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

“I love you not,” her letter says:
“You even insult me by the thought.”
Insult her!...I who had given my days,
My heart, my life, to please in aught
The woman who now writes to me
With a girl's perfect cruelty.

“My love is given to him whose wife
In some short weeks I am to be.”
Then why, in God's name, did she strive
To win my pure first love from me?
She found, no doubt, a light fierce joy,
Experimenting on a boy.

A boy's heart! Yes, she thought, no doubt,
That I could take the thing in jest:
Could serve her, follow her about,
And give some love,—yet not my best.
My love was sweet in summer-time.
It lasts till winter—that's a crime!

It pleased her in those summer hours:
The passionate worship that I brought
Was new to her.—We gathered flowers;
Her swift eyes searched for mine, unsought.
Her hand pressed mine. Its velvet touch
Thrilled through my palm,—and that was much.

It seems half lovely, as I look
With burning wild gaze back to-day
—The meadow-sweet beside the brook;
The broad sea-spaces, silver-grey;
The walks beneath the moon at night;
The boats' sails, brown or snowy white;

The stream that gurgled past the mill;
The arbour at the garden's end;

Our quarrel on the corn-clad hill:
Her laughing anger with her friend;
Her knife—with which (with skill sublime!)
I carved our names, to mock at time;

The very robin, perching near
In the wide low-branched apple tree
And craving largess without fear
Of bread-crumbs as we sat at tea
Within the bower beside the stream;
These things flash on me as I dream!

And yet I hold her letter—Yes,
It proves the former things were lies;
Her soft hand's touch,—like a caress!
Her glance,—like God's glance from the skies!
My castle of bright dreams must fall:
She never cared for me at all.

And yet she did care—there's the pang,
The viewless horror. That's the spear

That rends my heart with iron fang,—
The crowning shattering maddening fear
That, after all, the woman's heart
Is, always, of my own a part.

That is the terror. When a girl
So leads a youth's wild heart astray
God does not let her lightly curl
Herself to sleep for many a day
Within the bosom, or the bed,
Of him she now has chosen to wed.

No, God sends anguish. There's the fear:
She yet may rise and come to me;
Fierce passion yet may win her ear
And, murmuring therein constantly,
May make her hate the man for whom
She now consigns love to its tomb.

For, when her eyes met mine, I know
There was a something in their gaze
Which, though long years may come and go
And many an autumn strew the ways
With wild leaves shivering at the rain,
Will never flash through them again.

Never. He cannot draw her eyes
To his, as yesterday I drew
Their glance, and saw the tear-drops rise,
And laughed as through my soul I knew
That she who once those far shores trod
With me was given to me by God.

When once the soul has seen the soul,
The man and woman cannot part:
Another lover may control
The woman's body,—not her heart.
Of all things sad, I think that this
Sad thing by far the saddest is.

And this is ever a poet's fate!
To know the woman his indeed,
And then to know she knows too late:
To know that God's will has decreed
That she shall learn what love implies
By murdering love before his eyes.

A poet by his subtle force
Of soul and being can discern
The woman's nature still in course
Of being created; he can burn

With passion for the soul half born—
The soul her “husband's” soul will scorn.

The poet sees what she can see
Hardly at all—her nature true:
He feels this linked eternally
In sweet communion ever-new
To his true nature; feels her wife;
Rooted in him: his breath; his life.

And then he sees the woman swerve
And, knowing not her counterpart,
Give touch of body, shock of nerve
(Never the shock of heart and heart!)
To some man who can only see
What's evident externally.

This man becomes her “husband”: though
The poet feels with sweet divine
Strange agony, “Though this be so,
In God's sight still the woman's mine.
Aye, though he hold her, hold her fast,
Her soul will fly to mine at last.”

And then the Vision! Who sent that?
Was that some lying spirit's design?
—As in my lonely room I sat
(Her hand that day had thrilled through mine)
There came, one night, a sudden sense
Superb, engrossing, clear, intense,

A sudden sense that she was there,
Close by me in that very room;
Herself, proud, queenly. While the air
Grew fragrant as with summer's bloom,
Through this sweet air the woman came
And touched my lips with lips of flame.

Then, through the long miraculous night
I lay awake, yet slept it seemed
A slumber broken by delight,
And through my soul her strange eyes gleamed.
I clasped her in our marriage-bed:
“How beautiful you are!” I said.

And then her body, wondrous, white,
Pure, full of maiden strength and calm,
Seemed to transfuse me with its light:
Glad mouth to mouth, warm palm to palm,

Quite till the crimson dawn of day
Wrapt in our marriage-bliss we lay.

And night by night the woman came:
For some six nights the glory gleamed:
For some six nights all heaven aflame,
All earth aflower and fervent seemed.
Aye, night by night I seemed to rest
Triumphant on her very breast.

I closed my eyes each night,—and then
Unclosed my eyes, and she was there;
Ever the same: each night again
She seemed to watch me, noble, fair
Pure-wifely; and she laid her head
Beside mine in my lonely bed.

That was the Vision.—I believed
The living God had sent it me:
With joyous full heart I received
Its message of great ecstasy.
She was my wife. So God had said,
Who sent her angel to my bed.

And, now that God had done this thing,
Could any hold that God would lie?
That he would steal my wife, and fling
Deep into hell irrevocably
The soul who had believed his word?
Could God deny himself? Absurd!

Could God now prostitute my bride
By placing in another's bed,
Warm from the pressure of my side,
The form to mine but lately wed?
Could God thus rend her limb from limb?
Give soul to me—body to him?

Nay, never! For my Vision stood
Superb and strong, emphatic, clear.
If any dream of old held good,
If God once spake in Abraham's ear,
If he with Moses held discourse,
He had spoken to me with no less force.

In modern London just as clear
The Lord had spoken out to me
As where the heights of Sinai sheer
Rose in their grim austerity.

To me the Lord had spoken who spake
To fishers on the Eastern lake.

There were not visions two or three,
Gods two or three, but only one.
God spake to Christ: God spake to me:
And what he promised would be done.
God lied to me? He lied to all.
By this his truth must stand or fall.

So, full of faith, I went to her,
Believing that the Lord who sent
The sacred Vision could not err
And that his sovereign justice meant
That she should mar her mother's scheme
And bring fulfilment to my dream.

For, “surely now I see,” I said,
“She does not love him. She is mine.
Her white ghost slept within my bed:
Her ghost-arms round my neck did twine:
The woman's self must now fulfil
The high God's undisputed will.”

She would not see me. But instead
She wrote the pencil scrap I hold.
I read it,—and my heart fell dead:
I, who had been so strong and bold,
So full of faith—that this should be
The end of all God's pageantry!

“Leave me,” she said, “and be a man:
Yes, leave me and all thought of me.
I do not change: I never can.
To him whose wife I am to be
My love is given,—aye, all my heart.
For ever you and I must part.”

This on the Vision's very top!
This flung in God's face as reply!
My heart came to a sudden stop:
I did not reason, or ask why
So strange, so mad, an answer came,
Befouling her and God with shame.

I simply seemed turned quite to stone.
I left the house—I know not how—

Without a sigh, without a groan:
(I wonder at my calmness now)—
Crushed utterly; completely slain;
Too throughly stricken almost for pain.

II. AT OXFORD. SIX WEEKS LATER.

Six weeks ago! How long it seems
Since through the quiet London square
I walked, bereft of hopes and dreams,
And felt my whole life leafless, bare,
Barren for ever. Now to-day
The earth is gladdened. It is May.

I walk beside the river's marge;
I see the grey old Oxford towers;
Watch flashing skiff, and glittering barge,
And, on the banks, the same old flowers.
Town, river, fields—all are the same:
My only sameness is my name.

I feel as if I bore within
My frame a corpse. With living eyes
I see the quick foam-bubbles spin

Adown the weir; I see the skies;
I see the flowers; I see the oars
Sweep by the old thyme-scented shores.

And yet I know that I am dead
And that the horror of despair
Grips all my heart...They must be wed
By now—and does he find her fair?
And does he twine with tender hands
The sweet long loosened brown hair-bands?

Was last night—yes?—their wedding night,
Or will it be to-night? Will he
Win from her lips unknown delight
And find her sweet exceedingly?
So soft to touch? so good to kiss?
And was my darling born for this?

And was I born to watch the oars
Flash by the thyme-sweet Isis' banks,
To pace these green sun-lighted shores,
To watch the tall reeds' dark-green ranks,
While, underneath the May-stars bright,
Such horror may take place to-night?

The days pass on. I hate this place.
I hate the country green and fair;
I hate the bright swift boats that race;
I hate the pure sweet-smelling air;
I hate the river broad and blue;
I hate these trees the sun gleams through.

I'll back to London! There, at least
I shall feel nearer to the past:
The distance will have then decreased
Between me and where I saw her last.
I shall be happier near the spot
Where she so loved, yet loved me not.

London! I died in town in March,
And I'll revisit town in May.
The flower-beds near the Marble Arch,
With hyacinths or tulips gay,
Are fairer than these country meads
Wherethrough the blue old Isis speeds.

I shall be near the house wherein
I saw her last; saw those strange eyes,

In which I fancied love had been,—
In which I saw the tear-drops rise.
I'll turn once more that old sad page
Of life, and make my pilgrimage.

III. LONDON. IN JUNE AND JULY.

I saw her face again at Lord's.
Her eyes met mine. She grew quite pale.
Her eyes' expression ill accords
With happiness. The same old tale
I think it is. The mothers sell
Their daughters, and so people hell.

I think she loves me.—Oh, her heart
Was sweet and grand and full of power!
She loved and worshipped all true Art:
She should have helped me tend to flower
The bud of poesy that she
Discerned and nurtured first in me.

In this strange age, when all is new,
When Thought arises from the tomb,

There was such glorious work to do:
But she shrinks back into the gloom.
What dulls for her Time's golden dawn?
The sunset o'er a Rectory lawn!

She might have held a poet's heart,
Held it for ever. She and I,
Wedded in love and love of Art,
Married most sympathetically,
Might nobly have helped the world along,
She by brave thought, and I by song.

The chance is over.—Though her eyes
Met mine at Lord's the other day,
They soon will meet the calm blue skies
In the green country, far away
From London smoke and London noise,
And far from action's rarest joys.

High thought will quit her heart and brain;
Aye, gradually the thought of me,
At first a pang, a passionate pain,
Will change to a faint memory.
Then the dull prose of daily life
Will make her—just a parson's wife.

She will read Keble on the lawn,
And talk of Keble to his friends:
Our hearts will far apart be drawn;
We shall be seeking different ends;
Her husband-priest will weigh her down,
And scatter to the winds her crown.

I loved her so! I would have died
To help her thought,—to lift it on.
Upon the forehead of my bride
Thought's fairest circlet should have shone.
I loved in early days to see
Her young thought's budding potency.

Now it is over. Day by day
Her thought must grow more dull and hard:
Winter will blight the blossoming spray;
The Church's keen frost will retard
The growth of blossom-thoughts and deeds
That would have widened past old creeds.

Yes, she is his. His—evermore.
Not only body, lovely face,

Sweet lips a god's heart might adore,
Shoulders a god's arms might embrace,
Not only this—the mind as well
Is prostituted. That is hell.

The mind and body both must go:
The head, the heart, the young pure soul:
All will be, by a process slow
But sure, diverted to a goal
Far other than our young hearts dreamed
When at our feet the bright waves gleamed.

The waves must all lament with me!
The flowers and sprays we gathered there;
The stars that shone above our sea;
The ferns I twisted in her hair;
How all must grieve, how all must weep,
That her young soul has fallen asleep!