Читать книгу The Victories of Love, and Other Poems - Coventry Patmore - Страница 6

Fashion’d by Heaven and by art

So is she, that she makes the heart

Ache and o’erflow with tears, that grace

So lovely fair should have for place,

(Deeming itself at home the while,)

The unworthy earth!  To see her smile

Amid this waste of pain and sin,

As only knowing the heaven within,

Is sweet, and does for pity stir

Passion to be her minister:

Wherefore last night I lay awake,

And said, ‘Ah, Lord, for Thy love’s sake,

Give not this darling child of Thine

To care less reverent than mine!’

And, as true faith was in my word,

I trust, I trust that I was heard.

   The waves, this morning, sped to land,

And shouted hoarse to touch the strand,

Where Spring, that goes not out to sea,

Lay laughing in her lovely glee;

And, so, my life was sunlit spray

And tumult, as, once more to-day,

For long farewell did I draw near

My Cousin, desperately dear.

Faint, fierce, the truth that hope was none

Gleam’d like the lightning in the sun;

Yet hope I had, and joy thereof.

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!