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Frances Cornford
The sudden knowledge that you are not there,
That I live on alone,
Seems still too vast and desolate to bear,
My dear, my own.
The merciful slow years, that rend and rob,
But yet restore again,
Are shattered suddenly by one great throb
Of the old pain.
In nature apt to like when I did see
Beauties, which were of many carats fine,
My boiling sprites did thither soon incline,
And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee:
But finding not those restless flames in me,
Which others said did make their souls to pine,
I thought those babes of some pin's hurt did whine,
By my love judging what love's pain might be.
But while I thus with this young lion played,
Mine eyes (shall I say curst or blest?) beheld
Stella; now she is nam'd, need more be said?
In her sight I a lesson new have spell'd,
I now hav learn'd Love right, and learn'd even so,
As who by being poisoned doth poison know.
Unstable dream, according to the place,
Be steadfast once, or else at least be true.
By tasted sweetness make me not to rue
The sudden loss of thy false feignèd grace.
By good respect in such a dangerous case
Thou broughtest not her into this tossing mew
But madest my sprite live, my care to renew,
My body in tempest her succour to embrace.
The body dead, the sprite had his desire,
Painless was th'one, th'other in delight.
Why then, alas, did it not keep it right,
Returning, to leap into the fire?
And where it was at wish, it could not remain,
Such mocks of dreams they turn to deadly pain.
The mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soul, when it doth rather sigh, than sound.
And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?-A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose,
(And sure the power of wisdom only knows,)
What need requireth thee:
So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
Some necessary cause must surely be;
'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 dullard fit?
I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.
Passing, I caught the coverlet's quick beat:--
Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain--
Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!
Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.
The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.
I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,
I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:
My feet were nourished on her breasts all night.
bled to make shoes
to make clothes
which they did with good will
and great pain
who could not say Let us see
what we can do to mend all
as a fur of experience
rose over us like amber
no news is plague news
shutting up infected people
and nobody imagining their pain
no news is like meeting an angel
more than air
more than some poor child
and dying daily of sadness
at my heart having nothing
I suffer auspiciously as a rose
from unfinished pain
having made myself captain
I know who he is
but you see a man
dead of ordinary melancholy
pleasure is a spent country
having laws but no art
like pain
which the poor have perfected
and now refuse out of hand
I have survived the winter pain
the wind pain
the wish pain
but I find I cannot write
without a pain great as two stones
or a rusted bed
I was the fire
dreaming of some accident
I could feel them
look into me
going out
I was not my pain
lying down
I made a full rose