Coventry Patmore The Victories of Love, and Other Poems
VIII. FROM JANE TO FREDERICK
You think, perhaps, ‘Ah, could she know How much I loved her!’ Dear, I do! And you may say, ‘Of this new awe Of heart which makes her fancies law, These watchful duties of despair, She does not dream, she cannot care!’ Frederick, you see how false that is, Or how could I have written this? And, should it ever cross your mind That, now and then, you were unkind. You never, never, were at all! Remember that! It’s natural For one like Mr. Vaughan to come, From a morning’s useful pastime, home, And greet, with such a courteous zest His handsome wife, still newly dress’d, As if the Bird of Paradise Should daily change her plumage thrice. He’s always well, she’s always gay. Of course! But he who toils all day, And comes home hungry, tired, or cold, And feels ’twould do him good to scold His wife a little, let him trust Her love, and say the things he must, Till sooth’d in mind by meat and rest. If, after that, she’s well caress’d, And told how good she is, to bear His humour, fortune makes it fair. Women like men to be like men; That is, at least, just now and then. Thus, I have nothing to forgive, But those first years, (how could I live!) When, though I really did behave So stupidly, you never gave One unkind word or look at all: As if I was some animal You pitied! Now in later life, You used me like a proper Wife. You feel, Dear, in your present mood, Your Jane, since she was kind and good, A child of God, a living soul, Was not so different, on the whole, From Her who had a little more Of God’s best gifts: but, oh, be sure, My dear, dear Love, to take no blame Because you could not feel the same Towards me, living, as when dead. A hungry man must needs think bread So sweet! and, only at their rise And setting, blessings, to thine eyes, Like the sun’s course, grow visible. If you are sad, remember well, Against delusions of despair, That memory sees things as they were, And not as they were misenjoy’d, And would be still, if aught destroy’d The glory of their hopelessness: So that, in truth, you had me less In days when necessary zeal For my perfection made you feel My faults the most, than now your love Forgets but where it can approve. You gain by loss, if that seem’d small Possess’d, which, being gone, turns all Surviving good to vanity. Oh, Fred, this makes it sweet to die! Say to yourself: ‘’Tis comfort yet I made her that which I regret; And parting might have come to pass In a worse season; as it was, Love an eternal temper took, Dipp’d, glowing, in Death’s icy brook!’ Or say, ‘On her poor feeble head This might have fallen: ’tis mine instead! And so great evil sets me free Henceforward from calamity. And, in her little children, too, How much for her I yet can do!’ And grieve not for these orphans even; For central to the love of Heaven Is each child as each star to space. This truth my dying love has grace To trust with a so sure content, I fear I seem indifferent. You must not think a child’s small heart Cold, because it and grief soon part. Fanny will keep them all away, Lest you should hear them laugh and play. Before the funeral’s over. Then I hope you’ll be yourself again, And glad, with all your soul, to find How God thus to the sharpest wind Suits the shorn lambs. Instruct them, Dear, For my sake, in His love and fear. And show now, till their journey’s done, Not to be weary they must run. Strive not to dissipate your grief By any lightness. True relief Of sorrow is by sorrow brought. And yet for sorrow’s sake, you ought To grieve with measure. Do not spend So good a power to no good end! Would you, indeed, have memory stay In the heart, lock up and put away Relies and likenesses and all Musings, which waste what they recall. True comfort, and the only thing To soothe without diminishing A prized regret, is to match here, By a strict life, God’s love severe. Yet, after all, by nature’s course, Feeling must lose its edge and force. Again you’ll reach the desert tracts Where only sin or duty acts. But, if love always lit our path, Where were the trial of our faith? Oh, should the mournful honeymoon Of death be over strangely soon, And life-long resolutions, made In grievous haste, as quickly fade, Seeming the truth of grief to mock, Think, Dearest, ’tis not by the clock That sorrow goes! A month of tears Is more than many, many years Of common time. Shun, if you can, However, any passionate plan. Grieve with the heart; let not the head Grieve on, when grief of heart is dead: For all the powers of life defy A superstitions constancy. The only bond I hold you to Is that which nothing can undo. A man is not a young man twice; And if, of his young years, he lies A faithful score in one wife’s breast, She need not mind who has the rest. In this do what you will, dear Love, And feel quite sure that I approve. And, should it chance as it may be, Give her my wedding-ring from me; And never dream that you can err T’wards me by being good to her; Nor let remorseful thoughts destroy In you the kindly flowering joy And pleasure of the natural life. But don’t forget your fond, dead Wife. And, Frederick, should you ever be Tempted to think your love of me All fancy, since it drew its breath So much more sweetly after death, Remember that I never did A single thing you once forbid; All poor folks liked me; and, at the end, Your Cousin call’d me ‘Dearest Friend!’ And, new, ’twill calm your grief to know,— You, who once loved Honoria so,— There’s kindness, that’s look’d kindly on, Between her Emily and John. Thus, in your children, you will wed! And John seems so much comforted, (Like Isaac when his mother died And fair Rebekah was his bride), By his new hope, for losing me! So all is happiness, you see. And that reminds me how, last night, I dreamt of heaven, with great delight. A strange, kind Lady watch’d my face, Kiss’d me, and cried, ‘His hope found grace!’ She bade me then, in the crystal floor, Look at myself, myself no more; And bright within the mirror shone Honoria’s smile, and yet my own! ‘And, when you talk, I hear,’ she sigh’d, ‘How much he loved her! Many a bride In heaven such countersemblance wears Through what Love deem’d rejected prayers.’ She would have spoken still; but, lo, One of a glorious troop, aglow From some great work, towards her came, And she so laugh’d, ’twas such a flame, Aaron’s twelve jewels seem’d to mix With the lights of the Seven Candlesticks.
IX. FROM LADY CLITHEROE TO MRS. GRAHAM
My dearest Aunt, the Wedding-day, But for Jane’s loss, and you away, Was all a Bride from heaven could beg Skies bluer than the sparrow’s egg. And clearer than the cuckoo’s call; And such a sun! the flowers all With double ardour seem’d to blow! The very daisies were a show, Expanded with uncommon pride, Like little pictures of the Bride. Your Great-Niece and your Grandson were Perfection of a pretty pair. How well Honoria’s girls turn out, Although they never go about! Dear me, what trouble and expense It took to teach mine confidence! Hers greet mankind as I’ve heard say That wild things do, where beasts of prey Were never known, nor any men Have met their fearless eyes till then. Their grave, inquiring trust to find All creatures of their simple kind Quite disconcerts bold coxcombry, And makes less perfect candour shy. Ah, Mrs. Graham! people may scoff, But how your home-kept girls go off! How Hymen hastens to unband The waist that ne’er felt waltzer’s hand! At last I see my Sister’s right, And I’ve told Maud this very night, (But, oh, my daughters have such wills!) To knit, and only dance quadrilles. You say Fred never writes to you Frankly, as once he used to do, About himself; and you complain He shared with none his grief for Jane. It all comes of the foolish fright Men feel at the word, hypocrite. Although, when first in love, sometimes They rave in letters, talk, and rhymes, When once they find, as find they must, How hard ’tis to be hourly just To those they love, they are dumb for shame, Where we, you see, talk on the same. Honoria, to whose heart alone He seems to open all his own At times, has tears in her kind eyes, After their private colloquies. He’s her most favour’d guest, and moves My spleen by his impartial loves. His pleasure has some inner spring Depending not on anything. Petting our Polly, none e’er smiled More fondly on his favourite child; Yet, playing with his own, it is Somehow as if it were not his. He means to go again to sea, Now that the wedding’s over. He Will leave to Emily and John The little ones to practise on; And Major-domo, Mrs. Rouse, A dear old soul from Wilton House, Will scold the housemaids and the cook, Till Emily has learn’d to look A little braver than a lamb Surprised by dogs without its dam! Do, dear Aunt, use your influence, And try to teach some plain good sense To Mary. ’Tis not yet too late To make her change her chosen state Of single silliness. In truth, I fancy that, with fading youth, Her will now wavers. Yesterday, Though, till the Bride was gone away, Joy shone from Mary’s loving heart, I found her afterwards apart, Hysterically sobbing. I Knew much too well to ask her why. This marrying of Nieces daunts The bravest souls of maiden Aunts. Though Sisters’ children often blend Sweetly the bonds of child and friend, They are but reeds to rest upon. When Emily comes back with John, Her right to go downstairs before Aunt Mary will but be the more Observed if kindly waived, and how Shall these be as they were, when now Niece has her John, and Aunt the sense Of her superior innocence? Somehow, all loves, however fond, Prove lieges of the nuptial bond; And she who dares at this to scoff, Finds all the rest in time drop off; While marriage, like a mushroom-ring, Spreads its sure circle every Spring. She twice refused George Vane, you know; Yet, when be died three years ago In the Indian war, she put on gray, And wears no colours to this day. And she it is who charges me, Dear Aunt, with ‘inconsistency!’
X. FROM FREDERICK TO HONORIA
Cousin, my thoughts no longer try To cast the fashion of the sky. Imagination can extend Scarcely in part to comprehend The sweetness of our common food Ambrosial, which ingratitude And impious inadvertence waste, Studious to eat but not to taste. And who can tell what’s yet in store There, but that earthly things have more Of all that makes their inmost bliss, And life’s an image still of this, But haply such a glorious one As is the rainbow of the sun? Sweet are your words, but, after all Their mere reversal may befall The partners of His glories who Daily is crucified anew: Splendid privations, martyrdoms To which no weak remission comes Perpetual passion for the good Of them that feel no gratitude, Far circlings, as of planets’ fires, Round never-to-be-reach’d desires, Whatever rapturously sighs That life is love, love sacrifice. All I am sure of heaven is this: Howe’er the mode, I shall not miss One true delight which I have known. Not on the changeful earth alone Shall loyalty remain unmoved T’wards everything I ever loved. So Heaven’s voice calls, like Rachel’s voice To Jacob in the field, ‘Rejoice!’ Serve on some seven more sordid years, Too short for weariness or tears; Serve on; then, oh, Beloved, well-tried, Take me for ever as thy Bride!’
XI. FROM MARY CHURCHILL TO THE DEAN
Charles does me honour, but ’twere vain To reconsider now again, And so to doubt the clear-shown truth I sought for, and received, when youth, Being fair, and woo’d by one whose love Was lovely, fail’d my mind to move. God bids them by their own will go, Who ask again the things they know! I grieve for my infirmity, And ignorance of how to be Faithful, at once to the heavenly life, And the fond duties of a wife. Narrow am I and want the art To love two things with all my heart. Occupied singly in His search, Who, in the Mysteries of the Church, Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven, I tread a road, straight, hard, and even; But fear to wander all confused, By two-fold fealty abused. Either should I the one forget, Or scantly pay the other’s debt. You bid me, Father, count the cost. I have; and all that must be lost I feel as only woman can. To make the heart’s wealth of some man, And through the untender world to move, Wrapt safe in his superior love, How sweet! How sweet the household round Of duties, and their narrow bound, So plain, that to transgress were hard, Yet full of manifest reward! The charities not marr’d, like mine, With chance of thwarting laws divine; The world’s regards and just delight In one that’s clearly, kindly right, How sweet! Dear Father, I endure, Not without sharp regret, be sure, To give up such glad certainty, For what, perhaps, may never be. For nothing of my state I know, But that t’ward heaven I seem to go, As one who fondly landward hies Along a deck that seaward flies. With every year, meantime, some grace Of earthly happiness gives place To humbling ills, the very charms Of youth being counted, henceforth, harms: To blush already seems absurd; Nor know I whether I should herd With girls or wives, or sadlier balk Maids’ merriment or matrons’ talk. But strait’s the gate of life! O’er late, Besides, ’twere now to change my fate: For flowers and fruit of love to form, It must he Spring as well as warm. The world’s delight my soul dejects. Revenging all my disrespects Of old, with incapacity To chime with even its harmless glee, Which sounds, from fields beyond my range, Like fairies’ music, thin and strange. With something like remorse, I grant The world has beauty which I want; And if, instead of judging it, I at its Council chance to sit, Or at its gay and order’d Feast, My place seems lower than the least The conscience of the life to be Smiles me with inefficiency, And makes me all unfit to bless With comfortable earthliness The rest-desiring brain of man. Finally, them, I fix my plan To dwell with Him that dwells apart In the highest heaven and lowliest heart; Nor will I, to my utter loss, Look to pluck roses from the Cross. As for the good of human love, ’Twere countercheck almost enough To think that one must die before The other; and perhaps ’tis more In love’s last interest to do Nought the least contrary thereto, Than to be blest, and be unjust, Or suffer injustice; as they must, Without a miracle, whose pact Compels to mutual life and act, Whether love shines, or darkness sleeps Cold on the spirit’s changeful deeps. Enough if, to my earthly share, Fall gleams that keep me from despair. Happy the things we here discern; More happy those for which we yearn; But measurelessly happy above All else are those we guess not of!
XII. FROM FELIX TO HONORIA
Dearest, my Love and Wife, ’tis long Ago I closed the unfinish’d song Which never could be finish’d; nor Will ever Poet utter more Of Love than I did, watching well To lure to speech the unspeakable! ‘Why, having won her, do I woo?’ That final strain to the last height flew Of written joy, which wants the smile And voice that are, indeed, the while They last, the very things you speak, Honoria, who mak’st music weak With ways that say, ‘Shall I not be As kind to all as Heaven to me?’ And yet, ah, twenty-fold my Bride! Rising, this twentieth festal-tide, You still soft sleeping, on this day Of days, some words I long to say, Some words superfluously sweet Of fresh assurance, thus to greet Your waking eyes, which never grow Weary of telling what I know So well, yet only well enough To wish for further news thereof. Here, in this early autumn dawn, By windows opening on the lawn. Where sunshine seems asleep, though bright, And shadows yet are sharp with night, And, further on, the wealthy wheat Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet To sit and cast my careless looks Around my walls of well-read books, Wherein is all that stands redeem’d From time’s huge wreck, all men have dream’d Of truth, and all by poets known Of feeling, and in weak sort shown, And, turning to my heart again, To find I have what makes them vain, The thanksgiving mind, which wisdom sums, And you, whereby it freshly comes As on that morning, (can there be Twenty-two years ’twixt it and me?) When, thrill’d with hopeful love, I rose And came in haste to Sarum Close, Past many a homestead slumbering white In lonely and pathetic light, Merely to fancy which drawn blind Of thirteen had my Love behind, And in her sacred neighbourhood To feel that sweet scorn of all good But her, which let the wise forfend When wisdom learns to comprehend! Dearest, as each returning May I see the season new and gay With new joy and astonishment, And Nature’s infinite ostent Of lovely flowers in wood and mead. That weet not whether any heed, So see I, daily wondering, you, And worship with a passion new The Heaven that visibly allows Its grace to go about my house, The partial Heaven, that, though I err And mortal am, gave all to her Who gave herself to me. Yet I Boldly thank Heaven, (and so defy The beggarly soul’d humbleness Which fears God’s bounty to confess,) That I was fashion’d with a mind Seeming for this great gift design’d, So naturally it moved above All sordid contraries of love, Strengthen’d in youth with discipline Of light, to follow the divine Vision, (which ever to the dark Is such a plague as was the ark In Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron,) still Discerning with the docile will Which comes of full persuaded thought, That intimacy in love is nought Without pure reverence, whereas this, In tearfullest banishment, is bliss. And so, dearest Honoria, I Have never learn’d the weary sigh Of those that to their love-feasts went, Fed, and forgot the Sacrament; And not a trifle now occurs But sweet initiation stirs Of new-discover’d joy, and lends To feeling change that never ends; And duties which the many irk, Are made all wages and no work. How sing of such things save to her, Love’s self, so love’s interpreter? How the supreme rewards confess Which crown the austere voluptuousness Of heart, that earns, in midst of wealth, The appetite of want and health, Relinquishes the pomp of life And beauty to the pleasant Wife At home, and does all joy despise As out of place but in her eyes? How praise the years and gravity That make each favour seem to be A lovelier weakness for her lord? And, ah, how find the tender word To tell aright of love that glows The fairer for the fading rose? Of frailty which can weight the arm To lean with thrice its girlish charm? Of grace which, like this autumn day, Is not the sad one of decay, Yet one whose pale brow pondereth The far-off majesty of death? How tell the crowd, whom a passion rends, That love grows mild as it ascends? That joy’s most high and distant mood Is lost, not found in dancing blood; Albeit kind acts and smiling eyes, And all those fond realities Which are love’s words, in us mean more Delight than twenty years before? How, Dearest, finish without wrong To the speechless heart, the unfinish’d song, Its high, eventful passages Consisting, say, of things like these:— One morning, contrary to law, Which, for the most, we held in awe, Commanding either not to intrude On the other’s place of solitude Or solitary mind, for fear Of coming there when God was near, And finding so what should be known To Him who is merciful alone, And views the working ferment base Of waking flesh and sleeping grace, Not as we view, our kindness check’d By likeness of our own defect, I, venturing to her room, because (Mark the excuse!) my Birthday ’twas, Saw, here across a careless chair, A ball-dress flung, as light as air, And, here, beside a silken couch, Pillows which did the pressure vouch Of pious knees, (sweet piety Of goodness made and charity, If gay looks told the heart’s glad sense, Much rather than of penitence,) And, on the couch, an open book, And written list—I did not look, Yet just in her clear writing caught:— ‘Habitual faults of life and thought Which most I need deliverance from.’ I turn’d aside, and saw her come Adown the filbert-shaded way, Beautified with her usual gay Hypocrisy of perfectness, Which made her heart, and mine no less, So happy! And she cried to me, ‘You lose by breaking rules, you see! Your Birthday treat is now half-gone Of seeing my new ball-dress on.’ And, meeting so my lovely Wife, A passing pang, to think that life Was mortal, when I saw her laugh, Shaped in my mind this epitaph: ‘Faults had she, child of Adam’s stem. But only Heaven knew of them.’ Or thus: For many a dreadful day, In sea-side lodgings sick she lay, Noteless of love, nor seem’d to hear The sea, on one side, thundering near, Nor, on the other, the loud Ball Held nightly in the public hall; Nor vex’d they my short slumbers, though I woke up if she breathed too low. Thus, for three months, with terrors rife, The pending of her precious life I watched o’er; and the danger, at last, The kind Physician said, was past. Howbeit, for seven harsh weeks the East Breathed witheringly, and Spring’s growth ceased, And so she only did not die; Until the bright and blighting sky Changed into cloud, and the sick flowers Remember’d their perfumes, and showers Of warm, small rain refreshing flew Before the South, and the Park grew, In three nights, thick with green. Then she Revived, no less than flower and tree, In the mild air, and, the fourth day, Looked supernaturally gay With large, thanksgiving eyes, that shone, The while I tied her bonnet on, So that I led her to the glass, And bade her see how fair she was, And how love visibly could shine. Profuse of hers, desiring mine, And mindful I had loved her most When beauty seem’d a vanish’d boast, She laugh’d. I press’d her then to me, Nothing but soft humility; Nor e’er enhanced she with such charms Her acquiescence in my arms. And, by her sweet love-weakness made Courageous, powerful, and glad. In a clear illustration high 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, for that hour, we seem’d to have The secret of the joy we gave. How sing of such things, save to her, Love’s self, so love’s interpreter? How read from such a homely page In the ear of this unhomely age? ’Tis now as when the Prophet cried: ‘The nation hast Thou multiplied, But Thou hast not increased the joy!’ And yet, ere wrath or rot destroy Of England’s state the ruin fair, Oh, might I so its charm declare, That, in new Lands, in far-off years, Delighted he should cry that hears: ‘Great is the Land that somewhat best Works, to the wonder of the rest! We, in our day, have better done This thing or that than any one; And who but, still admiring, sees How excellent for images Was Greece, for laws how wise was Rome; But read this Poet, and say if home And private love did e’er so smile As in that ancient English isle!’