Modern Love XLIII: Mark Where the Pressing Wind by George Meredith
Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade! 'Tis morning: but no morning can restore What we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.
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