Читать книгу The Victories of Love, and Other Poems - Coventry Patmore - Страница 7

The folly of young girls!  They doff

Their pride to smooth success, and scoff

At far more noble fire and might

That woo them from the dust of fight

   But, Frederick, now the storm is past,

Your sky should not remain o’ercast.

A sea-life’s dull, and, oh, beware

Of nourishing, for zest, despair.

My Child, remember, you have twice

Heartily loved; then why not thrice,

Or ten times?  But a wise man shuns

To cry ‘All’s over,’ more than once.

I’ll not say that a young man’s soul

Is scarcely measure of the whole

Earthly and Heavenly universe,

To which he inveterately prefers

The one beloved woman.  Best

Speak to the senses’ interest,

Which brooks no mystery nor delay:

Frankly reflect, my Son, and say,

Was there no secret hour, of those

Pass’d at her side in Sarum Close,

When, to your spirit’s sick alarm,

It seem’d that all her marvellous charm

Was marvellously fled?  Her grace

Of voice, adornment, movement, face

Was what already heart and eye

Had ponder’d to satiety;

Amid so the good of life was o’er,

Until some laugh not heard before,

Some novel fashion in her hair,

Or style of putting back her chair,

Restored the heavens.  Gather thence

The loss-consoling inference.

   Yet blame not beauty, which beguiles,

With lovely motions and sweet smiles,

Which while they please us pass away,

The spirit to lofty thoughts that stay

And lift the whole of after-life,

Unless you take the vision to wife,

Which then seems lost, or serves to slake

Desire, as when a lovely lake

Far off scarce fills the exulting eye

Of one athirst, who comes thereby,

And inappreciably sips

The deep, with disappointed lips.

To fail is sorrow, yet confess

That love pays dearly for success!

No blame to beauty!  Let’s complain

Of the heart, which can so ill sustain

Delight.  Our griefs declare our fall,

But how much more our joys!  They pall

With plucking, and celestial mirth

Can find no footing on the earth,

More than the bird of paradise,

Which only lives the while it flies.

   Think, also, how ’twould suit your pride

To have this woman for a bride.

Whate’er her faults, she’s one of those

To whom the world’s last polish owes

A novel grace, which all who aspire

To courtliest custom must acquire.

The world’s the sphere she’s made to charm,

Which you have shunn’d as if ’twere harm.

Oh, law perverse, that loneliness

Breeds love, society success!

Though young, ’twere now o’er late in life

To train yourself for such a wife;

So she would suit herself to you,

As women, when they marry, do.

For, since ’tis for our dignity

Our lords should sit like lords on high,

We willingly deteriorate

To a step below our rulers’ state;

And ’tis the commonest of things

To see an angel, gay with wings,

Lean weakly on a mortal’s arm!

Honoria would put off the charm

Of lofty grace that caught your love,

For fear you should not seem above

Herself in fashion and degree,

As in true merit.  Thus, you see,

’Twere little kindness, wisdom none,

To light your cot with such a sun.