George Meredith

Here you will find the Poem Modern Love XLIII: Mark Where the Pressing Wind of poet George Meredith

Modern Love XLIII: Mark Where the Pressing Wind

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 sure, 
As by the unblest kisses which upbraid 
The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade! 
'Tis morning: but no morning can restore 
What we have forfeited. I see no sin: 
The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, 
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: 
We are betrayed by what is false within.