Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Coventry Patmore. 18231896762. Departure
IT was not like your great and gracious ways! | |
Do you, that have naught other to lament, | |
Never, my Love, repent | |
Of how, that July afternoon, | |
You went, | 5 |
With sudden, unintelligible phrase, | |
And frighten’d eye, | |
Upon your journey of so many days | |
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? | |
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; | 10 |
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays, | |
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, | |
Your harrowing praise. | |
Well, it was well | |
To hear you such things speak, | 15 |
And I could tell | |
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, | |
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. | |
And it was like your great and gracious ways | |
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, | 20 |
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash | |
To let the laughter flash, | |
Whilst I drew near, | |
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. | |
But all at once to leave me at the last, | 25 |
More at the wonder than the loss aghast, | |
With huddled, unintelligible phrase, | |
And frighten’d eye, | |
And go your journey of all days | |
With not one kiss, or a good-bye, | 30 |
And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d: | |
‘Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. |