The Victories of Love, and Other Poems. Coventry Patmore

         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