80
THE
STAR
IN THE WEST
blending
of Messaline
and
Margaret
in
the
form
of
one sweet woman .
In none of the sonnets can it be said that there is a
single
scene
of
lechery .
True
we
shall
have
our
Buchanans and their ilk , and we still
have
Rossetti's
poems
with one of his finest sonnets excised to please
Mrs. Grundy ; but matters it what the sewer-rat thinks
of the linnet's songs ?
leave him in his dank drain , for
we need him not , neither his opinions .
There is a great lesson embodied in this poem .
The
lesson that Love
is only worthy
its
hallowed
name
,
when free
;
that
it
is
only worth
having
when freely
given
,
and worth
keeping when freely held
,
without
bond
or
writ
.
This freedom we find
in
the very first
sonnet
:
Against
the fiat
of
that God discrowned
,
Unseated
by
Man's Justice
,
and replaced
By Law
most bountiful and maiden
-
faced
And Mother
-
minded
:
passing the low bound
Of Man's poor law we leapt
at
last and
found
Passion
;
and passing the dim halls disgraced
Found higher love and larger and more
chaste
,
A
calm sphinx waiting
in
secluded
ground
.'
The
first
day
of
meeting
he
gazes
on
her
,
and
wonders
whether
Fate
had found
at
last
a
woman's
love for him
;
hopelessly
he
turns away and sinks the
dream
of
his soul
in
despair and
“
Kindled
a
corpse
light and proclaimed
'
The
day
'!”
Thither
I
fled
,
busied
myself with these
;
When
-
lo
!
I
saw her shadow following
!
In
every cosmic season
-
tide
of
spring
She rose
,
being the spring
:
in
utter peace
She was with me and
in
me
:
thus
I
saw
Ours was not love
,
but destiny
,
and law
.?
|
Alice
,
an
Adultery
,
vol
.
ii,
p
.
64
.
Ibid
.
vol
.
ii,
p
.
65
.