Poems. Volume 1
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THE PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE
How low when angels fall their black descent,Our primal thunder tells: known is the painOf music, that nigh throning wisdom went,And one false note cast wailful to the insane.Now seems the language heard of Love as rainTo make a mire where fruitfulness was meant.The golden harp gives out a jangled strain,Too like revolt from heaven’s Omnipotent.But listen in the thought; so may there comeConception of a newly-added chord,Commanding space beyond where ear has home.In labour of the trouble at its fount,Leads Life to an intelligible LordThe rebel discords up the sacred mount.MODERN LOVE
I
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head,The strange low sobs that shook their common bedWere called into her with a sharp surprise,And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,Dreadfully venomous to him. She layStone-still, and the long darkness flowed awayWith muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makesHer giant heart of Memory and TearsDrink the pale drug of silence, and so beatSleep’s heavy measure, they from head to feetWere moveless, looking through their dead black years,By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.Like sculptured effigies they might be seenUpon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;Each wishing for the sword that severs all.II
It ended, and the morrow brought the task.Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him inBy shutting all too zealous for their sin:Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers:A languid humour stole among the hours,And if their smiles encountered, he went mad,And raged deep inward, till the light was brownBefore his vision, and the world, forgot,Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crownThe pit of infamy: and then againHe fainted on his vengefulness, and stroveTo ape the magnanimity of love,And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.III
This was the woman; what now of the man?But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel,He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,Or, being callous, haply till he can.But he is nothing:—nothing? Only markThe rich light striking out from her on him!Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swimAcross the man she singles, leaving darkAll else! Lord God, who mad’st the thing so fair,See that I am drawn to her even now!It cannot be such harm on her cool browTo put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there!But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too wellI claim a star whose light is overcast:I claim a phantom-woman in the Past.The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!IV
All other joys of life he strove to warm,And magnify, and catch them to his lip:But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship,And gazed upon him sallow from the storm.Or if Delusion came, ’twas but to showThe coming minute mock the one that went.Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent,Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe:Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars,Is always watching with a wondering hate.Not till the fire is dying in the grate,Look we for any kinship with the stars.Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold,And the great price we pay for it full worth:We have it only when we are half earth.Little avails that coinage to the old!V
A message from her set his brain aflame.A world of household matters filled her mind,Wherein he saw hypocrisy designed:She treated him as something that is tame,And but at other provocation bites.Familiar was her shoulder in the glass,Through that dark rain: yet it may come to passThat a changed eye finds such familiar sightsMore keenly tempting than new loveliness.The ‘What has been’ a moment seemed his own:The splendours, mysteries, dearer because known,Nor less divine: Love’s inmost sacrednessCalled to him, ‘Come!’—In his restraining start,Eyes nurtured to be looked at scarce could seeA wave of the great waves of DestinyConvulsed at a checked impulse of the heart.VI
It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool.She had no blush, but slanted down her eye.Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die:And most she punishes the tender foolWho will believe what honours her the most!Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flowOf tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know,For whom the midnight sobs around Love’s ghost,Since then I heard her, and so will sob on.The love is here; it has but changed its aim.O bitter barren woman! what’s the name?The name, the name, the new name thou hast won?Behold me striking the world’s coward stroke!That will I not do, though the sting is dire.—Beneath the surface this, while by the fireThey sat, she laughing at a quiet joke.VII
She issues radiant from her dressing-room,Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere:—By stirring up a lower, much I fear!How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom!That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curlsCan make known women torturingly fair;The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hairAwakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls.His art can take the eyes from out my head,Until I see with eyes of other men;While deeper knowledge crouches in its den,And sends a spark up:—is it true we are wed?Yea! filthiness of body is most vile,But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse.The former, it were not so great a curseTo read on the steel-mirror of her smile.VIII
Yet it was plain she struggled, and that saltOf righteous feeling made her pitiful.Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?My tears are on thee, that have rarely droppedAs balm for any bitter wound of mine:My breast will open for thee at a sign!But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped:The God once filled them with his mellow breath;And they were music till he flung them down,Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clownPuff his gross spirit in them, worse than death!I do not know myself without thee more:In this unholy battle I grow base:If the same soul be under the same face,Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!IX
He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhilesSo masterfully rude, that he would grieveTo see the helpless delicate thing receiveHis guardianship through certain dark defiles.Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near.She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leanedHer gentle body near him, looking up;And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup,He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beamOf heaven’s circle-glory! Here thy shapeTo squeeze like an intoxicating grape—I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.X
But where began the change; and what’s my crime?The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned,Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained,Drag on Love’s nerveless body thro’ all time?I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare,You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods:Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love’s deep woods,I dreamt of loyal Life:—the offence is there!Love’s jealous woods about the sun are curled;At least, the sun far brighter there did beam.—My crime is, that the puppet of a dream,I plotted to be worthy of the world.Oh, had I with my darling helped to minceThe facts of life, you still had seen me goWith hindward feather and with forward toe,Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince!XI
Out in the yellow meadows, where the beeHums by us with the honey of the Spring,And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wingAre dropping like a noon-dew, wander we.Or is it now? or was it then? for now,As then, the larks from running rings pour showers:The golden foot of May is on the flowers,And friendly shadows dance upon her brow.What’s this, when Nature swears there is no changeTo challenge eyesight? Now, as then, the graceOf heaven seems holding earth in its embrace.Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange?Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou seeAn amber cradle near the sun’s decline:Within it, featured even in death divine,Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.XII
Not solely that the Future she destroys,And the fair life which in the distance liesFor all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies:Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joysHave lost the keen-edged flavour, which begatDistinction in old times, and still should breedSweet Memory, and Hope,—earth’s modest seed,And heaven’s high-prompting: not that the world is flatSince that soft-luring creature I embracedAmong the children of Illusion went:Methinks with all this loss I were content,If the mad Past, on which my foot is based,Were firm, or might be blotted: but the wholeOf life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay:And if I drink oblivion of a day,So shorten I the stature of my soul.XIII
‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’Says Nature, laughing on her way. ‘So mustAll those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’And lo, she wins, and of her harmoniesShe is full sure! Upon her dying roseShe drops a look of fondness, and goes by,Scarce any retrospection in her eye;For she the laws of growth most deeply knows,Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag—there, an urn.Pledged she herself to aught, ’twould mark her end!This lesson of our only visible friendCan we not teach our foolish hearts to learn?Yes! yes!—but, oh, our human rose is fairSurpassingly! Lose calmly Love’s great bliss,When the renewed for ever of a kissWhirls life within the shower of loosened hair!XIV
What soul would bargain for a cure that bringsContempt the nobler agony to kill?Rather let me bear on the bitter ill,And strike this rusty bosom with new stings!It seems there is another veering fit,Since on a gold-haired lady’s eyeballs pureI looked with little prospect of a cure,The while her mouth’s red bow loosed shafts of wit.Just heaven! can it be true that jealousyHas decked the woman thus? and does her headSwim somewhat for possessions forfeited?Madam, you teach me many things that be.I open an old book, and there I findThat ‘Women still may love whom they deceive.’Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave,The game you play at is not to my mind.XV
I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when lowHangs that abandoned arm toward the floor;The face turned with it. Now make fast the door.Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe.The Poet’s black stage-lion of wronged loveFrights not our modern dames:—well if he did!Now will I pour new light upon that lid,Full-sloping like the breasts beneath. ‘Sweet dove,Your sleep is pure. Nay, pardon: I disturb.I do not? good!’ Her waking infant-stareGrows woman to the burden my hands bear:Her own handwriting to me when no curbWas left on Passion’s tongue. She trembles through;A woman’s tremble—the whole instrument:—I show another letter lately sent.The words are very like: the name is new.XVI
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,When in the firelight steadily aglow,Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm growAmong the clicking coals. Our library-bowerThat eve was left to us: and hushed we satAs lovers to whom Time is whispering.From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.Well knew we that Life’s greatest treasure layWith us, and of it was our talk. ‘Ah, yes!Love dies!’ I said: I never thought it less.She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.Then when the fire domed blackening, I foundHer cheek was salt against my kiss, and swiftUp the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:—Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!XVII
At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keepsThe Topic over intellectual deepsIn buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:It is in truth a most contagious game:Hiding the Skeleton, shall be its name.Such play as this the devils might appal!But here’s the greater wonder; in that we,Enamoured of an acting nought can tire,Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemerioe,Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.We waken envy of our happy lot.Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.XVIII
Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.Curved open to the river-reach is seenA country merry-making on the green.Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.That little screwy fiddler from his booth,Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the jointsOf all who caper here at various points.I have known rustic revels in my youth:The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease.An early goddess was a country lass:A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass.What life was that I lived? The life of these?Heaven keep them happy! Nature they seem near.They must, I think, be wiser than I am;They have the secret of the bull and lamb.’Tis true that when we trace its source, ’tis beer.XIX
No state is enviable. To the luck aloneOf some few favoured men I would put claim.I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame.Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my ownBeat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell!But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I letMy Love’s old time-piece to another set,Swear it can’t stop, and must for ever swell?Sure, that’s one way Love drifts into the martWhere goat-legged buyers throng. I see not plain:—My meaning is, it must not be again.Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart.If any state be enviable on earth,’Tis yon born idiot’s, who, as days go by,Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly,In a queer sort of meditative mirth.XX
I am not of those miserable malesWho sniff at vice and, daring not to snap,Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hapOf all my deeds. The wind that fills my sailsPropels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked,I know the devil has sufficient weightTo bear: I lay it not on him, or fate.Besides, he’s damned. That man I do suspectA coward, who would burden the poor deuceWith what ensues from his own slipperiness.I have just found a wanton-scented tressIn an old desk, dusty for lack of use.Of days and nights it is demonstrative,That, like some aged star, gleam luridly.If for those times I must ask charity,Have I not any charity to give?XXI
We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;My friend being third. He who at love once laughedIs in the weak rib by a fatal shaftStruck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawnAnd radiant culmination, glorious crown,When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she.Our eyes grow white, encountering: that we are three,Forgetful; then together we look down.But he demands our blessing; is convincedThat words of wedded lovers must bring good.We question; if we dare! or if we should!And pat him, with light laugh. We have not winced.Next, she has fallen. Fainting points the signTo happy things in wedlock. When she wakes,She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes:Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.XXII
What may the woman labour to confess?There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.’Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which?I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.She has desires of touch, as if to feelThat all the household things are things she knew.She stops before the glass. What sight in view?A face that seems the latest to reveal!For she turns from it hastily, and tossedIrresolute steals shadow-like to whereI stand; and wavering pale before me there,Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.She will not speak. I will not ask. We areLeague-sundered by the silent gulf between.You burly lovers on the village green,Yours is a lower, and a happier star!XXIII
’Tis Christmas weather, and a country houseReceives us: rooms are full: we can but getAn attic-crib. Such lovers will not fretAt that, it is half-said. The great carouseKnocks hard upon the midnight’s hollow door,But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.Why did I come here in that dullard fit?I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.Passing, I caught the coverlet’s quick beat:—Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain—Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:My feet were nourished on her breasts all night.XXIV
The misery is greater, as I live!To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense,That she does penance now for no offence,Save against Love. The less can I forgive!The less can I forgive, though I adoreThat cruel lovely pallor which surroundsHer footsteps; and the low vibrating soundsThat come on me, as from a magic shore.Low are they, but most subtle to find outThe shrinking soul. Madam, ’tis understoodWhen women play upon their womanhood,It means, a Season gone. And yet I doubtBut I am duped. That nun-like look waylaysMy fancy. Oh! I do but wait a sign!Pluck out the eyes of pride! thy mouth to mine!Never! though I die thirsting. Go thy ways!XXV
You like not that French novel? Tell me why.You think it quite unnatural. Let us see.The actors are, it seems, the usual three:Husband, and wife, and lover. She—but fie!In England we’ll not hear of it. Edmond,The lover, her devout chagrin doth share;Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare,Till his pale aspect makes her over-fond:So, to preclude fresh sin, he tries rosbif.Meantime the husband is no more abused:Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used.Then hangeth all on one tremendous If:—If she will choose between them. She does choose;And takes her husband, like a proper wife.Unnatural? My dear, these things are life:And life, some think, is worthy of the Muse.XXVI
Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eveHe views the rosy dawn. In vain they weaveThe fatal web below while far he flies.But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change.He moves but in the track of his spent pain,Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,Binding him to the ground, with narrow range.A subtle serpent then has Love become.I had the eagle in my bosom erst:Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed.I can interpret where the mouth is dumb.Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth.Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed:But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed,You must bear all the venom of his tooth!XXVII
Distraction is the panacea, Sir!I hear my oracle of Medicine say.Doctor! that same specific yesterdayI tried, and the result will not deterA second trial. Is the devil’s lineOf golden hair, or raven black, composed?And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed,Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine?No matter, so I taste forgetfulness.And if the devil snare me, body and mind,Here gratefully I score:—he seemëd kind,When not a soul would comfort my distress!O sweet new world, in which I rise new made!O Lady, once I gave love: now I take!Lady, I must be flattered. Shouldst thou wakeThe passion of a demon, be not afraid.XXVIII
I must be flattered. The imperiousDesire speaks out. Lady, I am contentTo play with you the game of Sentiment,And with you enter on paths perilous;But if across your beauty I throw light,To make it threefold, it must be all mine.First secret; then avowed. For I must shineEnvied,—I, lessened in my proper sight!Be watchful of your beauty, Lady dear!How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell.Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well:And men shall see me as a burning sphere;And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groanTo be the God of such a grand sunflower!I feel the promptings of Satanic power,While you do homage unto me alone.XXIX
Am I failing? For no longer can I castA glory round about this head of gold.Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;Not like the consecration of the Past!Is my soul beggared? Something more than earthI cry for still: I cannot be at peaceIn having Love upon a mortal lease.I cannot take the woman at her worth!Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothedOur human nakedness, and could endowWith spiritual splendour a white browThat else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?A kiss is but a kiss now! and no waveOf a great flood that whirls me to the sea.But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly,And eat our pot of honey on the grave.XXX
What are we first? First, animals; and nextIntelligences at a leap; on whomPale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,And all that draweth on the tomb for text.Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.We are the lords of life, and life is warm.Intelligence and instinct now are one.But nature says: ‘My children most they seemWhen they least know me: therefore I decreeThat they shall suffer.’ Swift doth young Love flee,And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.Then if we study Nature we are wise.Thus do the few who live but with the day:The scientific animals are they.—Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes.XXXI
This golden head has wit in it. I liveAgain, and a far higher life, near her.Some women like a young philosopher;Perchance because he is diminutive.For woman’s manly god must not exceedProportions of the natural nursing size.Great poets and great sages draw no prizeWith women: but the little lap-dog breed,Who can be hugged, or on a mantel-piecePerched up for adoration, these obtainHer homage. And of this we men are vain?Of this! ’Tis ordered for the world’s increase!Small flattery! Yet she has that rare giftTo beauty, Common Sense. I am approved.It is not half so nice as being loved,And yet I do prefer it. What’s my drift?XXXII
Full faith I have she holds that rarest giftTo beauty, Common Sense. To see her lieWith her fair visage an inverted skyBloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would addressThe inner me that thirsts for her no less,And has so long been languishing in drouth,I feel that I am matched; that I am man!One restless corner of my heart or head,That holds a dying something never dead,Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can.It means, that woman is not, I opine,Her sex’s antidote. Who seeks the aspFor serpent’s bites? ’Twould calm me could I claspShrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine!XXXIII
‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seenThe sumptuously-feathered angel pierceProne Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce,Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene!The young Pharsalians did not disarrayLess willingly their locks of floating silk:That suckling mouth of his upon the milkOf heaven might still be feasting through the fray.Oh, Raphael! when men the Fiend do fight,They conquer not upon such easy terms.Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms.And does he grow half human, all is right.’This to my Lady in a distant spot,Upon the theme: While mind is mastering clay,Gross clay invades it. If the spy you play,My wife, read this! Strange love talk, is it not?XXXIV
Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes:The Deluge or else Fire! She’s well; she thanksMy husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks.Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.Am I quite well? Most excellent in health!The journals, too, I diligently peruse.Vesuvius is expected to give news:Niagara is no noisier. By stealthOur eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She’s gladI’m happy, says her quivering under-lip.‘And are not you?’ ‘How can I be?’ ‘Take ship!For happiness is somewhere to be had.’‘Nowhere for me!’ Her voice is barely heard.I am not melted, and make no pretence.With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense.Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred.XXXV
It is no vulgar nature I have wived.Secretive, sensitive, she takes a woundDeep to her soul, as if the sense had swooned,And not a thought of vengeance had survived.No confidences has she: but reliefMust come to one whose suffering is acute.O have a care of natures that are mute!They punish you in acts: their steps are brief.What is she doing? What does she demandFrom Providence or me? She is not oneLong to endure this torpidly, and shunThe drugs that crowd about a woman’s hand.At Forfeits during snow we played, and IMust kiss her. ‘Well performed!’ I said: then she:‘’Tis hardly worth the money, you agree?’Save her? What for? To act this wedded lie!