122

MODERN LOVE.

But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,

Recurring and suggesting still!

He seems as one whose footsteps halt,
Toiling in immeasurable sand,

And o'er a weary sultry land,

Far beneath a blazing vault,

Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,

The city sparkles like a grain of salt.

Tennyson.

MODERN LOVE.

(PORTENTS.)

WHAT may this woman labour to confess?
There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.
'Tis something to be told, or hidden :-which?
I get a glimpse of Hell in this mild guess.
She has desires of touch, as if to feel

That all the household things are things she knew.
She stops before the glass. What does she view?
A face that seems the latest to reveal!

SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

123

For she turns from it hastily, and toss'd
Irresolute, steals shadow-like to where
I stand; and wavering pale before me there,
Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.
She will not speak. I will not ask. We are
League-sunder'd by the silent gulf between.
You burly lovers on the village green,
Yours is a lower but a happier star.

George Meredith.

SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering

Against my tremulous hands which loose the string

And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand. . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it!—this . . . the paper's light . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed

124

SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUEse.

As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.

And this... O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

SONNET FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

YES, call me by my pet name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,

From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,

To glance up in some face that proved me dear

With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear

Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,

Call me no longer.

Silence on the bier,

While I call God-call God!—So let thy mouth Be heir to those who are now exanimate.

COME NOT WHEN I AM DEAD.

Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
And catch the early love up in the late.

Yes, call me by that name, and I, in truth

With the same heart will answer and not wait.

125

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

COME NOT WHEN I AM DEAD.

COME not, when I am dead,

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,

To trample round my fallen head,

And vex the unhappy dust thou would'st not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime

I care no longer, being all unblest :

Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time
And I desire to rest.

Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie :

Go by, go by.

Tennyson.

MUST it be?-then farewell,

Thou whom my woman's heart cherish'd so long, Farewell, and be this song

The last, wherein I say "I loved thee well.”

Many a weary strain

(Never yet heard by thee) hath this poor breath Uttered of love and death,

And maiden grief, hidden and chid in vain.

Oh! if in after years

The tale that I am dead shall touch thy heart,

Bid not the pain depart,

But shed over my grave a few sad tears.