The Pleasures Of Love
I do not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt
We paid for the first privilege of love.
These are the rains of April which have wet
Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.
Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day
Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,
The blade, the ear, the harvest--and our way
Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.
We now compare our fortunes. Each his store
Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,
Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,
Who weigh and touch and argue and complain--
Dear endless argument! Yet sometimes we
Even as we argue kiss. There! Let it be.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XXXVIII
``I do not doubt it. You have a look of truth
Which is beyond suspicion. But the world
Is as full of knaves as fools. You have your youth
And I my wisdom. Then your head is curled
Just as I like it, and your face is smooth,
And it can blush like your red innocent hands.
I saw it in an instant in the booth
That we should know each other and be friends.
It does not do to question. Look at me.
I am not pretty, yet the world's best sense
Has raved about my beauty foolishly
These five years past in every mood and tense!
Say. Would you like we should be friends for good?''
Not knowing what I said, I said I would.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet II
'Twas thus with my Natalia, suppliant soul,
Who loved young Adrian to her heart's despite,
And loved him dearly, yet could not cajole
Her fears of ill nor use her woman's right
To grant his wish, but ever put away
The sweet fulfilment of each day's desire
To a new to--morrow void as yesterday.
Adrian in vain, with wild hopes high and higher,
Essayed to make her convert to his creed.
No laggard he to do, devise or dare.
But still she failed him ever at his need,
And still she gave but tears to his heart's prayer.
And days and nights went cheerless for them both,
And not a flower was gathered of love's troth.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XIII
And what strange sights have these threewindows seen,
Mid bonnes and children, in the Tuileries!
What flights of hero, Emperor and Queen,
Since first I looked down from them, one of these!
Here, with his Mornys and his Persignys,
Louis Napoleon, the Prince President,
Rode one December past us, on the breeze
Of his new glory, bloodstained and intent.
Later, I too my love's diplomacies
Played at Eugenia's court,--blest Empress! Then
How did men curse her with their Marseillaise,
When the foe's horse was watered in her Seine,
And the flames, lit for her last festival,
Licked out her palace and its glories all.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XLI
THE SAME CONTINUED
We may not meet. I could not for pride's sake
Dissemble further, and I suffer pain,
A palpable distinct and physical ache,
When our eyes meet by accident, and when
I hear you talk in your pathetic strain
Which always moved me. Only yesterday,
As I was standing with a crowd of men
In the long corridor, you came my way
And chanced to stop, and thus by chance I heard
A score of phrases uttered in that sad
Half--suppliant voice which once my spirit stirred
To its foundations. Yet your theme was glad--
Strangers your hearers. What was in these spells
To move me still? A trick, and nothing else!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XLVIII
THE SAME CONTINUED
I think there never was a dearer woman,
A better, kinder, truer than you were,
A gentler spirit more divinely human
Than yours with your sweet melancholy air
Of tender gaiety, which seemed like care,
And in your voice a sob as of distress
At the world's ways, its sin and its despair,
Being yourself all strange to wickedness.
Now you are neither gentle, kind, nor good,
And you have sorrows of your own to grieve,
And in your mirth compassion has no mood;
You wear no more your heart upon your sleeve,
And if your voice still sobs 'tis with a sense
Of sorrow's power, grief's wealth, experience.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXX
THE RELIGION OF LOVE
So thou but love me, dear, with thy whole heart
What care I for the rest, for good or ill?
What for the peace of soul good deeds impart,
What for the tears unholy dreams distil?
These cannot make my joy, nor shall they kill.
Thou only perfect peace and virtue art
And holiness for me and strength and will,
So thou but love me with a perfect heart.
I ask thee now no longer to be wise;
No longer to be good, but loving me.
I ask thee nothing now but only this.
Henceforth my Bible, dear, shall be thine eyes,
My beads thy lips, my prayers thy constancy,
My heaven thine arms, eternity thy kiss.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXI
TO ONE EXCUSING HIS POVERTY
Ah! love, impute it not to me a sin
That my poor soul thus beggared comes to thee.
My soul a pilgrim was, in search of thine,
And met these accidents by land and sea.
The world was hard, and took its usury,
Its toll for each new night in each new inn;
And every road had robber bands to fee;
And all, even kindness, must be paid in coin.
Behold my scrip is empty, my heart bare.
I give thee nothing who my all would give.
My pilgrimage is finished, and I fare
Bare to my death, unless with thee I live.
Ah! give, love, and forgive that I am poor.
Ah! take me to thy arms and ask no more.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Woman’s Sonnets: XII
'Tis ended truly, truly as was best.
Love is a little thing, for one short day;
You could not make it your life's only quest,
Nor watch the poor corpse long in its decay.
Go forth, dear, thou hast much to do on earth;
In life's campaign there waits thee a great part,
Much to be won and conquered of more worth
Than this poor victory of a woman's heart.
For me the daylight of my years is dim.
I seek not gladness, yet shall find content
In such small duties as are learned of Him
Who bore all sorrows, till my youth is spent.
Yet come what may to me of weal or woe,
I love thee, bless thee, dear, where'er thou go.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CVIII
A FOREST IN BOSNIA
Spirit of Trajan! What a world is here,
What remnant of old Europe in this wood,
Of life primaeval rude as in the year
When thy first legions by the Danube stood.
These are the very Dacians they subdued,
Swineherds and shepherds clad in skins of deer
And fox and marten still, a bestial brood,
Than their own swine begotten swinelier.
The fair oak--forest, their first heritage,
Pastures them still, and still the hollow oak
Receives them in its bosom. Still o'erhead
Upon the stag--head tops, grown hoar with age,
Calm buzzards sit and ancient ravens croak,
And all with solemn life is tenanted.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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