St. Martin’s Summer

( Pac chia rot to, with Other Poems , 1876.) A husband and wife, both young, are reflecting on the fact that they have each buried love under some tomb now mo -grown and forgotten. The man admits that somehow, somewhere, he has pledged his “soul to endle duty, many a time and oft.” Grief is fickle, for time is a traitor. Love, being mortal, must pa away, and he does not think either of them so very guilty; they grieved over their lost love at the time, though now it is forgotten. Yet, though Love’s corpse lies quiet, its ghost sometimes escapes, and it is not well to build too durable a monument over it; trellis-work is better. It is better to own the power of first love, recognise its permanence in the soul, and let the succeeding love be estimated at its value, which to the poet does not seem to be very high. Dead loves are the potent, though living loves are ghost dispellers. From the oft-repeated expre ions of Mr. Browning’s opinion, and from the drift of this poem, we might be warranted in concluding that he believed only in first love. Notes. — St. Martin’s Summer ; or, St. Martin’s Little Summer . From October 9th to November 11th. At the close of autumn we generally have a month of magnificent summer weather. “Expect St. Martin’s summer, halcyon days” ( Shakespeare , I Hen. VI. , Act i., sc. 2), and, “Farewell thou latter spring! farewell All-hallown summer!” It is also called “St. Luke’s Summer,” and Martin mas, and Mar til ma e, because the feast of St. Martin is kept on November 11th. St. Luke’s Day is October 18th. Verse 12, Penelope was the wife of Uly es. During the long absence of her husband she was several times importuned by suitors to marry them. She told them that she could not marry again, even if she were a ured that Uly es were dead, until she had finished weaving a shroud for her aged father-in-law. Every night she pulled out what she had woven during the day, and so her work made no progre . Uly es : is a corrupt form of Odu eus, the king of Ithaca. He is one of the principal heroes in the Iliad of Homer, and the chief hero of the Ody ey.