The Victories of Love, and Other Poems. Coventry Patmore

      The father of love is hope, (though love

      Lives orphan’d on, when hope is dead,)

      And, out of my immediate dread

      And crisis of the coming hour,

      Did hope itself draw sudden power.

      So the still brooding storm, in Spring,

      Makes all the birds begin to sing.

         Mother, your foresight did not err:

      I’ve lost the world, and not won her.

      And yet, ah, laugh not, when you think

      What cup of life I sought to drink!

      The bold, said I, have climb’d to bliss

      Absurd, impossible, as this,

      With nought to help them but so great

      A heart it fascinates their fate.

      If ever Heaven heard man’s desire,

      Mine, being made of altar-fire,

      Must come to pass, and it will be

      That she will wait, when she shall see.

      This evening, how I go to get,

      By means unknown, I know not yet

      Quite what, but ground whereon to stand,

      And plead more plainly for her hand!

         And so I raved, and cast in hope

      A superstitious horoscope!

      And still, though something in her face

      Portended ‘No!’ with such a grace

      It burthen’d me with thankfulness,

      Nothing was credible but ‘Yes.’

      Therefore, through time’s close pressure bold,

      I praised myself, and boastful told

      My deeds at Acre; strain’d the chance

      I had of honour and advance

      In war to come; and would not see

      Sad silence meant, ‘What’s this to me?’

         When half my precious hour was gone,

      She rose to meet a Mr. Vaughan;

      And, as the image of the moon

      Breaks up, within some still lagoon

      That feels the soft wind suddenly,

      Or tide fresh flowing from the sea,

      And turns to giddy flames that go

      Over the water to and fro,

      Thus, when he took her hand to-night,

      Her lovely gravity of light

      Was scatter’d into many smiles

      And flatting weakness.  Hope beguiles

      No more my heart, dear Mother.  He,

      By jealous looks, o’erhonour’d me.

         With nought to do, and fondly fain

      To hear her singing once again,

      I stay’d, and turn’d her music o’er;

      Then came she with me to the door.

      ‘Dearest Honoria,’ I said,

      (By my despair familiar made,)

      ‘Heaven bless you!’  Oh, to have back then stepp’d

      And fallen upon her neck, and wept,

      And said, ‘My friend, I owe you all

      I am, and have, and hope for.  Call

      For some poor service; let me prove

      To you, or him here whom you love,

      My duty.  Any solemn task,

      For life’s whole course, is all I ask!’

      Then she must surely have wept too,

      And said, ‘My friend, what can you do!’

      And I should have replied, ‘I’ll pray

      ‘For you and him three times a-day,

      And, all day, morning, noon, and night,

      My life shall be so high and right

      That never Saint yet scaled the stairs

      Of heaven with more availing prayers!’

      But this (and, as good God shall bless

      Somehow my end, I’ll do no less,)

      I had no right to speak.  Oh, shame,

      So rich a love, so poor a claim!

         My Mother, now my only friend,

      Farewell.  The school-books which you send

      I shall not want, and so return.

      Give them away, or sell, or burn.

      I’ll write from Malta.  Would I might

      But be your little Child to-night,

      And feel your arms about me fold,

      Against this loneliness and cold!

      VI.  FROM MRS. GRAHAM