The Court Of Penance

Behold the Court of Penance. Four gaunt walls
Shutting out all things but the upper heaven.
Stone flags for floor, where daily from their stalls
The human cattle in a circle driven
Tread down their pathway to a mire uneven,
Pale--faced, sad--eyed, and mute as funerals.
Woe to the wretch whose weakness unforgiven
Falters a moment in the track or falls!

Yet is there consolation. Overhead
The pigeons build and the loud jackdaws talk,
And once in the wind's eye, like a ship moored,
A sea--gull flew and I was comforted.
Even here the heavens declare thy glory, Lord,
And the free firmament thy handiwork.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XL

THE SAME CONTINUED
'Tis strange we are thus parted, not by death
Or man's device, but by our own mad will,
We who have stood together on life's path
Through half a youth of good repute and ill,
Friends more than lovers. See, Love's citadel
We held so stoutly 'gainst a world in arms
Lies all dismantled now, a sight to fill
The Earth with lamentations and alarms.
Whose was the fault? I dare not ask nor say.
If there was treachery, 'tis best untold.
The price of treason we receive to--day
Is paid to both of us in evil gold.
Ay, take thy bitter freedom. 'Tis the fee
Of love betrayed and faith's apostasy.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Woman’s Sonnets: II

Nay, dear one, ask me not to leave thee yet.
Let me a little longer hold thy hand.
Too soon it is to bid me to forget
The joys I was so late to understand.
The future holds but a blank face for me,
The past is all confused with tears and grey,
But the sweet present, while thy smiles I see,
Is perfect sunlight, an unclouded day.
Speak not of parting, not at least this hour,
Though well I know Love cannot Time outlast.
Let me grow wiser first and gain more power,
More strength of will to deal with my dead past.
Love me in silence still, one short hour's space:
'Tis all I ask of thee, this little grace.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXXXII

HE WOULD LEAD A BETTER LIFE
I am tired of folly, tired of my own ways,
Love is a strife. I do not want to strive.
If I had foes I now would make my peace.
If I less wedded were I now would wive.
I would do service to my kind, contrive
Something of good for men, some happiness
For those who in the world still love and live,
And, as my fathers did, so end my days.
I would earn praise, I too, of honest men.
I would repent in sackcloth if needs be.
I would serve God and expiate my sin,
Abjuring love and thee--ay, even thee.
I would do this, dear love. But what am I
To will or do? As we have lived we die.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Her Name Liberty

I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.

Then crawled I to her feet, in whose dear cause
I made this venture, and ``Behold,'' I said,
``How I am wounded for thee in these wars.''
But she, ``Poor cripple, wouldst thou I should wed
A limbless trunk?'' and laughing turned from me.
Yet was she fair, and her name ``Liberty.''

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet V

Until it happened, as such things will be,
That she, who had a proud man for her spouse
None the less loving that unloved was he,
Must bear a child, the heir to his high house.
Then Adrian left her. It was idle sorrow
Longer to wait a suppliant at her door,
Weeping the promise of a lost to--morrow
Which never could be his nor valued more.
And he was tired of tears and nightly needed
To feed his manhood's strength on stronger meat,
And neither word of hers nor vow he heeded,
Who was thus proved a daughter of deceit;
And he was wrath with her and womanhood,
And with himself, and chiefly wrath with God.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet VII

Ah, Paris, Paris! What an echo rings
Still in those syllables of vain delight!
What voice of what dead pleasures on what wings
Of Maenad laughters pulsing through the night!
How bravely her streets smile on me! How bright
Her shops, her houses, fair sepulchral things,
Stored with the sins of men forgotten quite,
The loves of mountebanks, the lusts of kings!
What message has she to me on this day
Of my new life? Shall I, a pilgrim wan,
Sit at her board and revel at her play,
As in the days of old? Nay, this is done.
It cannot be; and yet I love her well
With her broad roads and pleasant paths to Hell.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXIV

THE SAME CONTINUED
Give me thy soul, Juliet, give me thy soul!
I am a bitter sea, which drinketh in
The sweetness of all waters, and so thine.
Thou, like a river, pure and swift and full
And freighted with the wealth of many lands,
With hopes, and fears, and death and life, dost roll
Against the troubled ocean of my sin.
Thou doubtest not, though on these desert sands
The billows surge against thee black with brine,
Unwearied. For thy love is fixed and even
And bears thee onward, and thy faith is whole.
Though thou thyself shouldst sin, yet surely Heaven
Hath held thee guiltless and thou art forgiven.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Woman’s Sonnets: XI

Wild words I write, and lettered in deep pain,
To lay in your loved hand as love's farewell.
It is the thought we shall not meet again
Nerves me to write and my whole secret tell.
For when I speak to you, you only jest,
And laughing break the sentence with a kiss,
Till my poor love is never quite confessed,
Nor know you half its tears and tenderness.
When the first darkness and the clouds began
I hid it from you fearing your reproof;
I would not vex your life's high aim and plan
With my poor woman's woe, and held aloof.
But now that all is ended, pride and shame,
My tumults and my joys I may proclaim.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXIV

HE APPEALS AGAINST HIS BOND
In my distress Love made me sign a bond,
A cruel bond. 'Twas by necessity
Wrung from a foolish heart, alas, too fond,
Too blindly fond, its error to foresee.
And now my soul's estate, in jeopardy,
Lies to a pledge it never can redeem.
Love's loan was love, one hour of ecstasy,
His penalty eternal loss of him.
--See, I am penniless, the forfeit paid,
And go a beggar forth from thy dear sight,
My pound of more than flesh too strictly weighed
And cut too near the heart. Fair Israelite,
Thy plea was just. Thy right has been confessed.
And yet a work of mercy were twice blessed.

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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