Coventry Patmore - The Unknown Eros стр 3.

   Darling, with hearts conjoind in such a peace
That Hope, so not to cease,
Must still gaze back,
And count, along our loves most happy track,
The landmarks of like inconceivd increase,
Promise me this:
If thou alone shouldst win
Gods perfect bliss,
And I, beguiled by gracious-seeming sin,
Say, loving too much thee,
Loves last goal miss,
And any vows may then have memory,
Never, by grief for what I bear or lack,
To mar thy joyance of heavns jubilee.
Promise me this;
For else I should be hurld,
Beyond just doom
And by thy deed, to Deaths interior gloom,
From the mild borders of the banishd world
Wherein they dwell
Who builded not unalterable fate
On pride, fraud, envy, cruel lust, or hate;
Yet loved too laxly sweetness and hearts 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 disheavend be
With thinking upon me.
Though black, when scannd from heavens surpassing bright,
This might mean light,
Foild 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 redeemd,
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 banishd world,
Wander pale spirits among willowd leas,
Lost beyond measure, saddend 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 worlds 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 Wisdoms words, confirmed by divine
Doctors and Saints, though fitly seldom heard
Save in their own prepense-occulted word,
Lest fools be foold 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 harlots, 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!

   There, where the sun shines first
Against our room,
She traind 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 watchd and nurst,
Were just at point to burst.
At dawn I dreamd, O God, that she was dead,
And groand aloud upon my wretched bed,
And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her,
But lay, with eyes still closed,
Perfectly blessd 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 azaleas breath, and she was dead!
The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed,
And I had falln asleep with to my breast
A chance-found letter pressd
In which she said,
So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu!
Partings 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!

   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 frightend 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 suns 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 frightend 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 passd:
Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

   Is this the portent of the day nigh past,
And of a restless grave
Oer 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 unguessd dates and wide,
Does in the Spirits tremulous ocean draw,
To pass unfateful on, and so subside?
Thee, whom evn more than Heaven loved I have,
And yet have not been true
Even to thee,
I, dreaming, night by night, seek now to see,
And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursue
Thro sordid streets and lanes
And houses brown and bare
And many a haggard stair
Ochrous with ancient stains,
And infamous doors, opening on hapless rooms,
In whose unhaunted glooms
Dead pauper generations, witless of the sun,
Their course have run;
And ofttimes my pursuit
Is checkd of its dear fruit
By things brimful of hate, my kith and kin,
Furious that I should keep
Their forfeit power to weep,
And mock, with living fear, their mournful malice thin.
But ever, at the last, my way I win
To where, with perfectly sad patience, nurst
By sorry comfort of assured worst,
Ingraind in fretted cheek and lips that pine,
On pallet poor
Thou lyest, stricken sick,
Beyond loves cure,
By all the worlds neglect, but chiefly mine.
Then sweetness, sweeter than my tongue can tell,
Does in my bosom well,
And tears come free and quick
And more and more abound
For piteous passion keen at having found,
After exceeding ill, a little good;
A little good
Which, for the while,
Fleets with the current sorrow of the blood,
Though no good here has heart enough to smile.