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en thou art far; As twilight to the sphered moon, As sunset to the evening star, Thou, beloved, art to me. [Footnote: _To Mary_.] Perhaps it is unworthy quibbling to object that the figure here suggests too strongly Shelley's consciousness of the merely atmospheric function of Mary, in enhancing his own personality, as contrasted with the radiant divinity of Emilia Viviani, to whom he ascribes his creativeness. [Footnote: Compare Wordsworth, _She Was a Phantom of Delight_, _Dearer Far than Life_; Tennyson, _Dedication of Enoch Arden_.] It is customary for our bards gallantly to explain that the completeness of their domestic happiness leaves them no lurking discontent to spur them onto verse writing. This is the conclusion of the happily wedded heroes of Bayard Taylor's _A Poet's Journal_, and of Coventry Patmore's _The Angel in the House_; likewise of the poet in J. G. Holland's _Kathrina_, who excuses his waning inspiration after his marriage: She, being all my world, had left no room For other occupation than my love. ... I had grown enervate In the warm atmosphere which I had breathed. Taken as a whole, the evidence is decidedly in favor of the remote love, prevented in some way from reaching its culmination. To requote Alfred Noyes, the poet knows that ideal love must be Far off, beyond me, otherwise no star. [Footnote: Marlowe.] In _Sister Songs_ Francis Thompson asserts that such remoteness is essential to his genius: I deem well why life unshared Was ordained me of yore. In pairing time, we know, the bird Kindles to its deepmost splendour, And the tender Voice is tenderest in its throat. Were its love, forever by it, Never nigh it, It might keep a vernal note, The crocean and amethystine In their pristine Lustre linger on its coat. [Footnote: Possibly this is characteristic only of the male singer. Christina Rossetti expresses the opposite attitude in _Monna Innominata_ XIV, mourning for The silence of a heart that sang its songs When youth and beauty made a summer morn, Silence of love that cannot sing again.] Byron, in the _Lament of Tasso_, causes that famous lover likewise to maintain that distance is necessary to idealization. He sighs, Successful love may sate itself away. The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate To have all feeling save the one decay, And every passion into one dilate, As rapid rivers
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