5.0
Comment(s)
10
View
41
Chapters

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Chapter 1 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY.

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold

In vestal February;

Not rather choosing out some rosy day

From the rich coronet of the coming May,

When all things meet to marry!

O, quick, praevernal Power

That signall'st punctual through the sleepy mould

The Snowdrop's time to flower,

Fair as the rash oath of virginity

Which is first-love's first cry;

O, Baby Spring,

That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth

A month before the birth;

Whence is the peaceful poignancy,

The joy contrite,

Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight,

That burthens now the breath of everything,

Though each one sighs as if to each alone

The cherish'd pang were known?

At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart,

With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's heart;

In evening's hush

About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush;

The hill with like remorse

Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course;

The fisher's drooping skiff

In yonder sheltering bay;

The choughs that call about the shining cliff;

The children, noisy in the setting ray;

Own the sweet season, each thing as it may;

Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace

In me increase;

And tears arise

Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes,

And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss,

Ask from Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss!

Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet

Of dear Desire electing his defeat?

Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope

Uttering first-love's first cry,

Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh,

Love's natural hope?

Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury!

Behold, all-amorous May,

With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows,

Avoids thee of thy vows!

Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near,

To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere?

Forget thy foolish words;

Go to her summons gay,

Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd,

Ev'n as a nest with birds

After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd.

Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate

The noon of thy soft ecstasy,

Or e'er it be too late,

Or e'er the Snowdrop die!

Continue Reading

Other books by Coventry Patmore

More

You'll also like

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda
4.5

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

Nathaniel Stone
5.0

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner—my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn’t offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend’s apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I’d spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend’s face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

The Surgeon's Vow: Healing My Billionaire Husband

The Surgeon's Vow: Healing My Billionaire Husband

Qing Shui
4.5

I sat in the gray, airless room of the New York State Department of Corrections, my knuckles white as the Warden delivered the news. "Parole denied." My father, Howard Sterling, had forged new evidence of financial crimes to keep me behind bars. He walked into the room, smelling of expensive cologne, and tossed a black folder onto the steel table. It was a marriage contract for Lucas Kensington, a billionaire currently lying in a vegetative state in the ICU. "Sign it. You walk out today." I laughed at the idea of being sold to a "corpse" until Howard slid a grainy photo toward me. It showed a toddler with a crescent-moon birthmark—the son Howard told me had died in an incubator five years ago. He smiled and told me the boy's safety depended entirely on my cooperation. I was thrust into the Kensington estate, where the family treated me like a "drowned rat." They dressed me in mothball-scented rags and mocked my status, unaware that I was monitoring their every move. I watched the cousin, Julian, openly waiting for Lucas to die to inherit the empire, while the doctors prepared to sign the death certificate. I didn't understand why my father would lie about my son’s death for years, or what kind of monsters would use a child as a bargaining chip. The injustice of it burned in my chest as I realized I was just a pawn in a game of old money and blood. As the monitors began to flatline and the family started to celebrate their inheritance, I locked the door and reached into the hem of my dress. I pulled out the sharpened silver wires I’d fashioned in the prison workshop. They thought they bought a submissive convict, but they actually invited "The Saint"—the world’s most dangerous underground surgeon—into their home. "Wake up, Lucas. You owe me a life." I wasn't there to be a bride; I was there to wake the dead and burn their empire to the ground.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
The Unknown Eros
1

Chapter 1 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY.

30/11/2017

2

Chapter 2 WIND AND WAVE.

30/11/2017

3

Chapter 3 WINTER.

30/11/2017

4

Chapter 4 BEATA.

30/11/2017

5

Chapter 5 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW.

30/11/2017

6

Chapter 6 TRISTITIA.

30/11/2017

7

Chapter 7 THE AZALEA.

30/11/2017

8

Chapter 8 DEPARTURE.

30/11/2017

9

Chapter 9 EURYDICE.

30/11/2017

10

Chapter 10 THE TOYS.

30/11/2017

11

Chapter 11 TIRED MEMORY.

30/11/2017

12

Chapter 12 MAGNA EST VERITAS.

30/11/2017

13

Chapter 13 1867. {29}

30/11/2017

14

Chapter 14 'IF I WERE DEAD.'

30/11/2017

15

Chapter 15 PEACE.

30/11/2017

16

Chapter 16 A FAREWELL.

30/11/2017

17

Chapter 17 1880-85.

30/11/2017

18

Chapter 18 THE TWO DESERTS.

30/11/2017

19

Chapter 19 CREST AND GULF.

30/11/2017

20

Chapter 20 'LET BE!'

30/11/2017

21

Chapter 21 'FAINT YET PURSUING.'

30/11/2017

22

Chapter 22 VICTORY IN DEFEAT.

30/11/2017

23

Chapter 23 REMEMBERED GRACE.

30/11/2017

24

Chapter 24 TO THE UNKNOWN EROS.

30/11/2017

25

Chapter 25 THE CONTRACT.

30/11/2017

26

Chapter 26 ARBOR VITAE.

30/11/2017

27

Chapter 27 THE STANDARDS.

30/11/2017

28

Chapter 28 SPONSA DEI.

30/11/2017

29

Chapter 29 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI.

30/11/2017

30

Chapter 30 TO THE BODY.

30/11/2017

31

Chapter 31 'SING US ONE OF THE SONGS OF SION.'

30/11/2017

32

Chapter 32 DELICIAE SAPIENTIAE DE AMORE.

30/11/2017

33

Chapter 33 THE CRY AT MIDNIGHT.

30/11/2017

34

Chapter 34 AURAS OF DELIGHT.

30/11/2017

35

Chapter 35 EROS AND PSYCHE.

30/11/2017

36

Chapter 36 DE NATURA DEORUM.

30/11/2017

37

Chapter 37 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT.

30/11/2017

38

Chapter 38 PAIN.

30/11/2017

39

Chapter 39 PROPHETS WHO CANNOT SING.

30/11/2017

40

Chapter 40 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE.

30/11/2017