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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  762. Departure

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

Coventry Patmore. 1823–1896

762. Departure

IT was not like your great and gracious ways! 
Do you, that have naught other to lament, 
Never, my Love, repent 
Of how, that July afternoon, 
You went,         5
With sudden, unintelligible phrase, 
And frighten’d eye, 
Upon your journey of so many days 
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? 
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;  10
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays, 
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, 
Your harrowing praise. 
Well, it was well 
To hear you such things speak,  15
And I could tell 
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, 
As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. 
And it was like your great and gracious ways 
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,  20
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash 
To let the laughter flash, 
Whilst I drew near, 
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. 
But all at once to leave me at the last,  25
More at the wonder than the loss aghast, 
With huddled, unintelligible phrase, 
And frighten’d eye, 
And go your journey of all days 
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,  30
And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d: 
‘Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.