Читать книгу The Victories of Love, and Other Poems - Coventry Patmore - Страница 10

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!