C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sahara
By Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)
I
They seated in the London train.
A month from her! yet this had been,
Ere now, without such bitter pain;
But neighborhood makes parting light,
And distance remedy has none.
Alone, she near, I felt as might
A blind man sitting in the sun;
She near, all for the time was well:
Hope’s self, when we were far apart,
With lonely feeling, like the smell
Of heath on mountains, filled my heart.
To see her seemed delight’s full scope;
And her kind smile, so clear of care.
Even then, though darkening all my hope,
Gilded the cloud of my despair.
I lent one: blamed the print for old;
And did not tell her that she took
A Petrarch worth its weight in gold.
I hoped she’d lose it; for my love
Was grown so dainty, high, and nice,
It prized no luxury above
The sense of fruitless sacrifice.
Link catching link, the long array,
With ponderous pulse and fiery breath.
Proud of its burthen, swept away.
And through the lingering crowd I broke,
Sought the hillside, and thence, heart-sick,
Beheld, far off, the little smoke
Along the landscape kindling quick.
Now she was gone, my love! for mine
She was, whatever here below
Crossed or usurped my right divine.
Life without her was vain and gross,
The glory from the world was gone;
And on the gardens of the Close
As on Sahara shone the sun.
Oppressed with her departed grace,
My thoughts on ill surmises fed;
The harmful influence of the place
She went to, filled my soul with dread.
She, mixing with the people there,
Might come back altered, having caught
The foolish, fashionable air
Of knowing all and feeling naught.
Or giddy with her beauty’s praise,
She’d scorn our simple country life,
Its wholesome nights and tranquil days,
And would not deign to be my wife.
“My wife,” “my wife,”—ah, tenderest word!
How oft, as fearful she might hear,
Whispering that name of “wife,” I heard
The chiming of the inmost sphere.
The clock was striking in the hall,
And one sad window open yet,
Although the dews began to fall.
Ah, distance showed her beauty’s scope!
How light of heart and innocent
That loveliness which sickened hope
And wore the world for ornament!
How perfectly her life was framed;
And, thought of in that passionate mood,
How her affecting graces shamed
The vulgar life that was but good!
Her rose-plots watered, she not by;
Loading my breast with angry dread
Of light, unlikely injury.
So, filled with love and fond remorse,
I paced the Close, its every part
Endowed with reliquary force
To heal and raise from death my heart.
How tranquil and unsecular
The precinct! Once through yonder gate
I saw her go, and knew from far
Her love-lit form and gentle state.
She turned her face, and laughed, with light
Like moonbeams on a wavering mere.
Weary beforehand of the night,
I went; the blackbird in the wood
Talked by himself, and eastward grew
In heaven the symbol of my mood,
Where one bright star engrossed the blue.