Marah :: :: University of Virginia Library

I gave her love: I gave her faith and truth:
I gave her adoration, vassalage,
And tribute of life's best: the dreams of youth,
The deeds of manhood, and the stores of age.

2

She took my gifts, and turn'd them into pain.
Each gift she made a bitter curse to be,
Then, marr'd, she gave them back to me again.
And this is all she ever gave to me.

EXPERIENTIA DOCET?

1

Vain is the experience of the past
To guide their steps who rove,
By ways each different from the last,
The labyrinths of Love!

2

For no new movements of the heart
Reiterate the old,
Nor has their tale its counterpart
In those by Memory told.

3

The records of the pilgrimage
Of passion are impress'd
Each on the renovated page
Of a blanch'd palimpsest.

4

To mock the faith that lovers place
In life's acquir'd love-lore,
New lessons, latest learn'd, efface
Old teachings taught before.

5

And we ourselves within us bear,
Tho'to ourselves unknown,
New lives, that with new longings wear,
New features of their own.

6

Thus every love is, of its kind,
A first love and a last;
And every time we love, we find
That love has had no past.

OMENS AND ORACLES

1

All the phantoms of the future, all the spectres of the past,
In the wakeful night came round me, sighing, crying, “Fool, beware!
Check the feeling o'er thee stealing! Let thy first love be thy last!
Or, if love again thou must, at least this fatal love forbear!”
Marah Amara!

2

Now the dark breaks. Now the lark wakes. Now their voices fleet away.
And the breeze about the blossom, and the ripple in the reed,
And the beams, and buds, and birds begin to whisper, sing, or say,
“Love her, love her, for she loves thee!” And I know not which to heed.
Cara Amara!

IDOLATRY

1

To love is to create, down here below,
A god on earth; and for that god do even
More than his earthly worshipper can do
For the great God in Heaven.

2

But, since naught perfect is on earth, and none
Entirely good, the god on earth created
Is but a half-divine, half-devilish one;
A god half loved, half hated.

3

Half loved, half hated, but so all adored
That for its favour nothing seems a price
Too great; not even life lost and blood pour'd
In human sacrifice.

4

And all ungrudged, for this god's worshipt sake,
His heart's blood drop by drop the adorer gives
His life's life hour by hour; nor shrinks to break
The heart of other lives.

ANTAGONISMS

1

Ah, who can reconcile the Brain and Heart?
Reason and Passion? Thought and Sentiment?
Genius and Woman? Far they tend apart.
And only meet in terrible dissent.

2

Genius, sufficing to itself, abounds
In its own being. Love can but fulfil
Its being in another. Woman founds
Her power upon the ruins of Man's will.

3

The love she gives him costs a kingdom's price,
Tho' freely given the gift. It takes away
His grandeur from him. And that sacrifice
She neither understands, nor can repay.

AMARI ALIQUID

1

Dearest, our love is perfect, as love goes!
Your kisses fill my frame and fire my blood;
And nothing fails the sweetness each bestows,
Except the joy of being understood.

2

If, for one single moment, once alone,
And in no more than one thing only, this
Moreover only the most trivial one,
You could but understand me—ah, the bliss!

ARS AMORIS

1

The world has tangled in its web Love's wings,
And to the captive god no freedom grants.
Mix'd with material marketable things
And social wants.

2

Throughout the struggling ranks of Modern Life
Love has become a means of livelihood;
Matter for bargain keen, or envious strife,
Like clothes and food.

3

And what the Modern Man and Woman try
To find in love, or by its means acquire,
Is comfort, wealth, respectability,
A step set higher

4

On life's throng'd social ladder. Nay, even less:
A luxury, a vanity, a mode,
An attitude, a pastime, a small cess
To Custom owed!

5

Whate'er the gain by these from love expected,
Whether its acquisition be in pelf
Or pleasure, it is wholly unconnected
With love itself.

6

For 'tis not love they love, but life provided
With what they deem love capable of giving;
And, in the act of loving, each is guided
By the art of living.

7

Therefore, O Love, because to all life's plans
And projects some promotion thou impartest,
Thou still hast many zealous artisans,
Tho' not one artist.

MARAH'S DOWER

Two Muses Marah's dower supply,
And each a gift bestows:
For all her looks are Poetry,
And all her feelings Prose.

RUBIES AND PEARLS

1

All I had to give, I gave her. First my kisses, then my tears.
But the little one would have them not. “What use are they?” she said.
Sad, I went away, and dwelt among the tombs, where days are years,
With the Witch that gathers herbs there, and her children who are dead.

2

They and I became companions; and their dusty shrouds were wet
With my flowing tears, and warm beneath my kiss their white lips burn'd,

Till the Witch, whose graveyard-gatherings rare miracles beget,
Wrought my kisses into rubies, and my tears to pearls she turn'd.

3

But she drain'd into each ruby's heart from mine a drop of blood,
And a purity my spirit lost with every pearl that fell.
Then she laugh'd, “Good pearls thy tears are now, thy kisses rubies good,
And the proper use of precious stones thy little one knows well.”

4

So I took my pearls and rubies to the little one I love,
She that loves me not. And, when her pretty eyes beheld them, wild

Beat her little heart with eagerness its pride in them to prove,
And she kiss'd and kiss'd me, weeping tears of pleasure like a child.

5

Still she wears them, still she shows them to her lovers with delight.
And her little heart would break, I think, if one of them were lost;
For the sweetest of its pleasures is the envy they excite,
And 'tis spoilt by no suspicion of the price that they have cost.

DREAMS

1

A land of luminous azure, glowing green,
And purple, and roseate gold, fill'd everywhere
With fervid colour and light; and all things seen
Clear thro' a lucid calm of cloudless air:

2

The rippled sapphires of a summer sea,
Steep'd in the sunshine of a southern sky,
Washing warm bowery bays where tree to tree
Loose roses link'd with labyrinthine tie:

3

Among them glimmer'd many a statued flight
Of marble stairs, beneath the twinkling gloss
Of blossom-laden boughs: and streams shone white,
Streaking green glens faint rainbows roof'd across:

4

Seaward on sunny slopes a little town
Sparkled with terraced streets, where all day long
A glad-faced folk went sauntering up and down,
Whose talk was tuned to some soft foreign tongue:

5

Foreign, at least, their tongue to me and you;
For you and I, dropp'd who knows how down here,
Were strangers from afar; and so we two
To one another had grown strangely near.

6

All this I dream'd. Then woke, and with dim gaze
Saw, thro' the window-curtains half withdrawn,
Wan street-lamps film'd beneath a frozen haze,
And snow-flakes falling in the wintry dawn.

7

And all at once, with a recurrent pain,
I realised how far away you were,
How near at hand my troubles! And then again
I slept, and dream'd. Ah, what a change was there!

8

Nor sea nor land this time. No nature. All
Was artificial. For I stood, methought,
In a vast house of many mansions: hall
Succeeding hall: huge chambers, richly wrought,

9

In clear communication each with each,
Thro' multitudes of doors set open wide,
And lit by windows so far out of reach
That they reveal'd not anything outside.

10

Around me, here and there, and to and fro,
A wistful crowd continually went.
I knew them not. Nor did they seem to know
Each other. All were silent: each intent

11

On his own business, or his own design.
No care had I to guess what that might be;
For I was equally intent on mine,
Heedless of others as they were of me.

12

And conscious all the while, I knew not how,
That somewhere in this house, among that crowd,
I was to find you; tho' no sign to show
Where was vouchsaf'd me, and no guide allow'd.

13

So, on, through those innumerable doors,
Door after door, in search of you I pass'd,
And over those interminable floors,
Floor after floor, with steps that hasten'd fast,

14

And fiercely beating heart. But nowhere you,
Nor any trace of you! And time went by,
The light began to fail, my courage too,
And then I noticed all were gone but I.

15

Gone! By what means? Impossible to guess!
For go, I could not. Each room only led
Into another room. A wilderness
Of rooms and rooms on all sides round me spread!

16

To deep discouragement succeeded fear—
A fear lest I forever should remain
Wandering about in that mad maze of drear
And darkening halls! I knew my search was vain

17

And that I should not ever find you there.
My one thought was to get away—get back
To the outer world, and nature, and fresh air.
Vain thought! The night, that crept upon my track,

18

Was bringing with it who could say what strange
New horror? And still wandering, still astray,
I roam'd and roam'd that never-ending range
Of rooms and rooms, whence still there was no way.

19

Door after door I tried. No door was shut.
But door to door succeeded, hall to hall.
None to my flight did any barrier put,
But egress was in turn denied by all.

20

I turn'd, despairing, to the windows. These
Might favour flight, I hoped, if once attain'd.
But no! For they receded by degrees
As I advanced, and out of reach remain'd.

21

At last I noticed, close at hand, what seem'd
A shut door in the wall. And “Here, perchance,
From this bewildering labyrinth,” I deem'd,
“May be some means for my deliverance!”

22

I push'd the latchet, hope with fear and doubt
Contending. The door open'd. From the shelf
Of some dark cupboard it disclosed, sprang out
A corpse. I knew it. 'Twas my own dead Self.

23

And my dead Self pursued me. Fast I fled.
But fast it follow'd. Its sepulchral breath
Clung like a cloud about me. It was dead,
And yet unnaturally alive in death.

24

The horror and the terror of it grew
Until they reach'd the point of madness. Then
The whole wild vision from my sense withdrew,
And, spent and faint, I lay awake again;

25

But still in fear lest on me sleep should glide,
And again fix me with its ghostly fetter,
A doubting hand I stretch'd to the bedside,
And there I found (thrice woe is me!) your letter.

26

Your dreadful letter, with its heartless words!
A trance my life since that sick moment seems,
Whence never any waking hour affords
Release from days far worse than night's worst dreams.

FIGURES OF SPEECH

1

Ah, still even strangers' lips renew
The magic of your name!
Last night, when some one spoke of you,
I felt my blood turn flame.

2

Your fair friend said, “Tho' so besought,
And so admired, how free
From vanity, how pure in thought,
And true in deed, is she!

3

“Her soul's ev'n fairer than her face.
Do you not think so too?”
And with beatified grimace
I lied, and said, “I do.”

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE

1

I deem'd you truest of the true,
And loved you. Now I see
That you were treacherous thro' and thro',
And love you still, woe's me!

2

The only difference is this:
The gilt is off the chain,
And what was once a golden bliss
Is now an iron pain.

ONE ROSE

1

My blessing on you, roses, all save one!
Curst be the blood-red rose she used to wear
In those fierce summers that have slain my sun,
To lure love to her bosom and her hair!

2

The past's spent torments does that rose renew.
Hot from my heart its hated petals take
The blood that gives them their ensanguined hue,
And all my life is paler for its sake.

BY THE GATES OF HELL

1

Where the shadow of darkness darkest fell
In the Valley of Tears, by the Gates of Hell,
I was 'ware of an old man, wan as a ghost.
He was bitterly weeping: and there for years,
By the Gates of Hell, in the Valley of Tears,
He had wept and wept for a loved one lost.

2

“Be consoled!” I said. “For the Gates of Hell
Thou hast pass'd not yet, and the griefs that dwell
In the Valley of Tears, be they ne'er so sore,
Yet by little and little they pass away,
And by little and little there comes a day
When the day that was is a grief no more.”

3

“I have pass'd thro' worse than the Gates of Hell,
And I know,” he said, “that for those 'tis well
Who are weeping the loved one lost by death.
For by little and little their grief goes by,
And the dead are forgot, and the living will die,
And a hope still lingers the grave beneath.

4

But as bitter and fierce as the pangs of Hell
(For there is not a hope in their long farewell)
Are the tears that are shed, on no grave that's seen
For the loss of a loved one lost by life.
And each tortures the heart, like a burning knife,
With the trace of a day that in vain has been.”

WHEN ALL IS OVER

1

When you and I are dead, when all is over,
Life's long confusions clear'd, love's trials past,
The truth, they hid and hurt, will you discover,
And know and understand me at the last?
When all is over!

2

And will you then be sad for all I suffer'd?
You, to whose trusted hand's mistrustful blow
This poor wrong'd heart's defenceless fondness offer'd
So safe a mark! Will you be sad to know
The pain it suffer'd?

3

If so, perchance what might have been, and was not,
You then will honour more than what has been;
And life, when lost, will have what now it has not,
Your wish, at least, that its set suns had seen
The day that was not.

4

That was not, but that would have been, my dearest,
Had you had faith in it, or faith in me!
For that day's dawn, tho' long delay'd, was nearest
Just when you chose that it should never be
Our day, my dearest.

5

If, even when all is over, still you never
Will know or understand, then must I pray

That death be one long dreamless sleep forever,
If more than now you know, you never may,
Still never, never!

6

But if you know at last, and sigh to know it
Too late, that sigh will all my pain requite.
Better too late than never! Could death show it,
I think 'twould, even then, set all things right
To know you know it.