Coventry Patmore

“ A dreadful God was with me in the dark—’
‘How many a Maid—
Has never told me that! And thou’rt afraid—’
‘He’ll come no more,
Or come but twice,
Or thrice,
Or only thrice ten thousand times thrice o’er!’
‘For want of wishing thou mean’st not to miss.
We know the Lover, Psyche, by the kiss!’
‘If speech of honey could impart the sweet,
The world were all in tears and at his feet!
But not to tell of that in tears come I, but this:
I’m foolish, weak, and small,
And fear to fall. ”

“ Love's natural hope?
Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury!
Behold, all-amorous May,
With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows,
Avoids thee of thy vows!
Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near,
To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere?
Forget thy foolish words;
Go to her summons gay,
Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd,
Ev'n as a nest with birds
After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd. ”

“ To plighted passion, gets by rote
Her duty; says, ‘I love him!’ yet
The thought half chokes her in her throat;
And, like that fatal ‘I am thine,’
Comes with alternate gush and check
And joltings of the heart, as wine
Pour’d from a flask of narrow neck.
Is he indeed her choice? She fears
Her Yes was rashly said, and shame,
Remorse and ineffectual tears
Revolt from has conceded claim. ”

“ If God would not, thus far, give tongue,
Ah, why did He his secret give
To one that has the gift of song?
But all He does He doubtless means,
And, if the Mystery that smites Prophets dumb
Here, to the grace-couch’d eyes of some,
Shapes to its living face the clinging shroud,
Perchance the Skies grow tired of screens,
And ’tis His Advent in the Cloud.
VENUS AND DEATH.
With fetters gold her captivated feet
Lay, sunny sweet;
In that palm was the poppy, Sleep; in this
The apple, Bliss;
Against the mild side of his Spouse and Mother
One small God throve, and in’t, meseem’d, another. ”

“ 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 sweet
Out of the picturing dark; I meet
The ancient frankness of her gaze,
That soft and heart-surprising blaze
Of great goodwill and innocence.
And perfect joy proceeding thence!
Ah! made for earth’s delight, yet such
The mid-sea air’s too gross to touch.
At thought of which, the soul in me
Is as the bird that bites a bee,
And darts abroad on frantic wing,
Tasting the honey and the sting ”

“ Less than thine Eros, in a summer night!’
‘Nay, do not jeer, but help my puzzled plight:
Because he loves so marvellously me,
And I with all he loves in love must be,
How to except myself I do not see.
Yea, now that other vanities are vain,
I’m vain, since him it likes, of being withal
Weak, foolish, small!’
‘How can a Maid forget her ornaments!
The Powers, that hopeless doom the proud to die,
Unask’d smile pardon upon vanity,
Nay, praise it, when themselves are praised thereby.’
‘Ill-match’d I am for a God’s blandishments! ”

“ I wander’d forth, and took my path
Among the bloomless aftermath;
And heard the steadfast robin sing
As 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. Vaughan
Was there, none with her. I confess
I love her than of yore no less!
But she alone was loved of old;
Now love is twain, nay, manifold ”

“ Are these thine arms about my bosom link’d?
Are these thy hands that tremble near my heart,
Where join two hearts, for juncture more distinct?
By thee and by my maiden zone caress’d,
What dim, waste tracts of life shine sudden, like moonbeams
On windless ocean shaken by sweet dreams!
Ah, stir not to depart!
Kiss me again, thy Wife and Virgin too!
O Love, that, like a rose,
Deckest my breast with beautiful repose,
Kiss me again, and clasp me round the heart,
Till fill’d with thee am I
As the cocoon is with the butterfly! ”

“ Of heavenly affection, I
Perceived that utter love is all
The same as to be rational,
And that the mind and heart of love,
Which think they cannot do enough,
Are truly the everlasting doors
Wherethrough, all unpetition’d, pours
The eternal pleasance. Wherefore we
Had innermost tranquillity,
And breathed one life with such a sense
Of friendship and of confidence,
That, recollecting the sure word:
‘If two of you are in accord
On earth, as touching any boon
Which ye shall ask, it shall be done
In heaven,’ we ask’d that heaven’s bliss
Might ne’er be any less than this ”

“ And aye hath, cloister’d, borne,
To the Clown’s scorn,
The fetters of the threefold golden chain:
Narrowing to nothing all his worldly gain;
(Howbeit in vain;
For to have nought
Is to have all things without care or thought!)
Surrendering, abject, to his equal’s rule,
As though he were a fool,
The free wings of the will;
(More vainly still;
For none knows rightly what ’tis to be free
But only he
Who, vow’d against all choice, and fill’d with awe
Of the ofttimes dumb or clouded Oracle,
Does wiser than to spell,
In his own suit, the least word of the Law!) ”

“ Howe’er devout, use dulls the bliss.
Though love is all of earth that’s dear,
Its home, my Children, is not here:
The pathos of eternity
Does in its fullest pleasure sigh.
Be grateful and most glad thereof.
Parting, as ’tis, is pain enough.
If love, by joy, has learn’d to give
Praise with the nature sensitive,
At last, to God, we then possess
The end of mortal happiness,
And henceforth very well may wait
The unbarring of the golden gate,
Wherethrough, already, faith can see
That apter to each wish than we
Is God, and curious to bless
Better than we devise or guess ”

“ He finds a fair capacity,
And fills it with himself, and glad would die
For that sole She.’
‘Know’st thou some potion me awake to keep,
Lest, to the grief of that ne’er-slumbering Bliss,
Disgraced I sleep,
Wearied in soul by his bewildering kiss?’
‘The Immortals, Psyche, moulded men from sods
That Maids from them might learn the ways of Gods.
Think, would a wakeful Youth his hard fate weep,
Lock’d to the tired breast of a Bride asleep?’
‘Ah, me, I do not dream,
Yet all this does some heathen fable seem!’
‘O’ermuch thou mind’st the throne he leaves above! ”

“ Though not a leaf is out, so she
The bloom of life provoked in me
And, hard till then and selfish, I
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
And service: life was mere delight
In 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 shriek
Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
Wander’d the gadding butterfly,
Unscared by my flung cap ”

“ But brand’st for arduous peace my languid brain,
And bright’nest my dull view,
Till I, for blessing, blessing give again,
And my roused spirit is
Another fire of bliss,
Wherein I learn
Feelingly how the pangful, purging fire
Shall furiously burn
With joy, not only of assured desire,
But also present joy
Of seeing the life’s corruption, stain by stain,
Vanish in the clear heat of Love irate,
And, fume by fume, the sick alloy
Of luxury, sloth and hate
Evaporate;
Leaving the man, so dark erewhile,
The mirror merely of God’s smile. ”

“ There’s nothing heals one woman’s loss,
And lightens life’s eternal cross
With 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 dispel
The 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 snow
And powerful as the avalanche,
She lit the deck. The Heav’n-sent chance! ”

“ My very body’s joy were but increased;
More pleasant ’tis to please thee than be pleased.
Thy love has conquer’d me; do with me as thou wilt,
And use me as a chattel that is thine!
Kiss, tread me under foot, cherish or beat,
Sheathe in my heart sharp pain up to the hilt,
Invent what else were most perversely sweet;
Nay, let the Fiend drag me through dens of guilt;
Let Earth, Heav’n, Hell
’Gainst my content combine;
What could make nought the touch that made thee mine!
Ah, say not yet, farewell!’
‘Nay, that’s the Blackbird’s note, the sweet Night’s knell. ”

“ My 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 owes
Itself to bread; enough thereof
And easy days condition love;
And, kindly train’d, love’s roses thrive,
No more pale, scentless petals five,
Which moisten the considerate eye
To see what haste they make to die,
But heavens of colour and perfume,
Which, month by month, renew the bloom
Of art-born graces, when the year
In all the natural grove is sere. ”

“ Laugh and fling pebbles on the rainbow’d crest
Of its untired unrest.
III. WINTER.
I, singularly moved
To love the lovely that are not beloved,
Of all the Seasons, most
Love Winter, and to trace
The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face.
It is not death, but plenitude of peace;
And the dim cloud that does the world enfold
Hath less the characters of dark and cold
Than warmth and light asleep,
And correspondent breathing seems to keep
With the infant harvest, breathing soft below
Its eider coverlet of snow. ”

“ Age has romance almost as sweet
And much more generous than this
Of yours and John’s. With all the bliss
Of the evenings when you coo’d with him
And upset home for your sole whim,
You might have envied, were you wise,
The tears within your Mother’s eyes,
Which, I dare say, you did not see.
But let that pass! Yours yet will be,
I hope, as happy, kind, and true
As lives which now seem void to you. ”

“ Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss:
Wondrous, for, though
True Virgin lives not but does know,
(Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,)
That God lies really in her breast,
Of thine He made His special nest!
And so
All mothers worship little feet,
And kiss the very ground they’ve trod;
But, ah, thy little Baby sweet
Who was indeed thy God!
THE OPEN SECRET.
The Heavens repeat no other Song,
And, plainly or in parable,
The Angels trust, in each man’s tongue,
The Treasure’s safety to its size. ”

“ And those perpetual yearnings sweet
Of lives which dream that they can meet
Are given that lovers never may
Be without sacrifice to lay
On the high altar of true love,
With tears of vestal joy. To move
Frantic, like comets to our bliss,
Forgetting that we always miss,
And so to seek and fly the sun,
By turns, around which love should run,
Perverts the ineffable delight
Of service guerdon’d with full sight
And pathos of a hopeless want,
To an unreal victory’s vaunt,
And plaint of an unreal defeat. ”

“ Yea, does from her own law, to hint it, err,
As ’twere a trust too huge for her.
Maiden and Youth pipe wondrous clear
The tune they are the last to hear.
’Tis the strange gem in Pleasure’s cup.
Physician and Philosopher,
In search of acorns, plough it up,
But count it nothing ’mong their gains;
Nay, call it pearl, they’d answer, ‘Lo,
Blest Land where pearls as large as pumpkins grow!’
And would not even rend you for your pains.
To tell men truth, yet keep them dark
And shooting still beside the mark,
God, as in jest, gave to their wish,
The Sign of Jonah and the Fish. ”

“ To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;
The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content
With tears of recognition never dry.
SPONSA DEI.
What is this Maiden fair,
The laughing of whose eye
Is in man’s heart renew’d virginity:
Who yet sick longing breeds
For marriage which exceeds
The inventive guess of Love to satisfy
With hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless dear despair? ”