dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The First Spousal

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)

TWICE thirty centuries and more ago,

All in a heavenly Abyssinian vale,

Man first met woman; and the ruddy snow

On many-ridgèd Abora turn’d pale,

And the song choked within the nightingale.

A mild white furnace in the thorough blast

Of purest spirit seem’d She as she pass’d;

And of the Man enough that this be said,

He look’d her Head.

Towards their bower

Together as they went,

With hearts conceiving torrents of content,

And linger’d prologue fit for Paradise,

He, gathering power

From dear persuasion of the dim-lit hour,

And doubted sanction of her sparkling eyes,

Thus supplicates her conjugal assent,

And thus she makes replies:

‘Lo, Eve, the Day burns on the snowy height,

But here is mellow night!’

‘Here let us rest. The languor of the light

Is in my feet.

It is thy strength, my Love, that makes me weak;

Thy strength it is that makes my weakness sweet.

What would thy kiss’d lips speak?’

‘See, what a world of roses I have spread

To make the bridal bed.

Come, Beauty’s self and Love’s, thus to thy throne be led!’

‘My Lord, my Wisdom, nay!

Does not yon love-delighted Planet run,

(Haply against her heart,)

A space apart

For ever from her strong-persuading Sun!

O say,

Shall we no voluntary bars

Set to our drift? I, Sister of the Stars,

And Thou, my glorious, course-compelling Day!’

‘Yea, yea!

Was it an echo of her coming word

Which, ere she spake, I heard?

Or through what strange distrust was I, her Head,

Not first this thing to have said?

Alway

Speaks not within my breast

The uncompulsive, great and sweet behest

Of something bright,

Not named, not known, and yet more manifest

Than is the morn,

The sun being just at point then to be born?

O Eve, take back thy “Nay”.

Trust me, Belovèd, ever in all to mean

Thy blissful service, sacrificial, keen;

But bondless be that service, and let speak—’

‘This other world of roses in my cheek,

Which hide them in thy breast, and deepening seek

That thou decree if they mean Yea or Nay.’

‘Did e’er so sweet a word such sweet gainsay!’

‘And when I lean, Love, on you, thus, and smile

So that my Nay seems Yea,

You must the while

Thence be confirm’d that I deny you still.’

‘I will, I will!’

‘And when my arms are round your neck, like this,

And I, as now,

Melt like a golden ingot in your kiss,

Then, more than ever, shall your splendid word

Be as Archangel Michael’s severing sword!

Speak, speak!

Your might, Love, makes me weak,

Your might it is that makes my weakness sweet.’

‘I vow, I vow!’

‘And are you happy, O my Hero and Lord;

And is your joy complete?’

‘Yea, with my joyful heart my body rocks,

And joy comes down from Heaven in floods and shocks,

As from Mount Abora comes the avalanche.’

‘My Law, my Light!

Then am I yours as your high mind may list.

No wile shall lure you, none can I resist!’

Thus the first Eve

With much enamour’d Adam did enact

Their mutual free contract

Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight

Of modern thought, with great intention staunch,

Though unobliged until that binding pact.

Whether She kept her word, or He the mind

To hold her, wavering, to his own restraint,

Answer, ye pleasures faint,

Ye fiery throes, and upturn’d eyeballs blind

Of sick-at-heart Mankind,

Whom nothing succour can,

Until a heaven-caress’d and happier Eve

Be join’d with some glad Saint

In like espousals, blessed upon Earth,

And she her Fruit forth bring;

No numb, chill-hearted, shaken-witted thing,

’Plaining his little span,

But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth,

The Son of God and Man.