Modern Love XLVII: We Saw the Swallows

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1. 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 […]...
2. The Blue Swallows Across the millstream below the bridge Seven blue swallows divide the air In shapes invisible and evanescent, Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s Or memory’s power to keep them there. “History is where tensions were,” “Form is the diagram of forces.” Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge, While gazing down upon those birds – How strange, to […]...
3. Swallows Travel To And Fro SWALLOWS travel to and fro, And the great winds come and go, And the steady breezes blow, Bearing perfume, bearing love. Breezes hasten, swallows fly, Towered clouds forever ply, And at noonday, you and I See the same sunshine above. Dew and rain fall everywhere, Harvests ripen, flowers are fair, And the whole round earth […]...
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 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 […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Modern Love XLIII: Mark Where the Pressing Wind Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. […]...
8. Love The Wild Swan “I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch One color, one glinting Flash, of the splendor of things. Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets […]...
9. 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? […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. From The Short Story What The Swallows Did Swallow, swallow, neighbor swallow, Starting on your autumn flight, Pause a moment at my window, Twitter softly your good-night; For the summer days are over, All your duties are well done, And the happy homes you builded Have grown empty, one by one. Swallow, swallow, neighbor swallow, Are you ready for your flight? Are all […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Homing Swallows Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main, O rain-birds racing merrily away From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say When at the noon-hour from the chapel school The children dash and scamper down the dale, Scornful of teacher’s rod and binding rule Forever broken and without avail, […]...
16. 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, […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. Sonnet XLVII: In Pride of Wit In pride of wit when high desire of fame Gave life and courage to my laboring pen, And first the sound and virtue of my name Won grace and credit in the ears of men, With those the thronged theatres that press I in the circuit for the laurel strove, Where the full praise, I […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this the devils […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Hither, Hither, Love Hither hither, love – ‘Tis a shady mead – Hither, hither, love! Let us feed and feed! Hither, hither, sweet – ‘Tis a cowslip bed – Hither, hither, sweet! ‘Tis with dew bespread! Hither, hither, dear By the breath of life, Hither, hither, dear! – Be the summer’s wife! Though one moment’s pleasure In one […]...
29. Modern Love II: It Ended, and the Morrow It ended, and the morrow brought the task. Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in By shutting all too zealous for their sin: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask. But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had! He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: A languid humour stole among the […]...
30. Modern Love XLVI: At Last We Parley At last we parley: we so strangely dumb In such a close communion! It befell About the sounding of the Matin-bell, And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, And my disordered brain did guide my foot To that old wood where our first love-salute Was […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris, at the Louvre ‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! The young Pharsalians did not disarray Less willingly their locks of floating silk: That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk Of heaven might still be feasting through […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Modern Love XXIV: The Misery Is Greater The misery is greater, as I live! To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense, That she does penance now for no offence, Save against Love. The less can I forgive! The less can I forgive, though I adore That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds That […]...
36. Modern Love XIII: I Play for Seasons, Not Eternities ‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ Says Nature, laughing on her way. ‘So must All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’ And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies She is full sure! Upon her dying rose, She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, Scarce any retrospection in her eye; For […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. 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, […]...
40. 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 […]...