Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept

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1. Modern Love XV: I Think She Sleeps I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when low Hangs that abandoned arm toward the floor; The face turned with it. Now make fast the door. Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe. The Poet’s black stage-lion of wronged love, Frights not our modern dames: well if he did! Now will I […]...
2. Modern Love XXXI: This Golden Head This golden head has wit in it. I live Again, and a far higher life, near her. Some women like a young philosopher; Perchance because he is diminutive. For woman’s manly god must not exceed Proportions of the natural nursing size. Great poets and great sages draw no prize With women: but the little lap-dog […]...
3. Modern Love XLII: I Am to Follow Her I am to follow her. There is much grace In woman when thus bent on martyrdom. They think that dignity of soul may come, Perchance, with dignity of body. Base! But I was taken by that air of cold And statuesque sedateness, when she said ‘I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her head, And went, […]...
4. Modern Love XXVI: Love Ere He Bleeds Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red […]...
5. Modern Love XXXII: Full Faith I Have Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie With her fair visage an inverted sky Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift, Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth (Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address The inner me that thirsts for her no less, And […]...
6. Modern Love VI: It Chanced His Lips Did Meet It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: And most she punishes the tender fool Who will believe what honours her the most! Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow Of tears, the price of […]...
7. Modern Love XXXVI: My Lady unto Madam My Lady unto Madam makes her bow. The charm of women is, that even while You’re probed by them for tears, you yet may smile, Nay, laugh outright, as I have done just now. The interview was gracious: they anoint (To me aside) each other with fine praise: Discriminating compliments they raise, That hit with […]...
8. Modern Love XLIX: He Found Her He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge. She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart […]...
9. Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman What may the 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 […]...
10. Modern Love XVI: In Our Old Shipwrecked Days In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour, When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding […]...
11. Modern Love XXVII: Distraction is the Panacea Distraction is the panacea, Sir! I hear my oracle of Medicine say. Doctor! that same specific yesterday I tried, and the result will not deter A second trial. Is the devil’s line Of golden hair, or raven black, composed? And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed, Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine? […]...
12. Modern Love XXIII: 'Tis Christmas Weather ‘Tis Christmas weather, and a country house Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret At that, it is half-said. The great carouse Knocks hard upon the midnight’s hollow door, But when I knock at hers, I see the pit. Why did I come here in that […]...
13. Modern Love XXIX: Am I Failing Am I failing? For no longer can I cast A glory round about this head of gold. Glory she wears, but springing from the mould; Not like the consecration of the Past! Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth I cry for still: I cannot be at peace In having Love upon a’ mortal […]...
14. Modern Love XIV: What Soul Would Bargain What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit Since on a gold-haired lady’s eyeballs pure, I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while […]...
15. Modern Love VII: She Issues Radiant She issues radiant from her dressing-room, Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere: By stirring up a lower, much I fear How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls Can make known women torturingly fair; The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair, Awakes beneath his magic whisks […]...
16. Modern Love XI: Out in the Yellow Meadows Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing, Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we. Or is it now? or was it then? for now, As then, the larks from running rings pour showers: The golden […]...
17. Modern Love XL: I Bade My Lady Think I bade my Lady think what she might mean. Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, And yet be jealous of another? None Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave The lightless seas of selfishness amain: Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain […]...
18. Modern Love XXXVIII: Give to Imagination Give to imagination some pure light In human form to fix it, or you shame The devils with that hideous human game: Imagination urging appetite! Thus fallen have earth’s greatest Gogmagogs, Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere: Imagination is the charioteer That, in default of better, drives the hogs. So, therefore, my dear […]...
19. Modern Love XXXVII: Along the Garden Terrace Along the garden terrace, under which A purple valley (lighted at its edge By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge Whereunder dropped the chariot), glimmers rich, A quiet company we pace, and wait The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm. So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm Breathes round, we care not if the bell be […]...
20. St Michael's Chapel When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain Roars round about me as I walk the street, The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat Of Toil’s incessant hammer, the fierce strain Of struggle hand to hand and brain to brain, Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, The gaudy shops, the sky-piled […]...
21. Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,” And kept her heart’s own counsel. No […]...
22. Modern Love L: Thus Piteously Love Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: The union of this ever-diverse pair! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts […]...
23. Modern Love XXX: What Are We First What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is […]...
24. Modern Love XX: I Am Not of Those I am not of those miserable males Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap, Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hap Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked, I know the devil has sufficient weight To bear: I lay it […]...
25. Modern Love XXI: We Three Are We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn; My friend being third. He who at love once laughed, Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn And radiant culmination, glorious crown, When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she. Our eyes grow white, encountering that we […]...
26. The Man Who Knew The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be, And from his dream forthright a picture grew, A painting all the people thronged to see, And joyed therein till came the Man Who Knew, Saying: “‘Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools! He painteth not according to the schools.” The Dreamer probed Life’s mystery of […]...
27. Modern Love V: A Message from Her A message from her set his brain aflame. A world of household matters filled her mind, Wherein he saw hypocrisy designed: She treated him as something that is tame, And but at other provocation bites. Familiar was her shoulder in the glass, Through that dark rain: yet it may come to pass That a changed […]...
28. Modern Love XLI: How Many a Thing How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up becomes a gem! We grasp at all the wealth it is to them; And by reflected light its worth is found. Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal Of false appreciation quickly fades. This truth is little known […]...
29. Modern Love III: This Was the Woman This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing: nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is […]...
30. Nature and God I neither knew Nature and God I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me They startled, like Executors Of My identity. Yet Neither told that I could learn My Secret as secure As Herschel’s private interest Or Mercury’s affair...
31. Modern Love XXV: You Like Not That French Novel You like not that French novel? Tell me why. You think it quite unnatural. Let us see. The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband, and wife, and lover. She but fie! In England we’ll not hear of it. Edmond, The lover, her devout chagrin doth share; Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare, […]...
32. Modern Love XLV: It Is the Season It is the season of the sweet wild rose, My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me! So golden-crownèd shines she gloriously, And with that softest dream of blood she glows: Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright! I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive The time when in her eyes I […]...
33. I knew that I had gained I knew that I had gained And yet I knew not how By Diminution it was not But Discipline unto A Rigor unrelieved Except by the Content Another bear its Duplicate In other Continent....
34. Modern Love XXXIX: She Yields She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood Has yielded: she, my golden-crownèd rose! The bride of every sense! more sweet than those Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood. O visage of still music in the sky Soft moon! I feel thy song, my fairest friend! True harmony within can apprehend Dumb harmony without. […]...
35. Modern Love XLVII: We Saw the Swallows We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye: But in the largeness of the evening earth Our spirits grew as we went side by side. The hour became her husband […]...
36. Modern Love XLVIII: Their Sense Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subleties these women are! More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win. Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. We drank the pure daylight of […]...
37. Modern Love XLIV: They Say That Pity They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells, A porter at the rosy temple’s gate. I missed him going: but it is my fate To come upon him now beside his wells; Whereby I know that I Love’s temple leave, And that the purple doors have closed behind. Poor soul! if in those early days […]...
38. Modern Love XVIII: Here Jack and Tom Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg. Curved open to the river-reach is seen A country merry-making on the green. Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. That little screwy fiddler from his booth, Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints Of all who caper here at various points. I […]...
39. Modern Love XII: Not Solely That the Future Not solely that the Future she destroys, And the fair life which in the distance lies For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies: Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joys Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat Distinction in old times, and still should breed Sweet Memory, and Hope, earth’s modest seed, And […]...
40. Modern Love X: But Where Began the Change But where began the change; and what’s my crime? The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love’s nerveless body thro’ all time? I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not like hard life, of […]...