Whene’er mine eyes do my Amelia greetIt is with such emotionAs when, in childhood, turning a dim street,I first beheld the ocean.There, where the little, bright, surf-breathing town,That shew’d me first her beauty and the sea,Gathers its skirts against the gorse-lit downAnd scatters gardens o’er the southern lea,Abides this MaidWithin a kind, yet sombre Mother’s shade,Who of her daughter’s graces seems almost afraid,Viewing them ofttimes with a scared forecast,Caught, haply, from obscure love-peril past.Howe’er that be,She scants me of my right,Is cunning careful evermore to balkSweet separate talk,And fevers my delightBy frets, if, on Amelia’s cheek of peach,I touch the notes which music cannot reach,Bidding ‘Good-night!’Wherefore it came that, till to-day’s dear date,I curs’d the weary months which yet I have to waitEre I find heaven, one-nested with my mate.To-day, the Mother gave,To urgent pleas and promise to behaveAs she were there, her long-besought consentTo trust Amelia with me to the graveWhere lay my once-betrothed, Millicent:‘For,’ said she, hiding ill a moistening eye,‘Though, Sir, the word sounds hard,God makes as if He least knew how to guardThe treasure He loves best, simplicity.’And there Amelia stood, for fairness shewnLike a young apple-tree, in flush’d arrayOf white and ruddy flow’r, auroral, gay,With chilly blue the maiden branch between;And yet to look on her moved less the mindTo say ‘How beauteous!’ than ‘How good and kind!’And so we went aloneBy walls o’er which the lilac’s numerous plumeShook down perfume;Trim plots close blownWith daisies, in conspicuous myriads seen,Engross’d each oneWith single ardour for her spouse, the sun;Garths in their glad arrayOf white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay,With azure chill the maiden flow’r between;Meadows of fervid green,With sometime sudden prospect of untoldCowslips, like chance-found gold;And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze,Rending the air with praise,Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shoutOf Jacob camp’d in Midian put to rout;Then through the Park,Where Spring to livelier gloomQuicken’d the cedars dark,And, ’gainst the clear sky cold,Which shone afarCrowded with sunny alps oracular,Great chestnuts raised themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom;And everywhere,Amid the ceaseless rapture of the lark,With wonder newWe caught the solemn voice of single air,‘Cuckoo!’And when Amelia, ’bolden’d, saw and heardHow bravely sang the bird,And all things in God’s bounty did rejoice,She who, her Mother by, spake seldom word,Did her charm’d silence doff,And, to my happy marvel, her dear voiceWent as a clock does, when the pendulum’s off.Ill Monarch of man’s heart the Maiden whoDoes not aspire to be High-Pontiff too!So she repeated soft her Poet’s line,‘By grace divine,Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine!’And I, up the bright steep she led me, trod,And the like thought pursuedWith, ‘What is gladness without gratitude,And where is gratitude without a God?’And of delight, the guerdon of His laws,She spake, in learned mood;And I, of Him loved reverently, as Cause,Her sweetly, as Occasion of all good.Nor were we shy,For souls in heaven that beMay talk of heaven without hypocrisy.And now, when we drew nearThe low, gray Church, in its sequester’d dell,A shade upon me fell.Dead Millicent indeed had been most sweet,But I how little meetTo call such graces in a Maiden mine!A boy’s proud passion free affection blunts;His well-meant flatteries oft are blind affronts,And many a tearWas Millicent’s before I, manlier, knewThat maidens shineAs diamonds do,Which, though most clear,Are not to be seen through;And, if she put her virgin self asideAnd sate her, crownless, at my conquering feet,It should have bred in me humility, not pride.Amelia had more luck than Millicent,Secure she smiled and warm from all mischanceOr from my knowledge or my ignorance,And glow’d contentWith my—some might have thought too much—superior age,Which seem’d the gageOf steady kindness all on her intent.Thus nought forbade us to be fully blent.While, therefore, nowHer pensive footstep stirr’dThe darnell’d garden of unheedful death,She ask’d what Millicent was like, and heardOf eyes like her’s, and honeysuckle breath,And of a wiser than a woman’s brow,Yet fill’d with only woman’s love, and howAn incidental greatness character’dHer unconsider’d ways.But all my praiseAmelia thought too slight for MillicentAnd on my lovelier-freighted arm she leant,For more attent;And the tea-rose I gave,To deck her breast, she dropp’d upon the grave.‘And this was her’s,’ said I, decoring with a bandOf mildest pearls Amelia’s milder hand.‘Nay, I will wear it forhersake,’ she said:For dear to maidens are their rivals dead.And so,She seated on the black yew’s tortured root,I on the carpet of sere shreds below,And nigh the little mound where lay that other,I kiss’d her lips three times without dispute,And, with bold worship suddenly aglow,I lifted to my lips a sandall’d foot,And kiss’d it three times thrice without dispute.Upon my head her fingers fell like snow,Her lamb-like hands about my neck she wreathed.Her arms like slumber o’er my shoulders crept,And with her bosom, whence the azalea breathed,She did my face full favourably smother,To hide the heaving secret that she wept!Now would I keep my promise to her Mother;Now I arose, and raised her to her feet,My best Amelia, fresh-born from a kiss,Moth-like, full-blown in birthdew shuddering sweet,With great, kind eyes, in whose brown shadeBright Venus and her Baby play’d!At inmost heart well pleased with one another,What time the slant sun lowThrough the plough’d field does each clod sharply shew,And softly fillsWith shade the dimples of our homeward hills,With little said,We left the ’wilder’d garden of the dead,And gain’d the gorse-lit shoulder of the downThat keeps the north-wind from the nestling town,And caught, once more, the vision of the wave,Where, on the horizon’s dip,A many-sailed shipPursued alone her distant purpose grave;And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim streetI led her sacred feet;And so the Daughter gave,Soft, moth-like, sweet,Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.And now ‘Good-night!’Me shall the phantom months no more affright.For heaven’s gates to open well waits heWho keeps himself the key.
Perchance she droops within the hollow gulfWhich the great wave of coming pleasure draws,Not guessing the glad cause!Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go,Ye Winds that westward flow,Thou heaving SeaThat heav’st ’twixt her and me,Tell her I come;Then only sigh your pleasure, and be dumb;For the sweet secret of our either selfWe know.Tell her I come,And let her heart be still’d.One day’s controlled hope, and then one more,And on the third our lives shall be fulfill’d!Yet all has been before:Palm placed in palm, twin smiles, and words astray.What other should we say?But shall I not, with ne’er a sign, perceive,Whilst her sweet hands I hold,The myriad threads and meshes manifoldWhich Love shall round her weave:The pulse in that vein making alien pauseAnd varying beats from this;Down each long finger felt, a differing strandOf silvery welcome bland;And in her breezy palmAnd silken wrist,Beneath the touch of my like numerous blissComplexly kiss’d,A diverse and distinguishable calm?What should we say!It all has been before;And yet our lives shall now be first fulfill’d.And into their summ’d sweetness fall distill’dOne sweet drop more;One sweet drop more, in absolute increaseOf unrelapsing peace.O, heaving Sea,That heav’st as if for bliss of her and me,And separatest not dear heart from heart,Though each ’gainst other beats too far apart,For yet awhileLet it not seem that I behold her smile.O, weary Love, O, folded to her breast,Love in each moment years and years of rest,Be calm, as being not.Ye oceans of intolerable delight,The blazing photosphere of central Night,Be ye forgot.Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy,Let me not see thee toy.O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intenseOf kisses close beyond conceit of sense;O, Life, too liberal, while to take her handIs more of hope than heart can understand;Perturb my golden patience not with joy,Nor, through a wish, profaneThe peace that should pertainTo him who does by her attraction move.Has all not been before?One day’s controlled hope, and one again,And then the third, and ye shall have the rein,O Life, Death, Terror, Love!But soon let your unrestful rapture cease,Ye flaming Ethers thin,Condensing till the abiding sweetness winOne sweet drop more;One sweet drop more in the measureless increaseOf honied peace.
There, where the sun shines firstAgainst our room,She train’d the gold Azalea, whose perfumeShe, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dispersed.Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom,For that 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 sphereBy which I knew so well that she was near,My heart to speechless thankfulness composed.Till ’gan to stirA dizzy somewhat in my troubled head—Itwasthe azalea’s breath, and shewasdead!The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed,And I had fall’n asleep with to my breastA chance-found letter press’dIn 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!’
It was not like your great and gracious ways!Do you, that have nought other to lament,Never, my Love, repentOf 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 tellWhat 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 waysTo turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,Lifting the luminous, pathetic lashTo 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 daysWith 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.
My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyesAnd moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,I struck him, and dismiss’dWith hard words and unkiss’d,His Mother, who was patient, being dead.Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,I visited his bed,But found him slumbering deep,With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yetFrom his late sobbing wet.And I, with moan,Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;For, on a table drawn beside his head,He had put, within his reach,A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,A piece of glass abraded by the beachAnd six or seven shells,A bottle with bluebellsAnd two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,To comfort his sad heart.So when that night I pray’dTo God, I wept, and said:Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,Not vexing Thee in death,And Thou rememberest of what toysWe made our joys,How weakly understood,Thy great commanded good,Then, fatherly not lessThan I whom Thou hast moulded from the clayThou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’
‘If I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’The dear lips quiver’d as they spake,And the tears brakeFrom eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.Poor Child, poor Child!I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.It is not true that Love will do no wrong.Poor Child!And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,And of those words your full avengers make?Poor Child, poor Child!And now, unless it beThat sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,O God, have Thounomercy upon me!Poor Child!
With all my will, but much against my heart,We two now part.My Very Dear,Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.It needs no art,With faint, averted feetAnd many a tear,In our opposed paths to persevere.Go thou to East, I West.We will not sayThere’s any hope, it is so far away.But, O, my Best,When the one darling of our widowhead,The nursling Grief,Is dead,And no dews blur our eyesTo see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,Perchance we may,Where now this night is day,And even through faith of still averted feet,Making full circle of our banishment,Amazed meet;The bitter journey to the bourne so sweetSeasoning the termless feast of our contentWith tears of recognition never dry.
What is this Maiden fair,The laughing of whose eyeIs in man’s heart renew’d virginity:Who yet sick longing breedsFor marriage which exceedsThe inventive guess of Love to satisfyWith hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless dear despair?What gleams about her shine,More transient than delight and more divine!If she does something but a little sweet,As gaze towards the glass to set her hair,See how his soul falls humbled at her feet!Her gentle step, to go or come,Gains her more merit than a martyrdom;And, if she dance, it doth such grace conferAs opes the heaven of heavens to more than her,And makes a rival of her worshipper.To die unknown for her were little cost!So is she without guile,Her mere refused smileMakes up the sum of that which may be lost!Who is this FairWhom each hath seen,The darkest once in this bewailed dell,Be he not destin’d for the glooms of hell?Whom each hath seenAnd known, with sharp remorse and sweet, as QueenAnd tear-glad Mistress of his hopes of bliss,Too fair for man to kiss?Who is this only happy She,Whom, by a frantic flight of courtesy,Born of despairOf better lodging for his Spirit fair,He adores as Margaret, Maude, or Cecily?And what this sigh,That each one heaves for Earth’s last lowliheadAnd the Heaven highIneffably lock’d in dateless bridal-bed?Are all, then, mad, or is it prophecy?‘Sons now we are of God,’ as we have heard,‘But what we shall be hath not yet appear’d.’O, Heart, remember thee,That Man is none,Save One.What if this Lady be thy Soul, and HeWho claims to enjoy her sacred beauty be,Not thou, but God; and thy sick fireA female vanity,Such as a Bride, viewing her mirror’d charms,Feels when she sighs, ‘All these are for his arms!’A reflex heatFlash’d on thy cheek from His immense desire,Which waits to crown, beyond thy brain’s conceit,Thy nameless, secret, hopeless longing sweet,Not by-and-by, but now,Unless deny Him thou!
A florin to the willing GuardSecured, for half the way,(He lock’d us in, ah, lucky-starr’d,)A curtain’d, front coupé.The sparkling sun of August shone;The wind was in the West;Your gown and all that you had onWas what became you best;And we were in that seldom moodWhen soul with soul agrees,Mingling, like flood with equal flood,In agitated ease.Far round, each blade of harvest bareIts little load of bread;Each furlong of that journey fairWith separate sweetness sped.The calm of use was coming o’erThe wonder of our wealth,And now, maybe, ’twas not much moreThan Eden’s common health.We paced the sunny platform, whileThe train at Havant changed:What made the people kindly smile,Or stare with looks estranged?Too radiant for a wife you seem’d,Serener than a bride;Me happiest born of men I deem’d,And show’d perchance my pride.I loved that girl, so gaunt and tall,Who whispered loud, ‘Sweet Thing!’Scanning your figure, slight yet allRound as your own gold ring.At Salisbury you stray’d aloneWithin the shafted glooms,Whilst I was by the Verger shownThe brasses and the tombs.At tea we talk’d of matters deep,Of joy that never dies;We laugh’d, till love was mix’d with sleepWithin your great sweet eyes.The next day, sweet with luck no lessAnd sense of sweetness past,The full tide of our happinessRose higher than the last.At Dawlish, ’mid the pools of brine,You stept from rock to rock,One hand quick tightening upon mine,One holding up your frock.On starfish and on weeds aloneYou seem’d intent to be:Flash’d those great gleams of hope unknownFrom you, or from the sea?Ne’er came before, ah, when againShall come two days like these:Such quick delight within the brain,Within the heart such peace?I thought, indeed, by magic chance,A third from Heaven to win,But as, at dusk, we reach’d Penzance,A drizzling rain set in.
Bright thro’ the valley gallops the brooklet;Over the welkin travels the cloud;Touch’d by the zephyr, dances the harebell;Cuckoo sits somewhere, singing so loud;Two little children, seeing and hearing,Hand in hand wander, shout, laugh, and sing:Lo, in their bosoms, wild with the marvel,Love, like the crocus, is come ere the Spring.Young men and women, noble and tender,Yearn for each other, faith truly plight,Promise to cherish, comfort and honour;Vow that makes duty one with delight.Oh, but the glory, found in no story,Radiance of Eden unquench’d by the Fall;Few may remember, none may reveal it,This the first first-love, the first love of all!
[1]Written in 1856.