The Unknown Eros | Page 4

thou alone should'st win?God's perfect bliss,?And I, beguiled by gracious-seeming sin,?Say, loving too much thee,?Love's last goal miss,?And any vows may then have memory,?Never, by grief for what I bear or lack,?To mar thy joyance of heav'n's jubilee.?Promise me this;?For else I should be hurl'd,?Beyond just doom?And by thy deed, to Death's interior gloom,?From the mild borders of the banish'd world?Wherein they dwell?Who builded not unalterable fate?On pride, fraud, envy, cruel lust, or hate;?Yet loved too laxly sweetness and heart's ease,?And strove the creature more than God to please.
For such as these?Loss without measure, sadness without end!?Yet not for this do thou disheaven'd be?With thinking upon me.?Though black, when scann'd from heaven's surpassing bright, This might mean light,?Foil'd with the dim days of mortality.?For God is everywhere.?Go down to deepest Hell, and He is there,?And, as a true but quite estranged Friend,?He works, 'gainst gnashing teeth of devilish ire,?With love deep hidden lest it be blasphemed,?If possible, to blend?Ease with the pangs of its inveterate fire;?Yea, in the worst?And from His Face most wilfully accurst?Of souls in vain redeem'd,?He does with potions of oblivion kill?Remorse of the lost Love that helps them still.
Apart from these,?Near the sky-borders of that banish'd world,?Wander pale spirits among willow'd leas,?Lost beyond measure, sadden'd without end,?But since, while erring most, retaining yet?Some ineffectual fervour of regret,?Retaining still such weal?As spurned Lovers feel,?Preferring far to all the world's delight?Their loss so infinite,?Or Poets, when they mark?In the clouds dun?A loitering flush of the long sunken sun,?And turn away with tears into the dark.
Know, Dear, these are not mine?But Wisdom's words, confirmed by divine?Doctors and Saints, though fitly seldom heard?Save in their own prepense-occulted word,?Lest fools be fool'd the further by false hope,?And wrest sweet knowledge to their own decline;?And (to approve I speak within my scope)?The Mistress of that dateless exile gray?Is named in surpliced Schools Tristitia.
But, O, my Darling, look in thy heart and see?How unto me,?Secured of my prime care, thy happy state,?In the most unclean cell?Of sordid Hell,?And worried by the most ingenious hate,?It never could be anything but well,?Nor from my soul, full of thy sanctity,?Such pleasure die?As the poor harlot's, in whose body stirs?The innocent life that is and is not hers:?Unless, alas, this fount of my relief?By thy unheavenly grief?Were closed.?So, with a consecrating kiss?And hearts made one in past all previous peace,?And on one hope reposed,?Promise me this!
VII. THE AZALEA.
There, where the sun shines first?Against our room,?She train'd the gold Azalea, whose perfume?She, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dispersed.?Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom,?For this their dainty likeness watch'd and nurst,?Were just at point to burst.?At dawn I dream'd, O God, that she was dead,?And groan'd aloud upon my wretched bed,?And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her,?But lay, with eyes still closed,?Perfectly bless'd in the delicious sphere?By which I knew so well that she was near,?My heart to speechless thankfulness composed.?Till 'gan to stir?A dizzy somewhat in my troubled head--?It was the azalea's breath, and she was dead!?The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed,?And I had fall'n asleep with to my breast?A chance-found letter press'd?In which she said,?'So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu!?Parting's well-paid with soon again to meet,?Soon in your arms to feel so small and sweet,?Sweet to myself that am so sweet to you!'
VIII. DEPARTURE.
It was not like your great and gracious ways!?Do you, that have nought other to lament,?Never, my Love, repent?Of how, that July afternoon,?You went,?With sudden, unintelligible phrase,?And frighten'd eye,?Upon your journey of so many days,?Without a single kiss, or a good-bye??I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;?And so we sate, within the low sun's rays,?You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,?Your harrowing praise.?Well, it was well,?To hear you such things speak,?And I could tell?What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,?As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.?And it was like your great and gracious ways?To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,?Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash?To let the laughter flash,?Whilst I drew near,?Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.?But all at once to leave me at the last,?More at the wonder than the loss aghast,?With huddled, unintelligible phrase,?And frighten'd eye,?And go your journey of all days?With not one kiss, or a good-bye,?And the only loveless look the look with which you pass'd:?'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
IX. EURYDICE.
Is this the portent of the day nigh past,?And of a restless grave?O'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast;?Or but the heaped wave?Of some chance, wandering tide,?Such as that world of awe?Whose circuit, listening to a foreign law,?Conjunctures ours at unguess'd dates and wide,?Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw,?To pass unfateful on, and so subside??Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I have,?And yet have not been true?Even