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

She.—
“Why do you love me?”

He.—
“For your coal-black hair
That brings before my eyes the passionate South:
Because, although my lips in song despair,
Hope thrills them at the touching of your mouth.
Because, when life was weary and at an end,
Like the bright soul of very Spring you came,
Sister and love, a sweetheart in a friend,
And fanned with girlish breath joy's flickering flame
And so I love you.”

She.—
“Will your love abide
Stedfast and faithful, since we cannot be
Sweetheart and lover, husband and fair bride,
But have to move apart eternally?”

He.—
“Lady! the night when first you came to meet
A weary poet, placing trust in him,
Will fill my soul with memories starry-sweet
Till on night's purple robe each star grows dim.”

258

She.—
“But think, how long is life, how dull and cold!
Can such a love as this content you well?
To love, but never to possess and hold,
Men teach that this, to man, is worse then hell.”

He.—
“Worse than a hell it is! Yet you are fair:
God made me love you, and such love is gain.
If love at times seems shadowed by despair,
Still will I love,—if not in joy, in pain.
Perhaps, if early in life our eyes had met,
The strength for perfect love had not been ours:
But now upon the hills our feet are set,
And we can gather noble mountain-flowers.”

She.—
“But if you die, and if I marry then?”

He.—
“Sweetheart, if God who made me love you so
Can take your lips, your heart, from me again,
There is no medicine for that mastering woe.”

She.—
“Stay—”

He.—
“Never! Did not God himself declare
As down the starry heights his great voice rang
That you were destined for the one thing fair
For me? So I took up my harp and sang.
Did God not let me kiss the coal-black hair?
Yes, God and you—allowing bliss and pang?”

259

She.—
“But ought you thus to have acted? Was it wise,
Knowing the barriers Fate has placed between?”

He.—
“Lady, I met the splendour of your eyes,
And barriers vanished at that glance, I ween!”

She.—
“What is the gain? Ephemeral surely and small,
When weighed with what man's heart counts gain and bliss?”

He.—
“Not half your soul I ask. I ask for all.
I ask for years of marriage in one kiss.
To feel your soul grow to me day by day
With lovely trust and confidence serene:
To know that doubts and fears have fled away:
To feel your girlish heart completely lean
On mine: this is the high reward I pray
Your sovereign grace to gift me with, my queen!”

She.—
“And is that marriage?”

He.—
“That is the deep soul
Of marriage, not the phantom and the form:
The marriage-love that, though wild thunders roll,
Can breast the cloud-waves and defy the storm.
Yes, this is marriage.”

She.—
“Is not marriage, then,
The orange-blossomed daily thing we see?”

260

He.—
“Will lace and orange-blossoms help you when,
Loveless, you have to face eternity?
Will silk and silver and gold and praise of men
Assist, when you at last—look round for me?”

She.—
“Nay, not so fast!”

He.—
“Nay, faster—for I know,
As man knows deep by intuition's law,
I, having worshipped, having loved you so,
With such sweet homage and such rapturous awe,
That every other love, though it sound fair
And whatsoever gifts its right hand bring,
Would in its left hand bring you black despair
And sorrow past our mortal reckoning.
No woman ever is loved as I love you
Twice on the earth, twice in eternity:
You'd miss my old grey eyes, and find the new
Brown eyes a trifle tedious, it may be!”

She.—
“Brown eyes are pretty.”

He.—
“Yes, your brown eyes have
The Pyrenean magic in their gaze:
Most stately, queenly, thoughtful, noble, grave,
They make me dream of Southern hills and bays.”

She.—
“But I,—I was not talking of my own”—

He.—
“And I—I never talk except of yours”—

261

She.—
“To argue with a poet”—

He.—
“Ah, your tone
So silver-sweet, ineffably allures!”

She.—
“But, just to say the same old thing once more,
We are debarred and shut off, each from each.”

He.—
“Can wave thrill wave along the shadowy shore,
Can moonbeams mix above the glimmering beach,
Can star reach star across the tremulous night,
Can sun touch sun across wan leagues of air,
And cannot we blend sorrow and delight
And peace unchangeably, my one thing fair?”

She.—
“A poet's thought and diction!”

He.—
“Nay, the truth
To-day as ever is in a poet's dream:
True visions, as of everlasting youth
And endless summer, through your glances gleam.”

She.—
“And if I trust you utterly?”

He.—
“Your trust
Will not be misplaced. Set your lips on mine.
When heaven's stars vanish, worn to golden dust,
Unwrecked, undaunted, shall our love-star shine.”