The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

This is my vengeance—not to take away
My love, to leave it with you to the end:
To speak to you, when flowers are fair;
When starlight glistens, to be there;
From the blue spotless summer skies to bend.
I may not speak in weak words? I can pray.

Pray that the higher self I would have died
To reach, and at its highest point to keep,
May ever, guided by God's hand,
Develope, blossom, grow, expand:
Pray that the fruits my hand may never reap
May fill God's fostering heart with joy and pride.

True, the pure freshness of our love is lost.
Your dagger smote (ah! if it had but slain)—
The blow was cowardly, mean and base:

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You should have struck before my face,—
I would have said, “Smite on—yea, smite again!”
But you—you struck when I was trusting most.

I trusted you, as man might trust his heart
To God his Maker—gave you love supreme.
For years I laboured night and day
And only ceased from love, to pray:
I made your life for years a happy dream:
I crowned you with the laurels of my Art.

I would have loved you to the very end:
I would have shielded you from all things sad.
But you—you turned away to seek
False love, unfaithful, foolish, weak,
Perverse, half blind it may be, wholly mad;
For one hour's pleasure you destroyed a friend.

You chose the lesser love, the meaner heart:
The nobler loving heart you crucified.
I gave you heaven: you gave me hell:
Was this thing womanly or well?
You let the base man win you for his bride,
And bade the true strong husband-spirit depart.

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Now do I curse you? No: nor do I bless.
There is a living God in all these things.
God shall do justice to the twain:
In his safe hands I place my pain:
We both must face the judgment sure time brings;
In one way love will deepen, not grow less.

In this way: love is truth, and truth must be
For ever now between us—that is clear.
All lies are o'er, they could not last;
The untruth is buried in our past;—
You love me, or you do not love me, dear:
We have to face the future—we shall see!

Your soul will grow, or not grow. If it grows,
There yet might be on some far future day
Peace for our spirits, autumnal rest,
A wedded calm in either breast
(This is the nobler end for which I pray:
Not passion's rapture—rapture of repose).

Aye once again, if you could be quite true,
True-souled and pure through all eternity,
Some happiness my heart might win,—

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Some day I might forget the sin;
I might hear glad birds singing, and the sea
Might even regain for me some note of blue.

But if your soul will grow not—If it still
Lingers as this man's plaything through the years,—
If you, a poet's love, his queen,
Can wholly choose a thing so mean,—
If you forget love's kisses, aye love's tears,—
If nothing now can move your nobler will,—

If, having once been loved with love most fair,
Most strong, most sweet, most gentle, you to-day
Can wholly turn your face aside,
Why then your true soul must have died!
Then God and love and I must turn away:
I meet God's eyes, and in them is despair.

Yes: if a woman's heart can quite forget
The countless happy moments that we shared,
If six years are as nothing, then
Indeed the creed of vulgar men
Would seem like truth—if you too can be snared
By diamonds glittering through a golden net.

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II.

But if the nobler course may still be ours,
If you to whom I gave my heart can now
With perfect love of heart atone,
If you can be my very own,
My love with faithful eyes and honest brow,
We still may gather some immortal flowers.

I gave you love beyond the love I gave
Ever to any,—love beyond all speech:
You stabbed me deeplier far than all:
Must our love-temple wholly fall?
Is there atonement, love, within our reach?
Is there a passion deeper than the grave?

I think there may be. Yes: I think the man
Who died on Calvary, and rose they say
Triumphant from the fast-closed tomb,
Might help us through this deadly gloom
And change our darkness into sunlit day.
No human soul can help, unless Christ can.

Is there a darkness star-proof evermore?
A depth of hell where God's foot fails to tread?
Height beyond height the heavens arise,

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Vast heaven on heaven of starlit skies;
Depth below depth hell's ocean seethes blood-red;
Is it unsounded and without a shore?

Is there a depth where God's glance cannot go?
Darkness from which the Father shrinks away?
Then Christ upon the cross in vain
Bore for our sakes unmeasured pain;
Then is there no word hopeful left to say;
We reap despair, whatever seed we sow.

But if the love of God can pierce the gloom,
Then man's love too can follow where God's goes.
My love can reach you evermore
And circle hell's sea with a shore
And smite the savage wave-crests to repose:
My love and Christ's love can outlive the tomb.

My love: for Christ and God and man are one,
And God can save you, burst your prison-bars
Oh love, whose look dismays despair,
Can robe you in raiment pure and fair,—
As dark night jewels heaven's zone with the stars,
As morning gems heaven's forehead with the sun.