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THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND OTHER POEMS.
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THE WOUNDED EROS.
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[Illustration: Charles Gibson’ signature]
[Illustration:
_Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?_
_Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:_
_Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,_
_Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?_
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet VIII.]
[Illustration]
THE WOUNDED EROS
Sonnets
BY
CHARLES GIBSON
AUTHOR OF
THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND OTHER POEMS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
[Illustration]
BOSTON
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
Printed at the Riverside Press Cambridge
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES GIBSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
SONNET PAGE
_A wingèd God, all powerful to-day_ xxxviii
I. When in the realm of rich resplendent
thought 1
II. I dare not tell thee half the love I bear 2
III. How shall I woo thee then, O fairest maid 3
IV. With kisses would I woo thee first and say 4
V. How shall I ever thank thee for the boon 5
VI. Is it, in truth, a gift from Heaven’s hand 6
VII. What wingèd boy hath caught again my heart 7
VIII. Something did tell my soul, though not thy
troth 8
IX. In what uncertain guise doth passion strive 9
X. With how distressed a sentiment my heart 10
XI. Now, should I chance to meet thee passing by 11
XII. It is a strange and wondrous thing that
brings 12
XIII. I know not how to cast aside the power 13
XIV. I saw thee yester-even, through the maze 14
XV. Dost have no heart, sweet one, to visibly 15
XVI. Dost cherish something in thy heart for me 16
XVII. How delicate a passion in the heart 17
XVIII. To me thou art an angel, born to earth 18
XIX. Is it then given to some, life’s happiest hours 19
XX. Have I not loved thee truthfully enough 20
XXI. Shouldst thou, perchance, peruse these
simple lines 21
XXII. If love too oft repeats itself herein 22
XXIII. How true it is that every joy we feel 23
XXIV. Yet why repine? ’Tis he who laughs that
wins 24
XXV. Oh, for the longed-for moment that might
bring 25
XXVI. Oh heart! hast thou no liberty to gain 26
XXVII. Dearest of dearer things, that are to me 27
XXVIII. For there is that in man which doth desire 28
XXIX. Sweeter than are the flowers of spring,
that bloom 29
XXX. Consign me not, while honoring thy love 30
XXXI. Was it with joy or with time’s false relief 31
XXXII. Dost thou not feel some longing in thy
breast 32
XXXIII. Even could to-day have brought thee unto
me 33
XXXIV. Dear heart! why dost thou shun my own
desire 34
XXXV. What fault within me dost thou cultivate 35
XXXVI. Loved one, though thou shouldst spurn
me as a thing 36
XXXVII. Didst have, for me, one fleeting hour of love 37
XXXVIII. Ah me! Sad fate doth overcome my soul 38
XXXIX. And now what hope have I to touch thine
heart 39
XL. How often have I asked, through this past
year 40
XLI. Methinks the saddest of all pains to bear 41
XLII. As the wild waves roll o’er some rock-bound coast 42
XLIII. While sad at heart, that thou wilt not give
me 43
XLIV. When clouds disperse, and sunshine fills
the sky 44
XLV. Should I return, and find once more that
thou 45
XLVI. What God hath made thee half of graven
stone 46
XLVII. Canst thou not feel the tragedy of love 47
XLVIII. To-morrow I must journey for a space 48
XLIX. For what strange purpose hath God sent
this longing 49
L. How little comfort is there in the thought 50
LI. For each long league that bears me far
from thee 51
LII. When last I saw thee, thou wert uppermost 52
LIII. O mighty Prophet, who dost signify 53
LIV. If thou hadst felt toward me as I to thee 54
LV. Like the soft air of summer is thy smile 55
LVI. If every song I sing seems tinged with sadness 56
LVII. Like the new moon, cold mistress of the
heaven 57
LVIII. Ah Love! Couldst thou but greet me
every even 58
LIX. Love is not passion; nor is passion love 59
LX. What subtle fragrance, like some passion
flower 60
LXI. Unto the sea my love I would compare 61
LXII. There is a lovely avenue of trees 62
LXIII. Upon the highland spaces greet me, Love 63
LXIV. When the red sun sinks toward the western line 64
LXV. Whenever thou dost let a passing thought 65
LXVI. If in the years to come life bringeth thee 66
LXVII. Oh! when the cold, fleet-footed hour of
dawn 67
LXVIII. If, when thou hast found out that life is
sorrow 68
LXIX. With what despair thou hast inspired my
muse 69
LXX. How sweet to me are these soft days of
spring 70
LXXI. Thou camest unto me last eventide 71
LXXII. Yet now I cannot with impunity 72
LXXIII. While thou art near to me, my spirit’s
bride 73
LXXIV. While I gaze in thy dancing eyes, I seem 74
LXXV. In springtime, when pale primroses in
flower 75
LXXVI. With every day that summer doth conceive 76
LXXVII. I know a path of velvet green, that sinks 77
LXXVIII. No time could hold my heart more fit
than this 78
LXXIX. Now love returneth with new grace to me 79
LXXX. Though summer showers drown the seeds
of love 80
LXXXI. Like columbine in May, or rose in June 81
LXXXII. Cold heart, that hath not felt some passing pain 82
LXXXIII. When thou, dear one, hast lived as long as I 83
LXXXIV. Strange law, whose reason man doth not
possess 84
LXXXV. From Thee, Eternal Power, came my life 85
LXXXVI. My hope had been, that I might find in
thee 86
LXXXVII. God, through His offspring Nature, gave
me love 87
LXXXVIII. With some, the law of love doth work at
ease 88
LXXXIX. Let not the measure of my love make
thine 89
XC. All else may die: the leaves that Nature
bore 90
XCI. O thou, fair youth, to whom the gods have
given 91
XCII. Believe not, gentle maid, that all is won 92
XCIII. Love heeds not time, nor space, nor form,
nor woe 93
XCIV. Happy my heart, and happier far was I 94
XCV. Strive as I would to banish from my mind 95
XCVI. Since on thy form hath beauty laid its hand 96
XCVII. In those brief moments when thou wert my
own 97
XCVIII. Let not thy beauty serve thee in the guise 98
XCIX. When I alone unto my chamber go 99
C. When all the world would smile in summer
time 100
CI. A little flower in my garden groweth 101
CII. My love makes of my life a sad display 102
CIII. If in thyself doth all my love reside 103
CIV. Though my true love should be my own
undoing 104
CV. Though thou shouldst not perceive how love
in me 105
CVI. To thee all life is but a passing pleasure 106
CVII. Not clothed in transient beauty nor pale
health 107
CVIII. No mind have I to tell thee all thou art 108
CIX. Oh, Love doth play such wanton tricks with
men 109
CX. Not all the years of my uncounted pain 110
CXI. At least thou canst not say I have not loved 111
CXII. Often do I in meditation dream 112
CXIII. If thou who readst this verse do find herein 113
CXIV. Yet ne’ertheless would I make holiday 114
CXV. Oh! well have I examined my defect 115
CXVI. Oh! what a thought hath filled my brain
this night 116
CXVII. And with the morn, though sunrise shall
disperse 117
CXVIII. Not every prince, nor king, nor emperor
liveth 118
CXIX. How shall I all thy virtues here recount 119
CXX. ’Tis strange, how little doth the world perceive 120
CXXI. That which we have we value not to-day 121
CXXII. Oh, chide me not, if in this life I make 122
CXXIII. If thou wert chainèd by the bans of life 123
CXXIV. Thou art, in truth, my muse’s only guide 124
CXXV. Back from the sculptured chantry of the
past 125
CXXVI. If all the value of my love is this 126
CXXVII. Oh! lay aside thy pen, since thou must sing 127
CXXVIII. The Wounded Eros fell upon the ground 128
_O thou, fair one, who never shalt be known_ 129
INTRODUCTION
In these Sonnets, the author has set down the record of a passion which
makes one more of those stories of the heart written by the poets who
have joined the company of Sir Philip Sidney. The company of poets is a
glorious one, and the poetic stories are among the most touching
expressions of human experience.
We can find no difference between these great chronicles of the heart,
beyond the fact of love winning or losing, except what time has made in
the fashions of art between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries.
One cannot believe that the complex psychology in the interpretation of
modern love makes that love essentially a different thing in man’s
nature then in its more primal expression, when social conditions were
less reticent and self-conscious in the tameless civilization of the
mid-sixteenth century. Here is the ancient and immemorial love of man
for woman, whose only change has been the difference between Adam waking
to behold Eve beside him and the conventional introduction of the sexes
which the custom of the twentieth century demands. The influence of time
upon love is not more literal in the science of sociology than in the
art of poetry, and one has but to take a typical Elizabethan amatory
sonnet-sequence and compare it with Mr. Meredith’s “Modern Love,” Mr.
Blunt’s “Esther,” or Mr. Gibson’s “The Wounded Eros,” to be convinced of
this opinion. The elemental note in the great sonnet cycles, from
Petrarch’s to those of our own day, being the realization of an
objective ideal in the opposite sex, with the interpretation of it
varying as human society progressed in its ethical, moral, and political
aspects, there remains--what has always made the intensity of interest
in this poetic form--the circumstance of personality giving tone and
temperament to the particulars of this episodic drama of man’s heart.
Apart from any consideration of the perfection of art in which any
series of related love-sonnets may be dressed, this question of the
personal attitude compels interest. It is the private chamber of a human
heart opened without reserve, for the intrusion of strangers to behold
the truth of a bitter or joyous experience, as fate may decree.
In this book of sonnets, there is touched a deep note of pathos in the
unrequited passion of a man who tells the circumstances of his own love.
It is so before all things, because it is the direct speech of a heart
without subtlety. I mean, that he invents nothing that is illusory
between himself and the object of his desire. If subtlety had been in
the heart of this lover, one might have expected more frequent verbal
conceits in the methods of telling his tale; but the lack of them by no
means diminishes the importance of its human interest. Indeed, the
modern sonnet has gained in this respect over its predecessors of the
English Renaissance. And in Mr. Gibson’s sequence the interest is
entirely a modern one.
These sonnets of the “Wounded Eros” keep, moreover, the dignity that
belongs to the character of thought and feeling employed by the best
examples. If less abstract in any symbolistic purpose, they gain
narratively by allusions sufficiently definite to link each phase of
emotion into a story,--the story old, but ever new, of passion in a
man’s heart for a woman’s love,--and the character and progress of it
unfolded in associations wholly spiritual. The one here celebrated
leaves us with the impression of being a myth created in the fervent
imagination of the poet. Her vague personality hovers in uncertain
imagery about the edges of the poet’s metaphors. One feels her influence
behind the poet’s conception of her virtues, her faults, and her
physical charms, rather than by gaining any perception of her identity
through speech or action. Yet it was around a similar ideal, or vision,
that Dante and Petrarch wove stories of devotion and rhapsodic worship:
and Shakespeare has been able to mystify the curiosity of three
centuries of prying criticism and literary history.
Despite the revelation of the lover’s heart in this poem, the poet has
veiled, if indeed she exists at all in any world more palpable than
Arcadia, the object of his affection behind the profuse chronicling of
his own feelings. It is through him the story proceeds for us; his
nature acting as an impressionable substance upon which her influence
shapes itself into mood and manner. Yet it is more often from memory and
recollection--the consecration of a dream--that the image weaves its
spell upon the worshipper:--
“Thou wilt not give me
Thy treasured self, more often than the time
Of 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 simply
lacked 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 fond
Of 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 despair in 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 its practical 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 from one
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 there
come 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 pen
Now dedicate to love, thus born again
Out 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 power
That holds thy presence ever in my thought.
By night or day, thy coming once hath brought
Incessant longing for thee every hour.
Why can I not, in truth, then, overpower
This sense of something that is vainly sought,
And still content me with a friendship caught
From 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
the occasional 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 maze
Of 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 be
Touched by the pathos of my love, and see
In them the attitude that love defines,
Unfettered by the selfish light that shines
Through 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
... “surprise
My 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 bed
Of earthly pleasure, and possess the flower
Of thy young life, to keep it worthily
Within 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. There are 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
“pain
For 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, until
All 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-nigh
Made life for me one long-continued sigh--
* * * * *
Oh! rapture to my soul, more sweet to me
Than glories to the conqueror of a nation!
Behold my dry heart, moistened at the sound
Of 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 impunity
Receive 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 stage of 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 kiss
That 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 the merits 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.
SONNETS
_Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing._
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet LXXXVII.
_A wingèd God, all-powerful to-day,_
_As in the ages past, hath brought my heart_
_At 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 brow_
_With 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._
I
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 brought
Fresh 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 song
This victory thou hast won from solitude.
Think not of sorrow’s pall, nor fate’s past wrong
That once delayed thy soul’s beatitude.
At Hymen’s court shalt thou reside for long,
Since thou art of love’s crownèd multitude.
II
I dare 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 sound
Of love, once more begotten in my breast.
Still hold me, Sorrow! Wisdom would resound
Within my soul, and whisper what is best!
III
How shall I woo thee, then, thou fairest maid
That e’er did stir a lover true to love?
Fluttering its wings upon the air, a dove
Descends, the emblem of what God hath said
Was 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 way
Than 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.”
IV
With kisses would I woo thee first and say,
“Come to my garden, thou fair violet flower.”
Sweet is th’ intoxication of thy power
That bringeth some new fragrance every day:
Nor these embraces would I gladly stay,
At my first thought and knowledge of the shower
Of the living evidences that empower
The loving to assume the lover’s way.
But, lest thine own too maidenly reserve
Shall not requite the gladness of my soul,
Blind to all else but that which may preserve
The extasy of love’s attainèd goal,
I must needs pause, alas! once more, and serve
Minerva’s colder law and pay its toll.
V
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 bowl
Of 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 well
Into 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 train
Shall Heaven be wherever thou mayst dwell!
VI
Is it, in truth, a gift from Heaven’s hand
That brings thee hither, loved one, to prepare
My heart once more, for something that shall share
The worship which thy being would command?
Behold me, Venus! Measured in the band
Of votaries, at the shrine and in the air
Of 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!
VII
What wingèd boy hath caught again my heart,
To hold it now in beauty’s fair embrace,
Who, with enticing attitude, the place
Of 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!
VIII
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 scorning
That which I gave; to spurn it without warning,
And crush the flower as lightly as a moth.
May I not yet with gratitude this pen
Now 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!
IX
In what uncertain guise doth passion strive
To work in men the mischief of their being;
Even as Satan doth pursue them, fleeing
In fear from their own shadows, while alive.
Yet, from the realm of passion we derive
Something 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 life
To 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.
X
With how distressed a sentiment my heart
Doth think of thee, my heart alone can tell,
Nor easily interpret thoughts that dwell
Within this sorrowing spirit, lest we part,
To meet not as we have, with love’s sweet art
Designing pictures in some flowery dell
That 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 life
A heaven of fleeting rapture in my breast,
Bright as the silvery star, that shines above
The firmament of man’s uncertain strife.
Thou tookest from me all that I possest;
Then give me, give me in return thy love!
XI
Now, should I chance to meet thee passing by,
That holy fear would overcome my soul,
Which poets speak of, as th’ attainèd goal
Of love’s ideal doth seem to greet the eye.
Still, would we ask our own desire why
We find love’s bark oft wrecked upon the shoal,
That lies beneath the quivering waves, that roll
In cold deception of the lovers’ tie.
The old familiar wound comes back to me,
My loved one; the neglect (though thou shouldst think
It 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?
XII
It is a strange and wondrous thing that brings
Love 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 dart
Whose love-tipped messenger of life thou art.
It bears to me a memory that stings.
Must I then languish in remembrance of
Those 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 destroy
My own heart’s happiness that from thee falls!
XIII
I know not how to cast aside the power
That holds thy presence ever in my thought.
By night or day, thy coming once hath brought
Incessant longing for thee every hour.
Why can I not, in truth, then, overpower
This sense of something that is vainly sought,
And still content me with a friendship caught
From 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 satisfy
Such craving in thy soul. For I myself
Hold difficult the effort of forestalling
That which I most reluctantly defy.
XIV
I saw thee yester-even, through the maze
Of lights and worldly episodes of man,
Filling the room with brilliancy, that can
So well adorn thy loveliness, and daze
My wondering eyes, each time I mutely gaze
On thee from far, while all thy treasures fan
This fever of my soul. Oh, cast this ban
Of fear from off myself and hear my praise!
Yet, when at last we met, how cruelly
The fascination of thy careless speech
Pierced 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.
XV
Dost have no heart, sweet one, to visibly
Perceive the romance of my life’s desire,
To formally within thy breast inspire
That reverence for love, which is to me
The holiest element ’twixt those who see
The spiritual, earthly things attire?
Thus, in my longing soul, I would aspire
To capture thy fair being finally.
Ah! may that day be mine, before life’s morning
Ends, all too soon, the power to attain
By physical endearment thy sweet soul:
Thy heart my own, and mine thy life adorning
With all the gifts of love, that appertain
To the ideal of love’s own sacred goal!
XVI
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 be
Destroyed by that still dangerous enemy
Of love’s best happiness: the fatal glass
Through which the hours fall? Ah, let it pass
Not 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 draught
Of that which forms the happiness of homes?
If in thy spirit thou couldst but approve,
Then take this cup that willingly I quaffed!
XVII
How delicate a passion in the heart
Is 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 art
Occasionally ruffled by the storm
Of my desire, swiftly to inform
Thy 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 willingly
Cast all earth’s treasures to th’ eternal fire,
If I might once fly heavenward on thy wings!
XVIII
To me thou art an angel, borne to earth
By some fair chance that fans the summer wind.
Thus would thy magic power upon me bind
The tendrils of my heart about thy birth.
There is, indeed, in thy fair soul no dearth
Of the divine incentive to be kind,
I veritably do believe, but find
Unutterable 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!
XIX
Is it then given to some, life’s happiest hours
To blissfully enjoy, in love’s delight?
Behold, ye gods! I look upon the sight!
I swoon and die, to feel that nature’s flowers
Do, in my own experience, their powers
Of giving fragrance lose within the night.
Yet would my heart reveal the lover’s plight,
And seek, in thy pursuit, celestial bowers.
Oh, tell me that thou art not cold and dumb
To my entreaties for one little part
Of what thou holdest in impiety!
Here at thy feet, I beg but for a crumb
Of love’s own comfort, for this aching heart,
That doth deserve its full satiety.
XX
Have I not loved thee truthfully enough,
Sweetheart? How canst thou willingly deny
That through love’s intercourse I did comply
With every whim of thine? Couldst thou rebuff
The tenderness of love with paltry stuff
That men do flatter with, and thus defy
Far holier elements of life? Ah, why
Dost thou prefer a hand still stained and rough?
Is it not that, surrounding thee, are many
Who think less deeply than my heart would go,
To find a kindred being in the air
Of sacred treasures, that but few, if any,
Seek in this life (and thus their folly show),
While we might still love’s habitation share?
XXI
Shouldst thou, perchance, peruse these simple lines,
I wonder even if thy heart would be
Touched by the pathos of my love, and see
In them the attitude that love defines,
Unfettered by the selfish light that shines
Through many a worldly eye. Perchance if she,
To whom my love is given, comes to me
In after years, while still my heart repines:
Ah then, how can I tell what memories
May not have saddened all that makes life cheery?
How can I know, it will not be too late,
And that, by then, these loving reveries
Disperse with time, when I am old and weary
Of my stern race with life and sterner fate?
XXII
If love too oft repeats itself herein,
These verses testify to my dear cause;
To eagerly acclaim, but never pause,
In this belated quest, if I would win.
Let it not then be counted as a sin,
Should this one word occur in every clause,
That doth my heart describe with truth, because
No other dwells so fittingly therein.
For if not thus, how else may lovers speak,
Save in that self-same language, recognized
By all who have experienced the fire
Of love’s sweet passion, which, though strong or weak,
Gives that with which all men have sympathized,
And still on earth doth every soul inspire?
XXIII
How true it is that every joy we feel
Carries its own full price of equal pain,
And brings to us some sorrow in its train.
I thought me safe from love, yet now I kneel
Before thy lovely being, and conceal
But little of that joy which I obtain.
Still what I have seems mixed with thy disdain.
How can I then unto thy soul appeal?
If it is but the force of my disease
That makes me over-sensitive with thee,
And causes me to suffer at thy frown,
Or long thy fleeting anger to appease,
’Tis difficult for my blind love to see
How best with jewels thy fair head to crown!
XXIV
Yet why repine? ’Tis he who laughs that wins.
The careless, gay, unfeeling company
Of men who think not of emotion, see
Th’ accomplishment of their unholy sins
Bring from the many an applause that dins
The voice of one poor soul, who lives to be
Truer to nature’s homily than he
Who cares not how love’s happiness begins.
Then let me sing with gayety and smile;
Though hard it be to mask my agony
Of loneliness, when thou art otherwise
Engaged. Assist me, Eros, to beguile
This heart, that cares more for the company
Of those who would be neither great nor wise!
XXV
Oh, for the longed-for moment that might bring
Thy soul in closer touch or tune with mine,
And, in the fulness of its love, entwine
Our hearts in one eternal praise; to sing
Love’s pæan unto God! An angel’s wing
Were better suited to thy form, to shine
In Heaven’s brilliancy, and make divine
That which thy soul upon this earth would fling.
Whatever change of heart may come to thee,
Thou fairest of earth’s flowers, my beloved,
Think not to find me absent from thy side,
In that blest hour, which I have prayed to see;
Nor shrink, from fear that I may be removed
From thy dear shrine, whatever may betide.
XXVI
Oh heart, hast thou no liberty, to gain
That which thou seekest so persistently?
’Tis now full many a year, insistently,
That thou dost search for love’s maturer fane.
Art thou thine own to be refused again
By nature’s rude requital now to thee:
This poor return for love’s best gift? Ah me!
Why should she turn thy pleasure unto pain?
’Tis only then by loving me that thou,
Dear one, canst save me from eternal fire:
Unending grief from which I may not rise,
Save by the glad acceptance of a vow
From thee; to turn Hell’s flame to Heav’n’s desire,
That those who love shall win Love’s sacred prize.
XXVII
Dearest of dearer things, that are to me
More dear each hour that my spirit grows
In its intensity of love, and flows
With warm desire; thy true love I would see,
Crowning that which I oft have wished to be
Th’ attainment of my life. He little knows,
Who hears of me from enemies and foes,
How true is my own soul’s sincerity.
For I had rather brave the fires of hell,
Than know that thou shouldst never come to me,
With love’s embraces in thy fair blue eyes,
And that on earth I ne’er should hear thee tell
My grateful spirit, how thou mightest be
That which alone hath power to quench my sighs.
XXVIII
For there is that in man which doth desire
Some time, in every heart, the play of love:
The emulation of his life above,
Before he came to earth, here to aspire
To something unattained, and feel the fire
Of untaught passion, his new being move
To sorrow, that it doth so ill behoove
The sense of love to suddenly inspire.
For who so harsh, that he denies th’ embrace
Of beauty’s arms about his melting form;
Or doth refuse the loved one’s proffered kiss,
When, half reclining, she would seem to chase
All care from off this earth, in one fair storm
Of loveliness, whose presence is true bliss?
XXIX