Coventry Patmore - The Victories of Love, and Other Poems

Mother, I smile at your alarms!
I own, indeed, my Cousins charms,
But, like all nursery maladies,
Love is not badly taken twice.
Have you forgotten Charlotte Hayes,
My playmate in the pleasant days
At Knatchley, and her sister, Anne,
The twins, so made on the same plan,
That one wore blue, the other white,
To mark them to their fathers sight;
And how, at Knatchley harvesting,
You bade me kiss her in the ring,
Like Anne and all the others?  You,
That never of my sickness knew,
Will laugh, yet had I the disease,
And gravely, if the signs are these:
   As, ere the Spring has any power,
The almond branch all turns to flower,
Though not a leaf is out, so she
The bloom of life provoked in me
And, hard till then and selfish, I
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
And service: life was mere delight
In being wholly good and right,
As she was; just, without a slur;
Honouring myself no less than her;
Obeying, in the loneliest place,
Evn to the slightest gesture, grace,
Assured that one so fair, so true,
He only served that was so too.
For me, hence weak towards the weak,
No more the unnested blackbirds shriek
Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
Wanderd the gadding butterfly,
Unscared by my flung cap; the bee,
Rifling the hollyhock in glee,
Was no more trappd with his own flower,
And for his honey slain.  Her power,
From great things even to the grass
Through which the unfenced footways pass,
Was law, and that which keeps the law,
Cherubic gaiety and awe;
Day was her doing, and the lark
Had reason for his song; the dark
In anagram innumerous spelt
Her name with stars that throbbd and felt;
Twas the sad summit of delight
To wake and weep for her at night;
She turnd to triumph or to shame
The strife of every childish game;
The heart would come into my throat
At rosebuds; howsoeer remote,
In opposition or consent,
Each thing, or person, or event,
Or seeming neutral howsoeer,
All, in the live, electric air,
Awoke, took aspect, and confessd
In her a centre of unrest,
Yea, stocks and stones within me bred
Anxieties of joy and dread.
   O, bright apocalyptic sky
Oerarching childhood!  Far and nigh
Mystery and obscuration none,
Yet nowhere any moon or sun!
What reason for these sighs?  What hope,
Daunting with its audacious scope
The disconcerted heart, affects
These ceremonies and respects?
Why stratagems in everything?
Why, why not kiss her in the ring?
Tis nothing strange that warriors bold,
Whose fierce, forecasting eyes behold
The city they desire to sack,
Humbly begin their proud attack
By delving ditches two miles off,
Aware how the fair place would scoff
At hasty wooing; but, O child,
Why thus approach thy playmate mild?
   One morning, when it flushd my thought
That, what in me such wonder wrought
Was calld, in men and women, love,
And, sick with vanity thereof,
I, saying loud, I love her, told
My secret to myself, behold
A crisis in my mystery!
For, suddenly, I seemd to be
Whirld round, and bound with showers of threads,
As when the furious spider sheds
Captivity upon the fly
To still his buzzing till he die;
Only, with me, the bonds that flew,
Enfolding, thrilld me through and through
With bliss beyond aught heaven can have,
And pride to dream myself her slave.
   A long, green slip of wilderd land,
With Knatchley Wood on either hand,
Sunderd our home from hers.  This day
Glad was I as I went her way.
I stretchd my arms to the sky, and sprang
Oer the elastic sod, and sang
I love her, love her! to an air
Which with the words came then and there;
And even now, when I would know
All was not always dull and low,
I mind me awhile of the sweet strain
Love taught me in that lonely lane.
   Such glories fade, with no more mark
Than when the sunset dies to dark.
They pass, the rapture and the grace
Ineffable, their only trace
A heart which, having felt no less
Than pure and perfect happiness,
Is duly dainty of delight;
A patient, poignant appetite
For pleasures that exceed so much
The poor things which the world calls such.
That, when these lure it, then you may
The lion with a wisp of hay.
   That Charlotte, whom we scarcely knew
From Anne but by her ribbons blue,
Was loved, Anne less than lookd at, shows
That liking still by favour goes!
This Love is a Divinity,
And holds his high election free
Of human merit; or lets say,
A child by ladies calld to play,
But careless of their becks and wiles,
Till, seeing one who sits and smiles
Like any else, yet only charms,
He cries to come into her arms.
Then, for my Cousins, fear me not!
None ever loved because he ought.
Fatal were else this graceful house,
So full of light from ladies brows.
Theres Mary; Heaven in her appears
Like sunshine through the showers bright tears;
Mildreds of Earth, yet happier far
Than most mens thoughts of Heaven are;
But, for Honoria, Heaven and Earth
Seald amity in her sweet birth.
The noble Girl!  With whom she talks
She knights first with her smile; she walks,
Stands, dances, to such sweet effect,
Alone she seems to move erect.
The brightest and the chastest brow
Rules oer a cheek which seems to show
That love, as a mere vague suspense
Of apprehensive innocence,
Perturbs her heart; love without aim
Or object, like the sunlit flame
That in the Vestals Temple glowd,
Without the image of a god.
And this simplicity most pure
She sets off with no less allure
Of culture, subtly skilld to raise
The power, the pride, and mutual praise
Of human personality
Above the common sort so high,
It makes such homely souls as mine
Marvel how brightly life may shine.
How you would love her!  Even in dress
She makes the common mode express
New knowledge of whats fit so well
Tis virtue gaily visible!
Nay, but her silken sash to me
Were more than all morality,
Had not the old, sweet, feverous ill
Left me the master of my will!
   So, Mother, feel at rest, and please
To send my books on board.  With these,
When I go hence, all idle hours
Shall help my pleasures and my powers.
Ive time, you know, to fill my post,
And yet make up for schooling lost
Through young sea-service.  They all speak
German with ease; and this, with Greek,
(Which Dr. Churchill thought I knew,)
And history, which I faild in too,
Will stop a gap I somewhat dread,
After the happy life Ive led
With these my friends; and sweet twill be
To abridge the space from them to me.