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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  775. Love’s Grave

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

George Meredith. 1828–1909

775. Love’s Grave

MARK where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, 
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back’d 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:         5
In hearing of the ocean, and in sight 
Of those ribb’d wind-streaks running into white. 
If I the death of Love had deeply plann’d, 
I never could have made it half so sure, 
As by the unblest kisses which upbraid  10
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 mix’d. In tragic life, God wot, 
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:  15
We are betray’d by what is false within.