Modern Love XL: I Bade My Lady Think by George Meredith
I bade my Lady think what she might mean. Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, And yet be jealous of another? None Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave The lightless seas of selfishness amain: Seas that in a man's heart have no rain To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve, By turning to this fountain-source of woe, This woman, who's to Love as fire to wood? She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood Against my kisses once! but I say, No! The thing is mocked at! Helplessly afloat, I know not what I do, whereto I strive, The dread that my old love may be alive, Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.
|