height so sweet,And the spirit-pursuing senses strainTheir steps on the starry track in vain!But, reading now the note just come,With news of you, the babes, and home,I think, and say, ‘To-morrow eveWith kisses me will she receive;’And, thinking, for extreme delightOf love’s extremes, I laugh outright.

XVIII.  FROM FREDERICK

Eight wedding-days gone by, and noneYet kept, to keep them all in one,Jane and myself, with John and GraceOn donkeys, visited the placeI first drew breath in, Knatchley Wood.Bearing the basket, stuff’d with food.Milk, loaves, hard eggs, and marmalade,I halted where the wandering gladeDivides the thicket.  There I knew,It seem’d, the very drops of dewBelow the unalter’d eglantine.Nothing had changed since I was nine!   In the green desert, down to eatWe sat, our rustic grace at meatGood appetite, through that long climbHungry two hours before the time.And there Jane took her stitching out,And John for birds’-nests pry’d about,And Grace and Baby, in betweenThe warm blades of the breathing green,Dodged grasshoppers; and I no less,In conscientious idleness,Enjoy’d myself, under the noonStretch’d, and the sounds and sights of JuneReceiving, with a drowsy charm,Through muffled ear and folded arm.   And then, as if I sweetly dream’d,I half-remember’d how it seem’dWhen I, too, was a little childAbout the wild wood roving wild.Pure breezes from the far-off heightMelted the blindness from my sight,Until, with rapture, grief, and awe,I saw again as then I saw.As then I saw, I saw againThe harvest-waggon in the lane,With high-hung tokens of its prideLeft in the elms on either side;The daisies coming out at dawnIn constellations on the lawn;The glory of the daffodil;The three black windmills on the hill,Whose magic arms, flung wildly by,Sent magic shadows o’er the rye.Within the leafy coppice, lo,More wealth than miser’s dreams could show,The blackbird’s warm and woolly brood,Five golden beaks agape for food;The Gipsies, all the summer seenNative as poppies to the Green;The winter, with its frosts and thawsAnd opulence of hips and haws:The lovely marvel of the snow;The Tamar, with its altering showOf gay ships sailing up and down,Among the fields and by the Town;And, dearer far than anything,Came back the songs you used to sing.(Ah, might you sing such songs again,And I, your child, but hear as then,With conscious profit of the gulfFlown over from my present self!)And, as to men’s retreating eyes,Beyond high mountains higher rise,Still farther back there shone to meThe dazzling dusk of infancy.Thither I look’d, as, sick of night,The Alpine shepherd looks to the height,And does not see the day, ’tis true,But sees the rosy tops that do.   Meantime Jane stitch’d, and fann’d the fliesFrom my repose, with hush’d repliesTo Grace, and smiles when Baby fell.Her countenance love visibleAppear’d, love audible her voice.Why in the past alone rejoice,Whilst here was wealth before me castWhich, I could feel, if ’twere but pastWere then most precious?  Question vain,When ask’d again and yet again,Year after year; yet now, for noCause, but that heaven’s bright winds will blowNot at our pray’r but as they list,It brought that distant, golden mistTo grace the hour, firing the deepOf spirit and the drowsy keepOf joy, till, spreading uncontain’d,The holy power of seeing gainedThe outward eye, this owning evenThat where there’s love and truth there’s heaven.   Debtor to few, forgotten hoursAm I, that truths for me are powers.Ah, happy hours, ’tis something yetNot to forget that I forget!   And now a cloud, bright, huge and calm,Rose, doubtful if for bale or balm;O’ertoppling towers and bulwarks brightAppear’d, at beck of viewless might.Along a rifted mountain range.Untraceable and swift in change,Those glittering peaks, disrupted, spreadTo solemn bulks, seen overhead;The sunshine quench’d, from one dark formFumed the appalling light of storm.Straight to the zenith, black with bale,The Gipsies’ smoke rose deadly pale;And one wide night of hopeless hueHid from the heart the recent blue.And soon, with thunder crackling loud,A flash reveal’d the formless cloud:Lone sailing rack, far wavering rim,And billowy tracts of stormland dim.   We stood, safe group’d beneath a shed.Grace hid behind Jane’s gown for dread,Who told her, fondling with her hair,‘The naughty noise! but God took careOf all good girls.’  John seem’d to meToo much for Jane’s theology,Who bade him watch the tempest.  NowA blast made all the woodland bow;Against the whirl of leaves and dustKine dropp’d their heads; the tortured gustJagg’d and convuls’d the ascending smokeTo mockery of the lightning’s stroke.The blood prick’d, and a blinding flashAnd close coinstantaneous crashHumbled the soul, and the rain all roundResilient dimm’d the whistling ground,Nor flagg’d in force from first to last,Till, sudden as it came, ’twas past,Leaving a trouble in the copseOf brawling birds and tinkling drops.   Change beyond hope!  Far thunder faintMutter’d its vast and vain complaint,And gaps and fractures, fringed with light,Show’d the sweet skies, with squadrons brightOf cloudlets, glittering calm and fairThrough gulfs of calm and glittering air.   With this adventure, we return’d.The roads the feet no longer burn’d.A wholesome smell of rainy earthRefresh’d our spirits, tired of mirth.The donkey-boy drew friendly nearMy Wife, and, touch’d by the kind cheerHer countenance show’d, or sooth’d perchanceBy the soft evening’s sad advance,As we were, stroked the flanks and headOf the ass, and, somewhat thick-voiced, said,‘To ’ave to wop the donkeys so’Ardens the ’art, but they won’t goWithout!’  My wife, by this impress’d,As men judge poets by their best,When now we reach’d the welcome door,Gave him his hire, and sixpence more.

XIX.  FROM JANE

Dear Mrs. Graham, the fever’s past,And Fred is well.  I, in my last,Forgot to say that, while ’twas on,A lady, call’d Honoria Vaughan,One of his Salisbury Cousins, came.Had I, she ask’d me, heard her name?’Twas that Honoria, no doubt,Whom he would sometimes talk aboutAnd speak to, when his nights were bad,And so I told her that I had.   She look’d so beautiful and kind!And just the sort of wife my mindPictured for Fred, with many tears,In those sad early married years.   Visiting, yesterday, she said,The Admiral’s Wife, she learn’d that FredWas very ill; she begg’d to be,If possible, of use to me.What could she do?  Last year, his AuntDied, leaving her, who had no want,Her fortune.  Half was his, she thought;But he, she knew, would not be broughtTo take his rights at second hand.Yet something might, she hoped, be plann’d.What did I think of putting JohnTo school and college?  Mr. Vaughan,When John was old enough, could givePreferment to her relative;And she should be so pleased.—I saidI felt quite sure that dearest FredWould be most thankful.  Would we come,And make ourselves, she ask’d, at home,Next month, at High-Hurst?  Change of airBoth he and I should need, and thereAt leisure we could talk, and thenFix plans, as John was nearly ten.   It seemed so rude to think and doubt,So I said, Yes.  In going out,She said, ‘How strange of Frederick, Dear,’(I wish he had been there to hear,)‘To send no cards, or tell me whatA nice new Cousin I had got!’Was not that kind?         When Fred grew strong,I had, I found, done very wrong.Anger was in his voice and eye.With people born and bred so highAs Fred and Mrs. Vaughan and you,It’s hard to guess what’s right to do;And he won’t teach me!         Dear Fred wrote,Directly, such a lovely note,Which, though it undid all I had done,Was, both to me and Mrs. Vaughan,So kind!  His words.  I can’t say why,Like soldiers’ music, made me cry.

BOOK II

I.  FROM JANE TO HER MOTHER

Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heartAre not half known till they depart!Although I long’d, for many a year,To love with love that casts out fear,My Frederick’s kindness frighten’d me,And heaven seem’d less far off than he;And in my fancy I would traceA lady with an angel’s face,That made devotion simply debt,Till sick with envy and regret,And wicked grief that God should e’erMake women, and not make them fair.That me might love me more becauseAnother in his memory was,And that my indigence might beTo him what Baby’s was to me,The chief of charms, who could have thought?But God’s wise way is to give noughtTill we with asking it are tired;And when, indeed, the change desiredComes, lest we give ourselves the praise,It comes by Providence, not Grace;And mostly our thanks for granted pray’rsAre groans at unexpected cares,First Baby went to heaven, you know,And, five weeks after, Grace went, too,Then he became more talkative,And, stooping to my heart, would giveSigns of his love, which pleased me moreThan all the proofs he gave before;And, in that time of our great grief,We talk’d religion for relief;For, though we very seldom nameReligion, we now think the same!Oh, what a bar is thus removedTo loving and to being loved!For no agreement really isIn anything when none’s in this.Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press’dHis wife against his hearty breast,The interior difference seem’d to tearMy own, until I could not bearThe trouble.  ’Twas a dreadful strife,And show’d, indeed, that faith is life.He never felt this.  If he did,I’m sure it could not have been hid;For wives, I need not say to you,Can feel just what their husbands do,Without a word or look; but thenIt is not so, you know, with men.   From that time many a Scripture textHelp’d me, which had, before, perplex’d.Oh, what a wond’rous word seem’d thisHe is my head, as Christ is his!None ever could have dared to seeIn marriage such a dignityFor man, and for his wife, still less,Such happy, happy lowliness,Had God himself not made it plain!This revelation lays the rein—If I may speak so—on the neckOf a wife’s love, takes thence the checkOf conscience, and forbids to doubtIts measure is to be withoutAll measure, and a fond excessIs here her rule of godliness.   I took him not for love but fright;He did but ask a dreadful right.In this was love, that he loved meThe first, who was mere poverty.All that I know of love he taught;And love is all I know of aught.My merit is so small by his,That my demerit is my bliss.My life is hid with him in Christ,Never therefrom to be enticed;And in his strength have I such restAs when the baby on my breastFinds what it knows not how to seek,And, very happy, very weak,Lies, only knowing all is well,Pillow’d on kindness palpable.

II.  FROM LADY CLITHEROE TO MARY CHURCHILL

Dear Saint, I’m still at High-Hurst Park.The house is fill’d with folks of mark.Honoria suits a good estateMuch better than I hoped.  How fateLoads her with happiness and pride!And such a loving lord, beside!But between us, Sweet, everythingHas limits, and to build a wingTo this old house, when Courtholm standsEmpty upon his Berkshire lands,And all that Honor might be nearPapa, was buying love too dear.   With twenty others, there are twoGuests here, whose names will startle you:Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Graham!I thought he stay’d away for shame.He and his wife were ask’d, you know,And would not come, four years ago.You recollect Miss Smythe found outWho she had been, and all aboutHer people at the Powder-mill;And how the fine Aunt tried to instilHaut ton, and how, at last poor JaneHad got so shy and gauche that, whenThe Dockyard gentry came to sup,She always had to be lock’d up;And some one wrote to us and saidHer mother was a kitchen-maid.Dear Mary, you’ll be charm’d to knowIt must be all a fib.  But, oh,She is the oddest little PetOn which my eyes were ever set!She’s so outrée and naturalThat, when she first arrived, we allWonder’d, as when a robin comesIn through the window to eat crumbsAt breakfast with us.  She has sense,Humility, and confidence;And, save in dressing just a thoughtGayer in colours than she ought,(To-day she looks a cross betweenGipsy and Fairy, red and green,)She always happens to do well.And yet one never quite can tellWhat she might do or utter next.Lord Clitheroe is much perplex’d.Her husband, every now and then,Looks nervous; all the other menAre charm’d.  Yet she has neither grace,Nor one good feature in her face.Her eyes, indeed, flame in her head,Like very altar-fires to Fred,Whose steps she follows everywhereLike a tame duck, to the despairOf Colonel Holmes, who does his partTo break her funny little heart.Honor’s enchanted.  ’Tis her viewThat people, if they’re good and true,And treated well, and let alone,Will kindly take to what’s their own,And always be original,Like children.  Honor’s just like allThe rest of us!  But, thinking so,’Tis well she miss’d Lord Clitheroe,Who hates originality,Though he puts up with it in me.   Poor Mrs. Graham has never beenTo the Opera!  You should have seenThe innocent way she told the EarlShe thought Plays sinful when a girl,And now she never had a chance!Frederick’s complacent smile and glanceTowards her, show’d me, past a doubt,Honoria had been quite cut out.’Tis very strange; for Mrs. Graham,Though Frederick’s fancy none can blame,Seems the last woman you’d have thoughtHer lover would have ever sought.She never reads, I find, nor goesAnywhere; so that I supposeShe got at all she ever knewBy growing up, as kittens do.   Talking of kittens, by-the-bye,You have more influence than IWith dear Honoria.  Get her, Dear,To be a little more severeWith those sweet Children.  They’ve the runOf all the place.  When school was done,Maud burst in, while the Earl was there,With ‘Oh, Mama, do be a bear!’   Do you know, Dear, this odd wife of FredAdores his old Love in his stead!She is so nice, yet, I should say,Not quite the thing for every day.Wonders are wearying!  Felix goesNext Sunday with her to the Close,And you will judge.         Honoria asksAll Wiltshire Belles here; Felix basksLike Puss in fire-shine, when the roomIs thus aflame with female bloom.But then she smiles when most would pout;And so his lawless loves go outWith the last brocade.  ’Tis not the same,I fear, with Mrs. Frederick Graham.Honoria should not have her here,—And this you might just hint, my Dear,—For Felix says he never sawSuch proof of what he holds for law,That ‘beauty is love which can be seen.’Whatever he by this may mean,Were it not dreadful if he fellIn love with her on principle!

III.  FROM JANE TO MRS. GRAHAM

Mother, I told you how, at first,I fear’d this visit to the Hurst.Fred must, I felt, be so distress’dBy aught in me unlike the restWho come here.  But I find the placeDelightful; there’s such ease, and grace,And kindness, and all seem to beOn such a high equality.They have not got to think, you know,How far to make the money go.But Frederick says it’s less the expenseOf money, than of sound good-sense,Quickness to care what others feelAnd thoughts with nothing to conceal;Which I’ll teach Johnny.  Mrs. VaughanWas waiting for us on the Lawn,And kiss’d and call’d me ‘Cousin.’  FredNeglected his old friends, she said.He laugh’d, and colour’d up at this.She was, you know, a flame of his;But I’m not jealous!  Luncheon done,I left him, who had just begunTo talk about the Russian WarWith an old Lady, Lady Carr,—A Countess, but I’m more afraid,A great deal, of the Lady’s Maid,—And went with Mrs. Vaughan to seeThe pictures, which appear’d to beOf sorts of horses, clowns, and cowsCall’d Wouvermans and Cuyps and Dows.And then she took me up, to showHer bedroom, where, long years ago,A Queen slept.  ’Tis all tapestriesOf Cupids, Gods, and Goddesses,And black, carved oak.  A curtain’d doorLeads thence into her soft Boudoir,Where even her husband may but comeBy favour.  He, too, has his room,Kept sacred to his solitude.Did I not think the plan was good?She ask’d me; but I said how smallOur house was, and that, after all,Though Frederick would not say his prayersAt night till I was safe upstairs,I thought it wrong to be so shyOf being good when I was by.‘Oh, you should humour him!’ she said,With her sweet voice and smile; and ledThe way to where the children ateTheir dinner, and Miss Williams sate.She’s only Nursery-Governess,Yet they consider her no lessThan Lord or Lady Carr, or me.Just think how happy she must be!The Ball-Room, with its painted skyWhere heavy angels seem to fly,Is a dull place; its size and gloomMake them prefer, for drawing-room,The Library, all done up newAnd comfortable, with a viewOf Salisbury Spire between the boughs.   When she had shown me through the house,(I wish I could have let her knowThat she herself was half the show;She is so handsome, and so kind!)She fetch’d the children, who had dined;And, taking one in either hand,Show’d me how all the grounds were plann’d.The lovely garden gently slopesTo where a curious bridge of ropesCrosses the Avon to the Park.We rested by the stream, to markThe brown backs of the hovering trout.Frank tickled one, and took it outFrom under a stone.  We saw his owls,And awkward Cochin-China fowls,And shaggy pony in the croft;And then he dragg’d us to a loft,Where pigeons, as he push’d the door,Fann’d clear a breadth of dusty floor,And set us coughing.  I confessI trembled for my nice silk dress.I cannot think how Mrs. VaughanVentured with that which she had on,—A mere white wrapper, with a fewPlain trimmings of a quiet blue,But, oh, so pretty!  Then the bellFor dinner rang.  I look’d quite well(‘Quite charming,’ were the words Fred said,)With the new gown that I’ve had made   I am so proud of Frederick.He’s so high-bred and lordly-likeWith Mrs. Vaughan!  He’s not quite soAt home with me; but that, you know,I can’t expect, or wish.  ’Twould hurt,And seem to mock at my desert.Not but that I’m a duteous wifeTo Fred; but, in another life,Where all are fair that have been true,I hope I shall be graceful too,Like Mrs. Vaughan.  And, now, good-bye!That happy thought has made me cry,And feel half sorry that my cough,In this fine air, is leaving off.

IV.  FROM FREDERICK TO MRS. GRAHAM

Honoria, trebly fair and mildWith added loves of lord and child,Is else unalter’d.  Years, which wrongThe rest, touch not her beauty, youngWithin youth which rather seems her clime,Than aught that’s relative to time.How beyond hope was heard the prayerI offer’d in my love’s despair!Could any, whilst there’s any woe,Be wholly blest, then she were so.She is, and is aware of it,Her husband’s endless benefit;But, though their daily ways revealThe depth of private joy they feel,’Tis not their bearing each to eachThat does abroad their secret preach,But such a lovely good-intentTo all within their governmentAnd friendship as, ’tis well discern’d,Each of the other must have learn’d;For no mere dues of neighbourhoodEver begot so blest a mood.   And fair, indeed, should be the fewGod dowers with nothing else to do,And liberal of their light, and freeTo show themselves, that all may see!For alms let poor men poorly giveThe meat whereby men’s bodies live;But they of wealth are stewards wiseWhose graces are their charities.   The sunny charm about this homeMakes all to shine who thither come.My own dear Jane has caught its grace,And, honour’d, honours too the place.Across the lawn I lately walk’dAlone, and watch’d where mov’d and talk’d,Gentle and goddess-like of air,Honoria and some Stranger fair.I chose a path unblest by these;When one of the two Goddesses,With my Wife’s voice, but softer, said,‘Will you not walk with us, dear Fred?’   She moves, indeed, the modest peerOf all the proudest ladies here.Unawed she talks with men who standAmong the leaders of the land,And women beautiful and wise,With England’s greatness in their eyes.To high, traditional good-sense,And knowledge ripe without pretence,And human truth exactly hitBy quiet and conclusive wit,Listens my little, homely Jane,Mistakes the points and laughs amain;And, after, stands and combs her hair,And calls me much the wittiest there!   With reckless loyalty, dear Wife,She lays herself about my life!The joy I might have had of yoreI have not; for ’tis now no more,With me, the lyric time of youth,And sweet sensation of the truth.Yet, past my hope or purpose bless’d,In my chance choice let be confess’dThe tenderer Providence that rulesThe fates of children and of fools!   I kiss’d the kind, warm neck that slept,And from her side this morning stepp’d,To bathe my brain from drowsy nightIn the sharp air and golden light.The dew, like frost, was on the pane.The year begins, though fair, to wane.There is a fragrance in its breathWhich is not of the flowers, but death;And green above the ground appearThe lilies of another year.I wander’d forth, and took my pathAmong the bloomless aftermath;And heard the steadfast robin singAs if his own warm heart were Spring.And watch’d him feed where, on the yew,Hung honey’d drops of crimson dew;And then return’d, by walls of peach,And pear-trees bending to my reach,And rose-beds with the roses gone,To bright-laid breakfast.  Mrs. VaughanWas there, none with her.  I confessI love her than of yore no less!But she alone was loved of old;Now love is twain, nay, manifold;For, somehow, he whose daily lifeAdjusts itself to one true wife,Grows to a nuptial, near degreeWith all that’s fair and womanly.Therefore, as more than friends, we met,Without constraint, without regret;The wedded yoke that each had donn’dSeeming a sanction, not a bond.

V.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM

Your love lacks joy, your letter says.Yes; love requires the focal spaceOf recollection or of hope,E’er it can measure its own scope.Too soon, too soon comes Death to showWe love more deeply than we know!The rain, that fell upon the heightToo gently to be call’d delight,Within the dark vale reappearsAs a wild cataract of tears;And love in life should strive to seeSometimes what love in death would be!Easier to love, we so should find.It is than to be just and kind.   She’s gone: shut close the coffin-lid:What distance for another didThat death has done for her!  The goodOnce gazed upon with heedless mood,Now fills with tears the famish’d eye,And turns all else to vanity.’Tis sad to see, with death between,The good we have pass’d and have not seen!How strange appear the words of all!The looks of those that live appal.They are the ghosts, and check the breath:There’s no reality but death,And hunger for some signal givenThat we shall have our own in heaven.But this the God of love lets beA horrible uncertainty.   How great her smallest virtue seems,How small her greatest fault!  Ill dreamsWere those that foil’d with loftier graceThe homely kindness of her face.’Twas here she sat and work’d, and thereShe comb’d and kiss’d the children’s hair;Or, with one baby at her breast,Another taught, or hush’d to rest.Praise does the heart no more refuseTo the chief loveliness of use.Her humblest good is hence most highIn the heavens of fond memory;And Love says Amen to the word,A prudent wife is from the Lord.Her worst gown’s kept, (’tis now the best,As that in which she oftenest dress’d,)For memory’s sake more precious grownThan she herself was for her own.Poor child!  Foolish it seem’d to flyTo sobs instead of dignity,When she was hurt.  Now, none than all,Heart-rending and angelicalThat ignorance of what to do,Bewilder’d still by wrong from you:For what man ever yet had graceNe’er to abuse his power and place?   No magic of her voice or smileSuddenly raised a fairy isle,But fondness for her underwentAn unregarded increment,Like that which lifts, through centuries,The coral-reef within the seas,Till, lo! the land where was the wave.Alas! ’tis everywhere her grave.