In George Meredith’s sonnet, a husband watches his wife move through the room, her nervous mouth suggesting a secret she can’t voice. She seems to wrestle with something to confess or conceal. She drifts to the mirror, but recoils from her own reflection, then approaches him wavering and pale. Her tears fall still, like oak-leaves after frost—a simile that captures their frozen, inevitable sadness. He won’t ask, and she won’t speak. Their silence is a gulf that has severed them. The mood is thick with unease and resignation. The final couplet turns outward, to robust lovers on the village green whose love is earthier, but happier. The contrast leaves the couple stranded in their own private hell of guessing and withholding.
Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman — Summary
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 glass. What sight in view? A face that seems the latest to reveal! For she turns from it hastily, and tossed Irresolute, steals shadow-like to where I stand; and wavering pale before me there, Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost. She will not speak. I will not ask. We are League-sundered by the silent gulf between. Yon burly lovers on the village green, Yours is a lower, and a happier star!