Modern Love: A Reprint, to which is Added, The Sage Enamoured and the Honest LadyMacmillan, 1892 - 107 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
1892 All rights ADDED The Sage beneath bitter bleed brain breast breath of maidenhood breath will bear breathe the violet buckler confess curled dark dead dear deep devil dream drops dumb earth eyes Fair feminine fatal feel fire flowers GEORGE MEREDITH gift To beauty golden grey happy head hear heard heart heaven HONEST LADY husband kiss Lady BY GEORGE Lady's laugh light lips look lovers Madam man's Man's laws marriage MODERN LOVE moon mouth mute name it gratitude Nature Nature's pity nigh night pain pale Pallas passion play PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE Repenting rings rose rosy SAGE ENAMOURED scourge secret seems sense serpent shadow shame shudder sigh silence skies sobs soul speak star sting sweet tears thee thing thirst thou thought tongue truth twas UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN venom Vesuvius violet breath waking wave What's woman women worm young
Popular passages
Page 25 - At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller ? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball : It is in truth a most contagious game : HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name.
Page 63 - We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, And in the osier-isle we heard their noise. We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye : But in the largeness of the evening earth Our spirits grew as we went side by side. The hour became her husband and my bride.
Page 8 - But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing: - nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leaving dark All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair, See that I am drawn to her even now!
Page 66 - Thus piteously Love closed what he begat : The union of this ever-diverse pair ! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Page 58 - You love . . . ? love . . . ? love . . . ?' all in an indrawn breath. XL1II. 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...
Page 18 - Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we. Or is it now? or was it then? for now, As then, the larks from running rings pour showers: The golden foot of May is on the flowers, And friendly shadows dance upon her brow.
Page 40 - Am I failing ? For no longer can I cast A glory round about this head of gold. Glory she wears, but springing from the mould Not like the consecration of the Past ! Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth I cry for still : I cannot be at peace In having Love upon a mortal lease.
Page 66 - And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge. She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. She dared not say, 'This is my breast: look in.
Page 25 - XVI In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour, When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us : and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing : The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat. Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay With us, and of it was our talk. ' Ah, yes ! Love dies ! ' I said : I never thought it less.
Page 10 - Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent, Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe: Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars, Is always watching with a wondering hate. Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars.