Coventry Patmore The Victories of Love, and Other Poems
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 still Which carefullest duty cannot fill. What though the inaugural hour of right Comes ever with a keen delight? Little relieves the labour’s heat; Disgust oft crowns it when complete; And life, in fact, is not less dull For being very dutiful. ‘The stately homes of England,’ lo, ‘How beautiful they stand!’ They owe How much to nameless things like me Their beauty of security! But who can long a low toil mend By looking to a lofty end? And let me, since ’tis truth, confess The 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 fly The 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 gulf With friends, the pictures of myself. Then marvel not that I recur From each and all of these to her. For more of heaven than her have I No sensitive capacity. Had I but her, ah, what the gain Of owning aught but that domain! Nay, heaven’s extent, however much, Cannot be more than many such; And, she being mine, should God to me Say ‘Lo! my Child, I give to thee ‘All heaven besides,’ what could I then, But, as a child, to Him complain That whereas my dear Father gave A little space for me to have In His great garden, now, o’erblest, I’ve that, indeed, but all the rest, Which, somehow, makes it seem I’ve got All but my only cared-for plot. Enough was that for my weak hand To tend, my heart to understand. Oh, the sick fact, ’twixt her and me There’s naught, and half a world of sea.
IX. FROM FREDERICK
In two, in less than two hours more I set my foot on English shore, Two years untrod, and, strange to tell, Nigh miss’d through last night’s storm! There fell A man from the shrouds, that roar’d to quench Even the billows’ blast and drench. Besides me none was near to mark His loud cry in the louder dark, Dark, save when lightning show’d the deeps Standing about in stony heaps. No time for choice! A rope; a flash That flamed as he rose; a dizzy splash; A strange, inopportune delight Of mounting with the billowy might, And falling, with a thrill again Of pleasure shot from feet to brain; And both paced deck, ere any knew Our peril. Round us press’d the crew, With wonder in the eyes of most. As if the man who had loved and lost Honoria 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 piece Of coral or of ambergris, Which, boasted of abroad, we ignore The burden of the barren shore. I seldom write, for ’twould be still Of how the nerves refuse to thrill; How, throughout doubly-darken’d days, I cannot recollect her face; How to my heart her name to tell Is 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 dense Of waking life’s dull somnolence. I see her as I knew her, grace Already glory in her face; I move about, I cannot rest, For the proud brain and joyful breast I 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 blurs To 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 word Is music in the music heard, And all things seem but parts to be Of one persistent harmony, By which I’m made divinely bold; The secret, which she knows, is told; And, laughing with a lofty bliss Of 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 witchery It seems you kiss her, ’tis not she; But, whilst you languish at the side Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride, Surely a dragon and strong tower Guard the true lady in her bower.’ And I say, ‘Dear my Lord. Amen!’ And the true lady kiss again. Or else some wasteful malady Devours 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 vow I 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 sent About the sounding firmament In smitings as of silver bars; The bright disorder of the stars Is solved by music; far and near, Through infinite distinctions clear, Their twofold voices’ deeper tone Utters the Name which all things own, And each ecstatic treble dwells On 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 quells My constancy, or, simply wroth With such a wretch, accept my troth To spite him; or her beauty’s gone, (And that’s my dream!) and this man Vaughan Takes 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 amiss I read her words and looks, and his, That night! Did not his jealousy Show—Good my God, and can it be That 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 roars Along the sacred English shores! There lies the lovely land I know, Where men and women lordliest grow; There peep the roofs where more than kings Postpone state cares to country things, And many a gay queen simply tends The babes on whom the world depends; There curls the wanton cottage smoke Of him that drives but bears no yoke; There laughs the realm where low and high Are 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 read That ‘Mr. Vaughan, on Tuesday, wed The beautiful Miss Churchill.’ So That’s over; and to-morrow I go To take up my new post on board The Wolf, my peace at last restored; My lonely faith, like heart-of-oak, Shock-season’d. Grief is now the cloak I clasp about me to prevent The deadly chill of a content With any near or distant good, Except the exact beatitude Which love has shown to my desire. Talk not of ‘other joys and higher,’ I hate and disavow all bliss As none for me which is not this. Think not I blasphemously cope With 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 more The heaven of heavens of such a Bride, But, lounging, lets her please his pride With fondness, guerdons her caress With little names, and turns a tress Round 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 me Her happiness and dignity!
X. FROM FREDERICK
I thought the worst had brought me balm: ’Twas but the tempest’s central calm. Vague sinkings of the heart aver That 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 late I 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 stress Of 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 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; And, moaning where all round me sleep Amidst 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 desire The only good; the sacred fire That 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 I Will give you peace; go and profane This pangful love, so pure, so vain. And thereby win forgetfulness And pardon of the spirit’s excess, Which soar’d too nigh that jealous Heaven Ever, save thus, to be forgiven. No Gospel has come down that cures With 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 smile That aught with such a measure vile As 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 divine On 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 stanch Meantime with earth the bleeding branch. 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! She smiled, surprised. They came to see The 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 sun But men might live cool lives thereon! All’s well; for I have seen arise That reflex sweetness of her eyes In his, and watch’d his breath defer Humbly its bated life to her, His wife. My Love, she’s safe in his Devotion! What ask’d I but this? They bade adieu; I saw them go Across the sea; and now I know The 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 I Loved most, and so, by claim divine, Should have her, in the heavens, for mine, According to such nuptial sort As may subsist in the holy court, Where, if there are all kinds of joys To exhaust the multitude of choice In many mansions, then there are Loves personal and particular, Conspicuous in the glorious sky Of universal charity, As Phosphor in the sunrise. Now I’ve seen them, I believe their vow Immortal; and the dreadful thought, That he less honour’d than he ought Her 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 cope Unburthen’d even by a hope; And peace unspeakable, a joy Which hope would deaden and destroy, Like sunshine fills the airy gulf Left by the vanishing of self. That I have known her; that she moves Somewhere all-graceful; that she loves, And is belov’d, and that she’s so Most happy, and to heaven will go, Where I may meet with her, (yet this I count but accidental bliss,) And that the full, celestial weal Of all shall sensitively feel The partnership and work of each, And thus my love and labour reach Her region, there the more to bless Her last, consummate happiness, Is guerdon up to the degree Of that alone true loyalty Which, sacrificing, is not nice About 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 hour Was 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 mouth Worse fever shows than heat or drouth. Wherefore take, Frederick, timely fear Against 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 eased To meet with her who can be pleased To proffer kindness, amid compute His 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 plea For 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 caught By graces he himself had taught. And fancy not ’tis in the might Of man to do without delight; For, should you in her nothing find To exhilarate the higher mind, Your soul would deaden useless wings With wickedness of lawful things, And vampire pleasure swift destroy Even 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 given That scorns a good which is not heaven; My Child, who used to sit and sigh Under 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 ache For what was mainly his mistake; But, having err’d so, all his force Would fix upon the hard, right course. She’s graceless, say, yet good and true, And therefore inly fair, and, through The veils which inward beauty fold, Faith can her loveliness behold. Ah, that’s soon tired; faith falls away Without the ceremonial stay Of outward loveliness and awe. The weightier matters of the law She pays: mere mint and cumin not; And, in the road that she was taught, She treads, and takes for granted still Nature’s immedicable ill; So never wears within her eyes A false report of paradise, Nor ever modulates her mirth With vain compassion of the earth, Which made a certain happier face Affecting, and a gayer grace With pathos delicately edged! Yet, though she be not privileged To 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 you Than being loved, and she commands All tenderness she understands. It is but when you proffer more The yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore. It’s weary work enforcing love On one who has enough thereof, And honour on the lowlihead Of ignorance! Besides, you dread, In Leah’s arms, to meet the eyes Of Rachel, somewhere in the skies, And both return, alike relieved, To life less loftily conceived. Alas, alas! Then wait the mood In which a woman may be woo’d Whose thoughts and habits are too high For honour to be flattery, And who would surely not allow The 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 move The 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 waste Of 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 brood Of 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 find Her 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 receive The honour you would long to give, Would hasten on to justify Expectancy, however high, Whilst you would happily incur Compulsion to keep up with her.
XII. FROM FREDERICK
Your letter, Mother, bears the date Of 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 dense On fancy, feeling, thought, and sense. I grew so idle, so despised Myself, 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’d For such slight came,—if only gleam’d, Remotely, beautifully bright, On clouded eves at sea, the light Of English headlands in the sun,— That soon I deem’d ’twere better done To lay this poor, complaining wraith Of unreciprocated faith: And so, with heart still bleeding quick. But strengthen’d by the comfort sick Of 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 be If some kind woman, not above Myself in rank, would give her love To one that knew not how to woo. Whereat she, without more ado, Blush’d, spoke of love return’d, and closed With what I meant to have proposed. And, trust me, Mother, I and Jane, We suit each other well. My gain Is very great in this good Wife, To whom I’m bound, for natural life, By hearty faith, yet crossing not My 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 each Lies quite beyond the other’s reach And recognition. If you say, Am I contented? Yea and nay! For what’s base but content to grow With 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 much A 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 kiss And 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, before My Cousin’s time, ’tis now so sore A treason to the abiding throne Of that sweet love which I have known, I cannot live so, and I bend My mind perforce to comprehend That He who gives command to love Does not require a thing above The strength He gives. The highest degree Of 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 I Renounce all partiality Of passion. Subject to control Of that perspective of the soul Which 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 dear Than all as she is much more near! I’ll love her! Yea, and love’s joy comes Ever from self-love’s martyrdoms! Yet, not to lie for God, ’tis true That ’twas another joy I knew When freighted was my heart with fire Of fond, irrational desire For fascinating, female charms, And hopeless heaven in Her mild arms. Nor wrong I any, if I profess That care for heaven with me were less But that I’m utterly imbued With faith of all Earth’s hope renew’d In realms where no short-coming pains Expectance, and dear love disdains Time’s treason, and the gathering dross, And lasts for ever in the gloss Of 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 aches To be therewith conform’d; but, oh, The world’s so stolid, dark, and low! That and the mortal element Forbid the beautiful intent, And, like the unborn butterfly, It feels the wings, and wants the sky. But perilous is the lofty mood Which cannot yoke with lowly good. Right life, for me, is life that wends By lowly ways to lofty ends. I will perceive, at length, that haste T’ward heaven itself is only waste; And thus I dread the impatient spur Of 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 free All things, now dons death’s mockery, And takes its place with tunings that are But little noted. Do not mar For me your peace! My health is high. The proud possession of mine eye Departed, I am much like one Who had by haughty custom grown To think gilt rooms, and spacious grounds, Horses, and carriages, and hounds. Fine linen, and an eider bed As 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 thereto Weeping, and other relics few, Allow’d, by them that seize his pelf, As precious only to himself. Yet the sun shines; the country green Has many riches, poorly seen From blazon’d coaches; grace at meat Goes well with thrift in what they eat; And there’s amends for much bereft In better thanks for much that’s left! Jane is not fair, yet pleases well The eye in which no others dwell; And features somewhat plainly set, And homely manners leave her yet The crowning boon and most express Of Heaven’s inventive tenderness, A woman. But I do her wrong, Letting the world’s eyes guide my tongue! She has a handsomeness that pays No homage to the hourly gaze, And dwells not on the arch’d brow’s height And lids which softly lodge the light, Nor in the pure field of the cheek Flow’rs, though the soul be still to seek; But shows as fits that solemn place Whereof the window is the face: Blankness and leaden outlines mark What time the Church within is dark: Yet view it on a Festal night, Or some occasion else for light, And each ungainly line is seen A special character to mean Of Saint or Prophet, and the whole Blank window is a living scroll. For hours, the clock upon the shelf, Has all the talking to itself; But to and fro her needle runs Twice, 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 stroke The 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 clear Of 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 force With foolish envy and remorse. I love this woman, but I might Have loved some else with more delight; And strange it seems of God that He Should 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 moan A kind tradition overthrown, And dawning promise once more dead In the pernicious lowlihead Of not aspiring to be fair. And what am I, that I should dare Dispute with God, who moulds one clay To honour and shame, and wills to pay With equal wages them that delve About His vines one hour or twelve!