George Meredith

Here you will find the Poem Modern Love III: This Was the Woman of poet George Meredith

Modern Love III: This Was the Woman

This was the woman; what now of the man? 
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! 
It cannot be such harm on her cool brow 
To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there! 
But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well 
I claim a star whose light is overcast: 
I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. 
The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!