Poem by George Meredith

Modern Love. Sonnet 40. I Bade my Lady Think what She Might Mean

I bade my Lady think what she might mean.
Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one,
And yet be jealous of another? None
Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween,
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
The lightless seas of selfishness amain:
Seas that in a man's heart have no rain
To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve
By turning to this fountain-source of woe,
This woman, who's to Love as fire to wood?
She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood
Against my kisses once! but I say, No!
The thing is mocked at! Helplessly afloat,
I know not what I do, whereto I strive,
The dread that my old love may be alive,
Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.

1. Modern Love. Sonnet 8. Yet it was Plain She Struggled, and that Salt
2. Modern Love. Sonnet 27. Distraction is the Panacea, Sir!
3. Angela Burdett-Coutts
4. Modern Love. Sonnet 23. 'Tis Christmas Weather
5. Empdeocles

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