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Coventry Patmore - AmeliaCoventry Patmore - Amelia
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Whene`er mine eyes do my Amelia greet               It is with such emotion               As when, in childhood, turning a dim street,               I first beheld the ocean.               There, where the little, bright, surf-breathing town,               That shew`d me first her beauty and the sea,               Gathers its skirts against the gorse-lit down               And scatters gardens o`er the southern lea,               Abides this Maid               Within a kind, yet sombre Mother`s shade,               Who of her daughter`s graces seems almost afraid,               Viewing them ofttimes with a scared forecast,               Caught, haply, from obscure love-peril past.               Howe`er that be,               She scants me of my right,               Is cunning careful evermore to balk               Sweet separate talk,               And fevers my delight               By frets, if, on Amelia`s cheek of peach,               I touch the notes which music cannot reach,               Bidding ‘Good-night!’               Wherefore it came that, till to-day`s dear date,               I curs`d the weary months which yet I have to wait               Ere I find heaven, one-nested with my mate.               To-day, the Mother gave,               To urgent pleas and promise to behave               As she were there, her long-besought consent               To trust Amelia with me to the grave               Where lay my once-betrothed, Millicent:                  ‘For,’ said she, hiding ill a moistening eye,               ‘Though, Sir, the word sounds hard,               God makes as if He least knew how to guard               The treasure He loves best, simplicity.’               And there Amelia stood, for fairness shewn               Like a young apple-tree, in flush`d array               Of white and ruddy flow`r, auroral, gay,               With chilly blue the maiden branch between;               And yet to look on her moved less the mind               To say ‘How beauteous!’ than ‘How good and kind!’               And so we went alone               By walls o`er which the lilac`s numerous plume               Shook down perfume;               Trim plots close blown               With daisies, in conspicuous myriads seen,               Engross`d each one               With single ardour for her spouse, the sun;               Garths in their glad array               Of white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay,               With azure chill the maiden flow`r between;               Meadows of fervid green,               With sometime sudden prospect of untold               Cowslips, like chance-found gold;               And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze,               Rending the air with praise,               Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shout               Of Jacob camp`d in Midian put to rout;               Then through the Park,               Where Spring to livelier gloom               Quicken`d the cedars dark,               And, `gainst the clear sky cold,               Which shone afar               Crowded with sunny alps oracular,               Great chestnuts raised themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom;               And everywhere,               Amid the ceaseless rapture of the lark,                  With wonder new               We caught the solemn voice of single air,               ‘Cuckoo!’               And when Amelia, `bolden`d, saw and heard               How bravely sang the bird,               And all things in God`s bounty did rejoice,               She who, her Mother by, spake seldom word,               Did her charm`d silence doff,               And, to my happy marvel, her dear voice               Went as a clock does, when the pendulum`s off.               Ill Monarch of man`s heart the Maiden who               Does not aspire to be High-Pontiff too!               So she repeated soft her Poet`s line,               ‘By grace divine,               Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine!’               And I, up the bright steep she led me, trod,               And the like thought pursued               With, ‘What is gladness without gratitude,               And where is gratitude without a God?’               And of delight, the guerdon of His laws,               She spake, in learned mood;               And I, of Him loved reverently, as Cause,               Her sweetly, as Occasion of all good.               Nor were we shy,               For souls in heaven that be               May talk of heaven without hypocrisy.               And now, when we drew near               The low, gray Church, in its sequester`d dell,               A shade upon me fell.               Dead Millicent indeed had been most sweet,               But I how little meet               To call such graces in a Maiden mine!               A boy`s proud passion free affection blunts;               His well-meant flatteries oft are blind affronts;                 And many a tear                 Was Millicent`s before I, manlier, knew                    That maidens shine                 As diamonds do,                 Which, though most clear,                 Are not to be seen through;                 And, if she put her virgin self aside                 And sate her, crownless, at my conquering feet,                 It should have bred in me humility, not pride.                 Amelia had more luck than Millicent:                 Secure she smiled and warm from all mischance                 Or from my knowledge or my ignorance,                 And glow`d content                 With my—some might have thought too much—superior age,                 Which seem`d the gage                 Of steady kindness all on her intent.                 Thus nought forbade us to be fully blent.                 While, therefore, now                 Her pensive footstep stirr`d                 The darnell`d garden of unheedful death,                 She ask`d what Millicent was like, and heard                 Of eyes like her`s, and honeysuckle breath,                 And of a wiser than a woman`s brow,                 Yet fill`d with only woman`s love, and how                 An incidental greatness character`d                 Her unconsider`d ways.                 But all my praise                 Amelia thought too slight for Millicent,                 And on my lovelier-freighted arm she leant,                 For more attent;                 And the tea-rose I gave,                 To deck her breast, she dropp`d upon the grave.                 ‘And this was her`s,’ said I, decoring with a band                 Of mildest pearls Amelia`s milder hand.                 ‘Nay, I will wear it for her sake,’ she said:                 For dear to maidens are their rivals dead.                 And so,                    She seated on the black yew`s tortured root,                 I on the carpet of sere shreds below,                 And nigh the little mound where lay that other,                 I kiss`d her lips three times without dispute,                 And, with bold worship suddenly aglow,                 I lifted to my lips a sandall`d foot,                 And kiss`d it three times thrice without dispute.                 Upon my head her fingers fell like snow,                 Her lamb-like hands about my neck she wreathed.                 Her arms like slumber o`er my shoulders crept,                 And with her bosom, whence the azalea breathed,                 She did my face full favourably smother,                 To hide the heaving secret that she wept!                 Now would I keep my promise to her Mother;                 Now I arose, and raised her to her feet,                 My best Amelia, fresh-born from a kiss,                 Moth-like, full-blown in birthdew shuddering sweet,                 With great, kind eyes, in whose brown shade                 Bright Venus and her Baby play`d!                 At inmost heart well pleased with one another,                 What time the slant sun low                 Through the plough`d field does each clod sharply shew,                 And softly fills                 With shade the dimples of our homeward hills,                 With little said,                 We left the `wilder`d garden of the dead,                 And gain`d the gorse-lit shoulder of the down                 That keeps the north-wind from the nestling town,                 And caught, once more, the vision of the wave,                 Where, on the horizon`s dip,                 A many-sailed ship                 Pursued alone her distant purpose grave;                 And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim street                 I led her sacred feet;                 And so the Daughter gave,                 Soft, moth-like, sweet,                    Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,                 Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.                 And now ‘Good-night!’                 Me shall the phantom months no more affright                 For heaven`s gates to open well waits he                 Who keeps himself the key.
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