A Poem For My Cat

Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me—thy soft breast
Shall pant to mine —bend o'er me—thy sweet eyes,
And loosened hair, and breathing lips, and arms
Drawing me to thee—these build up a screen
To shut me in with thee, and from all fear,
So that I might unlock the sleepless-brood-
Of fancies from my soul, their lurking place,
Nor doubt that each would pass, ne'er to return

To one so watched, so loved, and so secured.
But what can guard thee but thy naked love ?
Ah, dearest ! whoso sucks a poisoned wound
Envenoms his own veins,—thou art so good.
So calm—if thou should'st wear a brow less light
For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept
From out thy soul, as from a sacred star.
Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain
To hope to sing ; some woe would light on me
;
Nature would point at one, whose quiveri^Jip
Was bathed in her enchantments—whose brow burned
Beneath the crown, to which her secrets knelt
;
Who learned the spell which can caU up the dead,
And then departed, smiling like a fiend
Who has deceived God. If such one should seek
Again her altars, and stand robed and crowned
Amid the faithful : sad confession first.

Remorse and pardon, and old claims renewed,
Ere I can be —as I shall be no more.
I had been spared this shame, if I had sate
By thee for ever, from the first, in place
Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good,
Or with them, as an earnest of their truth.
No thought nor hope, having been shut from thee.
No vague wish unexplained—no wandering aim
Sent back to bind on Fancy's wings, and seek
Some strange fair world, where it might be a law ;
But doubting nothing, had been led by thee,
Thro' youth, and saved, as oTie at length awaked.
Who has slept thro' a peril. Ah ! vain, vain

Thou lovest me—the past is in its grave,
Tho' its ghost haunts us—still this much is ours.

To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing
Wait for us in the darkness. Thou lovest me,
And thou art to receive not love, but faith,
For which thou wilt be mine, and smile, and take
All shapes, and shames, and veil without a fear
That form which music follows like a slave
;
And I look to thee, and I trust in thee.
As in a Northern night one looks alway
Unto the East for mom, and spring and joy.
Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state.
And resting on some few old feelings, won
Back by thy beauty, would'st that I essay
The task, which was to me what now thou art
:
And why should I conceal one weakness more ?

Thou wilt remember one warm morn, when Winter
Crept aged from the earth, and Spring's first breath

Blew soft from the moist hills—the black-thorn
boughs,
So dark in the bare wood ; when glistening
In the sunshine were white with coming buds,
Like the bright side of a sorrow—and the banks
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes
—
I walked with thee, who knew not a deep shame
Lurked beneath smiles and careless words, which
sought
To hide it—till they wandered and were mute ;
As we stood listening on a sunny mound
To the wind murmuring in the damp copse,
Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing
Betrayed by sleep—until the feeling rushed
That I was low indeed, yet not so low
As to endure the calmness of thine eyes
;
And so I told thee all, while the cool breast

I leaned on altered not its quiet beating
;
And long ere words, like a hurt bird's complaint,
Bade me look up and be what I had been,
I felt despair could never live by thee.
Thou wilt remember :—^thou art not more dear
Than song was once to me ; and I ne'er sung
But as one entering bright halls, where all
Will rise and shout for him. Sure I must own
That I am fallen—^having chosen gifts
Distinct from theirs—that I am sad—and fain
Would give up aU to be but where I was
;
Not high as I had been, if faithfal found
—
But low and weak, yet full of hope, and sure
Of goodness as of life—that I would lose
All this gay mastery of mind, to sit
Once more with them, trusting in truth and love,
And with an aim—not being what I am.

Oh, Pauline ! I am ruined ! who believed
That tho' my soul had floated from its sphere
Of wide dominion into the dim orb
Of self—that it was strong and free as ever :
—
It has conformed itself to that dim orb,
Keflecting all its shades and shapes, and now
Must stay where it alone can be adored.
I have felt this in dreams—in dreams in which
I seemed the fate from which I fled ; I felt
A strange delight in causing my decay
;
I was a fiend, in darkness chained for ever
Within some ocean-cave ; and ages rolled,
Till thro' the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came
A white swan to remain with me ; and ages
EoUed, yet I tired not of my first joy
In gazing on the peace of its pure wings.
And then I said, " It is most fair to me,"

Pauline: Robert browning

For Ricky