SONNETS

“Thou wilt not give meThy treasured self, more often than the timeOf every year doth change,”

he declares; and for a maiden so obdurate in denying those frequent meetings which are the very Eden of love’s progress, we can plainly see how the task became difficult in building the illusion of love between these two people of the imagination.

If it was the woman’s indifference which led to such arbitrary allowances of time when she might be visited, we can begin to understand from what source is taken the significance of the author’s title. The writer of these Sonnets had, as the reader following his story will discover, his love wounded by all the opposing fates of his passion concentrating in the cruelty and vanity of the woman he loved. That even in these qualities of disposition, however, she was without that self-conscious arrogance which intentionally hurts the feelings of honest and faithful affection, is attested throughout the entire poem by many a gracious allusion. We are prone to consider her innocent of any base premeditated wile or motive; like Keats’ Fanny Brawne, she simplylacked that sympathetic nature which was able to penetrate and appreciate the true worth in the man’s heart which fate had laid at her feet.

“Tell me, in truth, why thou dost still seem fondOf me, yet ’neath my heart dost plunge the knife.”

This is the paradox in this woman’s nature, and a bit of real human nature it is of the gentler sex, the attempt to delineate which has been the theme of much noble music flowing from wounded hearts.

What is the mystery in the perverseness of such natures? Is it the complexity in personality, of which the possessor has neither knowledge nor control? Or is it the enigma of human nature moulded into the subtler diverse forms of the feminine sex? Whatever it is, it offers questions in psychology hard to deal with in any form of art. That it can at least be handled with interest, this poem shows. Mr. Gibson’s theme works out in its allotted way the immemorial conflict upon the old battleground. All the forces of individual character and temperament are levied in the pursuit and the evasion; and when in the end comes the surrender or escape,—happiness or despairin the heart,—there is still the same wonder and mystery of it all, such as man and woman have experienced over and over again since time began. The end of this battle of man’s and woman’s heart against terms of alliance with the opposite sex is always, and has always been, inexplicable. A force deeper than can be comprehended or controlled—the vital preservation of the human kind—draws them by its inevitable laws towards the completion of its wonderful purpose in mortal existence: and yet the peculiar circumstances of man’s intellectual sovereignty over the destiny of his kind have set this purpose into warring factions.

Man never ceasing to follow the sun of his life in woman’s heart, his brother shall never cease to take interest in the story of an experience which at one time or another has cast its sunshine or shadow over the daily routine of his existence. In the hidden nooks and memory-places of each man’s life there abides the reality or ghost of an ideal, with woman’s hair and eyes and voice, cloistered in dreams of virtue and tenderness and inhabiting realms beyond reach and concern of man’s workaday world with itspractical and sordid interests. This ideal is carried in secret hours when no man’s suspicion can detect the captured joy. It is far too holy a thing to have its birth and growth revealed to the unsympathetic knowledge of any whose hearts are not likewise confined in the prison-cage of a woman’s soul. It is left for poets and romancers to look into men’s hearts and tell the world the stories of these passions, for which life has given them the capacity to feel and enact, but not the subtlety and precision of speech to express and interpret.

The story of the “Wounded Eros” is, as the reader will discover, the story of an oblation full of inexplicable shadows. Certainly, as the lover relates the progress of his suit against the obstinacy and contradiction in the woman,—so vague in all her influences!—there is considerably less of that heroic attitude in a love-passion which we would be inclined to associate with one who is so unreasonably ill-used. This man is ever the optimistic lover in his despair; constant—even unalterably persistent—in the hope of ultimately touching and winning the sympathy of her nobler self in the woman. True, at times,because of that unimpeachable self-respect, which is the touchstone of all his dealings with life, he cannot keep silent about her faults of temperament. But the spirit in which he sings of these obvious shortcomings is one to chasten and correct that which does not so much offend his own sensibilities as it blemishes and affects the character and disposition of her womanhood. What true man has ever yet been blind to the faults in the woman he loved! These deepen and enlarge her virtues, since after all she is essentially human beneath the divinity with which the idealization of man envelops her being. But all poets do not conceive the sex so realistically in this respect as Mr. Gibson. Nor in this does he take away anything from the exquisite fascination that surrounds them. He makes, instead, more interesting and piquant those perverse elements in the character of this woman, which furnish the episodical themes for his sonnets to weave their unhappy design upon the loom of his story.

I want to indicate here what seem to me the important qualities in the poem, which are intended both to carry on its development fromone emotional phase to another of the story, and simultaneously to reveal the peculiar personal characteristics of the man and woman. I want to mention them in their detached aspects, because I think they are effective in an unusual way. And while, after a close study of these sonnets, I am convinced of their origin in the imagination,—that is to say, there being no likelihood that the story is of an actually known experience,—I am impressed with the note of sincerity which will convince the reader of the poet’s serious and honest treatment of his material.

In the circumstance which ensnares the man’s affections as he conceives them, the author finds fate offering no atonement in the end for the bitter trials of faith and patience endured; and in his art the poet offers no compromise to appease the sentimentalist. Truth is too insistent of her rights. Logic is too tenacious, too pitilessly inflexible in its purpose of carrying the intentions of fate to its grievous conclusions. Not at any point in the poem is there the least suggestion that chance will alter the fortunes of this battle of hearts. Only through a heightened sense of moral duty in the woman could therecome that strength of sacrifice which is the test of noble characters, and change the final note of despair into one of exultation. While, as I have said, the author does not attempt to work his art into false attitudes, it is, strangely enough, just this hope which underlies his apparent resignation at the end. He seems somehow to entrust Time to transform the alloy of inconstant youth in the nature of the beloved one into the purer womanhood of maturity, whom a larger experience and deeper knowledge of life will teach to surrender her heart to his constancy, faith, and unwearying devotion.

That there was a prophetic feeling from the very beginning that the fruits of his affection were to be bitter fruits, is suggested in Sonnet VII, where he declares, “Come, though I pay love’s price in future pain.” And yet, despite this open-eyed acceptance of a task so full of doubt, he can say in the very next Sonnet,—

“This penNow dedicate to love, thus born againOut of thy breast....”

He makes the dedication of his life upon the altar of her heart with all its strange inconstancies. With unquestionable intention she has lured him with the skilfully exercised arts of girlish insouciance. And yet, while her conduct is not exemplary, and should be lightly treated as the dross mixture in the frivolous temperament of maidenhood, it is to be rigorously censured when it continues wilfully to exercise itself upon the serious nature of a man. Although the first thought one has, when doubt and dismay have been the reward of affection, is to be mercifully emancipated from the emotions which still make a woman dear, the heart cannot wholly abandon the ties no longer recognized; and so when, as in Sonnet XIII, he confesses,—

“I know not how to cast aside the powerThat holds thy presence ever in my thought.By night or day, thy coming once hath broughtIncessant longing for thee every hour.Why can I not, in truth, then, overpowerThis sense of something that is vainly sought,And still content me with a friendship caughtFrom the occasional perfume of a flower?”

we feel in this case that the compromise is made in deference to the woman’s lack of self-reliance in being frank. “A friendship caught from theoccasional perfume of a flower”—these lines, the most poetic and significant in the poem, are suggestive of a very subtle pathos; and obdurate as we are in not excusing the woman’s frailties, we do pity her weaknesses, much in the same way as our regretful pity spends itself on some beautiful wild flower with faint and wasting odors.

The flower of this lover’s heart is one nurtured by the sunlight of the world’s opinion. It is not sheltered in the quiet nook of pastoral inexperience with the ways of the urban world. Morally unspotted, it is ethically tainted with all the sophistication of its environment. As in Sonnet XIV, she is seen

“through the mazeOf lights and worldly episodes of man,”

it is inevitable that her lover should cry,—

“Shouldst thou, perchance, peruse these simple lines,I wonder even if thy heart would beTouched by the pathos of my love, and seeIn them the attitude that love defines,Unfettered by the selfish light that shinesThrough many a worldly eye.”

And in Sonnet XXIX, where he says she is“sweeter than are the flowers of spring,” that “give a delicate perfume unto the airs,” he acknowledges those charms which

... “surpriseMy soul with smiles that banish every gloom,”

yet regretting that one so bountifully gifted with physical charms, and possessing all the polite accomplishments of culture, should be under those influences that are, like a canker, eating the loveliness of soul from her young life.

“I would that I ...Might pluck thee from thy temporary bedOf earthly pleasure, and possess the flowerOf thy young life, to keep it worthilyWithin the garden of my heart.”

Before it is too late he would pluck her from her “temporary bed of earthly pleasure”—she whom Love stands ready to transform into the glory of her sex. The world, he tells her, is a bad school, with all its deceits, rivalries, and petty selfishness, and he who sees her comeliness would protect it from ruin in the “garden of his heart.” With all his care and solicitude, with his admirable and untiring sacrifice, she remains unresponsive to the full hope in his soul. Thereare the “blessed hours” she brings him, but conferring them only to make him sadder for the brief joy. For, “dying all too soon,” they leave him in

“painFor many a day and weary week betimes.”

Because she constantly rejects the pressure of his suit, “Refusing strangely love’s perpetual flowers,” which she will not accept, his whole love seems vain,—

“Save for th’ alleviation of my rhymes.”

The solace he takes in rhyme is like an open sluice for the pent-up emotions which he has not been allowed to pour directly into the harbor of her affections. But time goes on and finds her, he declares, “false in thy profession of love’s leaven,” and ever escaping from the persistent assaults of a determined but irreproachable wooing. “Yet ne’er lose hope, my heart,” he says:—

“Thou shalt succeed,So thou persist in thy true quest, untilAll barriers opposing thee do fall.”

And what barriers they were, obstructing the realization of this hope! Inconstant as the sea,with an almost diabolical power to delude and deceive, she seems to take infinite delight in raising the most sanguine expectations only to dash the joy in shattered fragments upon the ground of despair. Take Sonnet LXXI:—

“Thou camest unto me last eventide,When the dull pain of absence had well-nighMade life for me one long-continued sigh—. . . . . . . . . . . .Oh! rapture to my soul, more sweet to meThan glories to the conqueror of a nation!Behold my dry heart, moistened at the soundOf thy dear voice—none dearer could there be—And my sad soul, once more within love’s station,As thy fair form doth twine my heart around!”

Here at last seems the surrender. Now that her “fair form doth twine” around his heart, the very suddenness of victory inspires even in its joy a dubious misgiving; so hard won has it been, that all the past anxiety and pain robs it of half the exquisite realization the event should bring. Whether it is this, indeed, or a spirit of chastisement that the following Sonnet evokes, one does not dare positively to say:—

“Yet now I cannot with impunityReceive the gilded pleasure of thy love.God knoweth with what zeal for it I strove.But when I feel love’s sweet community,It bringeth to me the lost unity—The loneliness.”

Despite the momentary doubt, however, the next six sonnets are rhapsodic in celebration of the perfect union of feeling that binds the two hearts. “For love at last walks hand in hand with me,” he sings. And there seems to lurk in all their association the atmosphere of a conviction that happiness is finally to crown their lives. But the charm is snapped. The woman has not yet “drunk the cup of worldly pleasure dry.” Betraying his trust again, she proves the fickle baseness of her nature. The wound she inflicts promises to be deep and lasting. The bitter cry in Sonnet LXXXVII, with its splendid opening line, pierces the heart with sympathy for this unhappy man:—

“God, through his offspring Nature, gave me love,Though man in opposition saith me nay,And taketh from my heart its life to-day,As through the valley of the world I rove,Still unaccompanied.”

From here on to the last Sonnet, the final stageof an unhappy experience is told in many keys of emotion. Somewhat detached, in his resignation to the inevitable, the man now turns upon his beloved a scrutiny of recollection which analyzes her physical and mental lineaments, and weighs each motive actuating her singular conduct. Fair in his judgments of her virtues, there is no hesitancy on his part to censure with rigor her distasteful faults. The good and the bad are so interwoven in her nature as not to be superficially discerned.

She was a creature in whose nature contrary rarities were combined, to exercise upon man powers to excite the highest joy and the deepest despair. She was, as Sonnet CVIII draws her, like “Satan in angelic vestment drest.” A maiden with wonderful physical charms,—fair of complexion, from whose blue eyes shone the light of infantile innocence,—snaring the hearts of men to torture them with cold and cruel wantonness. Living for herself, and in herself, she took for granted the homage of the world. Pleasure that came to her through other people’s suffering she accepted as the price due one to whom pleasure was ordained at birth.She never cared to consider life seriously; existence was measured by her capacity for sensation. One wonders how far in this she is a type of the modern woman; or is she merely an exception in the portrayal here? But sad it is that, beneath their frivolous exteriors, such women carry tragedy in their lives as a gift to men.

“Yet love, though long unkind, hath taught me this,That I may find expression on its page;Though not the record of its perfect bliss,Yet, something of its value to mine age,Mixed with poison from the fatal kissThat love still bringeth in its equipage.”

The martyrdom has been suffered, and here is the record! It is hoped that something of its value—the lesson of its confession—may become a contribution to the age. Every deep human experience is significant of a moral. How it may affect the conduct of those who come to recognize in it an intimate and personal admonition or justification, depends on how deeply one’s sympathy touches the subject in hand.

The world of action is merely the concrete presentation of the illimitable cosmos of ideas;passion and pain, joy and sorrow,—the emotions dramatized into comic or tragic speech,—are the symbols of the phenomena of instinct, somewhere actively concealed in the vague origins of the human family. Afloat on the swirling current of existence, man’s soul is tossed and buffeted by the contrary influences of a rebellious primality. Its forces in the development and growth of civilization are recorded by history, demonstrated by science, and analyzed by philosophy. But art alone expresses and interprets it. Art alone contains that contagious spirit which underlies truth and beauty. It accomplishes this by an essential sincerity in the artist; and find what fault one will with the manner and method in the composition which pretends to the function of æsthetic presentation of life, this sincerity redeems the work.

Little has been said here concerning the manner in which this poem is constructed. The interest of the substance was too inviting for one to be lured into dissecting its form. Artificial as the sonnet-form is, with all its limitations, we have Wordsworth’s authority for its many possibilities. There is never any question of themerits or demerits of a poet’s sonnets. If he bends them to the purpose in hand, he achieves his intention, and in this respect the sonnets of the “Wounded Eros” are no exception.

W. S. B.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXXVII.

Awingèd God, all-powerful to-day,As in the ages past, hath brought my heartAt once the joy of Heaven, yet, with black art,The curse of Hell; combinèd in this lay.Therewith I must content me on my way,As love its fate doth to the world impart.And thou, who mayst from busy thought depart,To read what I in falt’ring verse shall say:If thou be young, let Cupid crown thy browWith myrtle green, like love’s perpetual wreath;That thou but little of his wrath may know.Or, if the years shall bind thee in their sheath,And with old age thy locks do hoary grow,In Heaven, thou shalt find what was lost beneath.

WHEN in the realm of rich resplendent thought,The glories of love’s paradise appear,How soon do smiles dispel the midnight fear,And bring possession of the prize long sought?Unto the banquet of the heart are broughtFresh delicacies that to all are dear.At such a feast, O lover, dry thy tear,And think no more on battles that are fought.Let all thy powers celebrate in songThis victory thou hast won from solitude.Think not of sorrow’s pall, nor fate’s past wrongThat once delayed thy soul’s beatitude.At Hymen’s court shalt thou reside for long,Since thou art of love’s crownèd multitude.

IDARE not tell thee half the love I bear,Stored in this amorous bosom, oh, my heart,Lest thou believe me mad, and we should part;As with the one, whose love I first did share.Stirred in hot haste my heaven to declare,I wooed too warmly, while young Cupid’s dart,Plunged ’neath my breast, saw happiness depart,Just as I hoped Love’s magic crown to wear.Long have I mourned; yet now that thou art found,My folly would repeat its youthful test;Yea, with a thousand follies, at the soundOf love, once more begotten in my breast.Still hold me, Sorrow! Wisdom would resoundWithin my soul, and whisper what is best!

HOW shall I woo thee, then, thou fairest maidThat e’er did stir a lover true to love?Fluttering its wings upon the air, a doveDescends, the emblem of what God hath saidWas peace and love to every man that’s made,To seek on earth some emblem from above;To strive once more for that for which he strove,And see the truth of life before him laid.Thus wouldst thou lead me to some higher wayThan man doth seek, to satisfy desire,Fanned by the glories of this corporal form,Made manifest by something that doth say:“Now let these senses thine own soul inspire,And brave the turmoil of thy passions’ storm.”

WITH kisses would I woo thee first and say,“Come to my garden, thou fair violet flower.”Sweet is th’ intoxication of thy powerThat bringeth some new fragrance every day:Nor these embraces would I gladly stay,At my first thought and knowledge of the showerOf the living evidences that empowerThe loving to assume the lover’s way.But, lest thine own too maidenly reserveShall not requite the gladness of my soul,Blind to all else but that which may preserveThe extasy of love’s attainèd goal,I must needs pause, alas! once more, and serveMinerva’s colder law and pay its toll.

HOW shall I ever thank thee for the boon,Thou wingèd child, that lifted thus my soul,And quenched the thirst for love, that many a bowlOf golden wine had failed, alas! too soon,To satisfy, from eventide to noon?For I, who lingered near some mossy knoll,Received thy love-tipped arrow at its goal;And bare the wound, rejoicing with a tune.Then bind, fair one, with love thy wounded swain.Give him thine eyes, but breathe thy soul as wellInto his welcome heart, that beats with pain,Lest it should have an hapless tale to tell.Ah! Spare me that, my love, and in thy trainShall Heaven be wherever thou mayst dwell!

IS it, in truth, a gift from Heaven’s handThat brings thee hither, loved one, to prepareMy heart once more, for something that shall shareThe worship which thy being would command?Behold me, Venus! Measured in the bandOf votaries, at the shrine and in the airOf myrtle boughs and honey-scented hair,That make of Love a pleasing fairy-land!Take me, mine own! But art thou yet mine own,Though on this couch that holds thee I recline,To melt in sadness at thy very frown,And laugh if I but knew that thou wert mine?Then temperance in thy love! My heart, refrain!Let wisdom rule if victory should remain!

WHAT wingèd boy hath caught again my heart,To hold it now in beauty’s fair embrace,Who, with enticing attitude, the placeOf love once more hath wounded with his dart?Half fearing first, I begged him to depart;Yet now, enslaved in love’s half-hidden maze,How can I, loving thee, my voice upraise,And leave behind the vision that thou art?Come, then, sweetheart, and meet my own caresses;Come, though I pay love’s price in future pain.Greet me at eve with those delicious kisses,That bear the realms of Heaven in their train.Tell me of odors sweeter than thy blisses:Then, only then, from love would I refrain!

SOMETHING did tell my soul, though not thy troth,That I might find in love life’s pleasant morning,Like lovely maid, some flowery grove adorning,Just as in verse imagination doth.The thought I treasured in me, nothing loth,Yet never dreamed that I should find Love scorningThat which I gave; to spurn it without warning,And crush the flower as lightly as a moth.May I not yet with gratitude this penNow dedicate to love, thus born again,Out of thy breast, and seemingly to stay?Thou fair divinity, adored of men,To death I must consign my banished pain,And find in thee the fulness of to-day!

IN what uncertain guise doth passion striveTo work in men the mischief of their being;Even as Satan doth pursue them, fleeingIn fear from their own shadows, while alive.Yet, from the realm of passion we deriveSomething that with true love is well agreeing;That he who once hath seen is alway seeing,Tragic, yet like a flower that doth revive.And thou, my own, whose love doth quicken lifeTo fragrant sweetness hitherto unknown,Take me, but half unworthy as I come,And rule my dear heart’s dwelling as my wife.By deeds the spirit of true love is shown,Though passion still doth find its earthly home.

WITH how distressed a sentiment my heartDoth think of thee, my heart alone can tell,Nor easily interpret thoughts that dwellWithin this sorrowing spirit, lest we part,To meet not as we have, with love’s sweet artDesigning pictures in some flowery dellThat held those garlands which from lovers fell;For every time I think of thee I start.’Tis long since thou didst come, to make my lifeA heaven of fleeting rapture in my breast,Bright as the silvery star, that shines aboveThe firmament of man’s uncertain strife.Thou tookest from me all that I possest;Then give me, give me in return thy love!

NOW, should I chance to meet thee passing by,That holy fear would overcome my soul,Which poets speak of, as th’ attainèd goalOf love’s ideal doth seem to greet the eye.Still, would we ask our own desire whyWe find love’s bark oft wrecked upon the shoal,That lies beneath the quivering waves, that rollIn cold deception of the lovers’ tie.The old familiar wound comes back to me,My loved one; the neglect (though thou shouldst thinkIt scarce neglect) stings nightly my poor heart.Each day is lost that brings no sight of thee.Must I then once again this goblet drink,Of love’s sweet poison, as we drift apart?

IT is a strange and wondrous thing that bringsLove unrequited to the human heart.To me it comes; from thee it would depart.And all the while a stirring song it sings,Bearing an undescribed refrain that clings,In unremitting strength, like that sweet dartWhose love-tipped messenger of life thou art.It bears to me a memory that stings.Must I then languish in remembrance ofThose treasured moments of unearthly joy,That bore me to the realm of magic halls,Where are reflected images of love?I trow, thou hast no heart to thus destroyMy own heart’s happiness that from thee falls!

IKNOW not how to cast aside the powerThat holds thy presence ever in my thought.By night or day, thy coming once hath broughtIncessant longing for thee every hour.Why can I not, in truth, then, overpowerThis sense of something that is vainly sought,And still content me with a friendship caughtFrom the occasional perfume of a flower?Oh, lover! ask that question of thyself,And answer it, in face of nature’s calling:If in all reason thou couldst satisfySuch craving in thy soul. For I myselfHold difficult the effort of forestallingThat which I most reluctantly defy.

ISAW thee yester-even, through the mazeOf lights and worldly episodes of man,Filling the room with brilliancy, that canSo well adorn thy loveliness, and dazeMy wondering eyes, each time I mutely gazeOn thee from far, while all thy treasures fanThis fever of my soul. Oh, cast this banOf fear from off myself and hear my praise!Yet, when at last we met, how cruellyThe fascination of thy careless speechPierced my poor heart, held in love’s fell disease,While I, o’erwhelmed by force of loving thee,Unable wisdom toward myself to teach,Did tremble in thy presence, ill at ease.

DOST have no heart, sweet one, to visiblyPerceive the romance of my life’s desire,To formally within thy breast inspireThat reverence for love, which is to meThe holiest element ’twixt those who seeThe spiritual, earthly things attire?Thus, in my longing soul, I would aspireTo capture thy fair being finally.Ah! may that day be mine, before life’s morningEnds, all too soon, the power to attainBy physical endearment thy sweet soul:Thy heart my own, and mine thy life adorningWith all the gifts of love, that appertainTo the ideal of love’s own sacred goal!

DOST cherish something in thy heart for me,Loved one? Then give it, lest the time should pass,And we lose something we should have. Alas,How often is this futile aim to beDestroyed by that still dangerous enemyOf love’s best happiness: the fatal glassThrough which the hours fall? Ah, let it passNot thus that Nature meant that we should be!If, in thy character no longing comes,For interchange of confidence or love,How can love live, unnourished by the draughtOf that which forms the happiness of homes?If in thy spirit thou couldst but approve,Then take this cup that willingly I quaffed!

HOW delicate a passion in the heartIs this, conceived beneath the roughest form!Yet, while the sentiment of love is warm,We feel the force of sorrow, should we part.Thus would it seem to me, whene’er thou artOccasionally ruffled by the stormOf my desire, swiftly to informThy spirit of the love which I impart.Turn not thy head, fair one, away from me;Nor at my words condemn the soul’s desire,That drives from man all thought of other things.Torn by my passion, I would willinglyCast all earth’s treasures to th’ eternal fire,If I might once fly heavenward on thy wings!

TO me thou art an angel, borne to earthBy some fair chance that fans the summer wind.Thus would thy magic power upon me bindThe tendrils of my heart about thy birth.There is, indeed, in thy fair soul no dearthOf the divine incentive to be kind,I veritably do believe, but findUnutterable sorrow in thy worth.An angel I have told thee that thou wert;Yet thou denied the truth of my true saying,That thou possessed the beauty of the gods.Was it more true—ah, how my heart is hurt,To half believe that thou, like Satan playing,Couldst set at naught love’s holiest periods!

Back to Index Next