The Angel in the House
What fortune momently might do
To hurt the hope that she’d be mine.
2
Towards my mark the Dean’s talk set:
He praised my ‘Notes on Abury,’
Read when the Association met
At Sarum; he was pleased to see
I had not stopp’d, as some men had,
At Wrangler and Prize Poet; last,
He hoped the business was not bad
I came about: then the wine pass’d.
3
A full glass prefaced my reply:
I loved his daughter, Honor; I told
My estate and prospects; might I try
To win her? At my words so bold
My sick heart sank. Then he: He gave
His glad consent, if I could get
Her love. A dear, good Girl! she’d have
Only three thousand pounds as yet;
More bye and bye. Yes, his good will
Should go with me; he would not stir;
He and my father in old time still
Wish’d I should one day marry her;
But God so seldom lets us take
Our chosen pathway, when it lies
In steps that either mar or make
Or alter others’ destinies,
That, though his blessing and his pray’r
Had help’d, should help, my suit, yet he
Left all to me, his passive share
Consent and opportunity.
My chance, he hoped, was good: I’d won
Some name already; friends and place
Appear’d within my reach, but none
Her mind and manners would not grace.
Girls love to see the men in whom
They invest their vanities admired;
Besides, where goodness is, there room
For good to work will be desired.
’Twas so with one now pass’d away;
And what she was at twenty-two,
Honor was now; and he might say
Mine was a choice I could not rue.
4
He ceased, and gave his hand. He had won
(And all my heart was in my word),
From me the affection of a son,
Whichever fortune Heaven conferr’d!
Well, well, would I take more wine? Then go
To her; she makes tea on the lawn
These fine warm afternoons. And so
We went whither my soul was drawn;
And her light-hearted ignorance
Of interest in our discourse
Fill’d me with love, and seem’d to enhance
Her beauty with pathetic force,
As, through the flowery mazes sweet,
Fronting the wind that flutter’d blythe,
And loved her shape, and kiss’d her feet,
Shown to their insteps proud and lithe,
She approach’d, all mildness and young trust,
And ever her chaste and noble air
Gave to love’s feast its choicest gust,
A vague, faint augury of despair.
CANTO VII.
Ætna and the Moon.
PRELUDES.
I.
_Love’s Immortality_.
How vilely ’twere to misdeserve
The poet’s gift of perfect speech,
In song to try, with trembling nerve,
The limit of its utmost reach,
Only to sound the wretched praise
Of what to-morrow shall not be;
So mocking with immortal bays
The cross-bones of mortality!
I do not thus. My faith is fast
That all the loveliness I sing
Is made to bear the mortal blast,
And blossom in a better Spring.
Doubts of eternity ne’er cross
The Lover’s mind, divinely clear;
_For ever_ is the gain or loss
Which maddens him with hope or fear:
So trifles serve for his relief,
And trifles make him sick and pale;
And yet his pleasure and his grief
Are both on a majestic scale.
The chance, indefinitely small,
Of issue infinitely great,
Eclipses finite interests all,
And has the dignity of fate.
II.
_Heaven and Earth_.
How long shall men deny the flower
Because its roots are in the earth,
And crave with tears from God the dower
They have, and have despised as dearth,
And scorn as low their human lot,
With frantic pride, too blind to see
That standing on the head makes not
Either for ease or dignity!
But fools shall feel like fools to find
(Too late inform’d) that angels’ mirth
Is one in cause, and mode, and kind
With that which they profaned on earth.
ÆTNA AND THE MOON.
1
To soothe my heart I, feigning, seized
A pen, and, showering tears, declared
My unfeign’d passion; sadly pleased
Only to dream that so I dared.
Thus was the fervid truth confess’d,
But wild with paradox ran the plea.
As wilfully in hope depress’d,
Yet bold beyond hope’s warranty:
2
‘O, more than dear, be more than just,
And do not deafly shut the door!
I claim no right to speak; I trust
Mercy, not right; yet who has more?
For, if more love makes not more fit,
Of claimants here none’s more nor less,
Since your great worth does not permit
Degrees in our unworthiness.
Yet, if there’s aught that can be done
With arduous labour of long years,
By which you’ll say that you’ll be won,
O tell me, and I’ll dry my tears.
Ah, no; if loving cannot move,
How foolishly must labour fail!
The use of deeds is to show love;
If signs suffice let these avail:
Your name pronounced brings to my heart
A feeling like the violet’s breath,
Which does so much of heaven impart
It makes me amorous of death;
The winds that in the garden toss
The Guelder-roses give me pain,
Alarm me with the dread of loss,
Exhaust me with the dream of gain;
I’m troubled by the clouds that move;
Tired by the breath which I respire;
And ever, like a torch, my love,
Thus agitated, flames the higher;
All’s hard that has not you for goal;
I scarce can move my hand to write,
For love engages all my soul,
And leaves the body void of might;
The wings of will spread idly, as do
The bird’s that in a vacuum lies;
My breast, asleep with dreams of you,
Forgets to breathe, and bursts in sighs;
I see no rest this side the grave,
No rest nor hope, from you apart;
Your life is in the rose you gave,
Its perfume suffocates my heart;
There’s no refreshment in the breeze;
The heaven o’erwhelms me with its blue;
I faint beside the dancing seas;
Winds, skies, and waves are only you;
The thought or act which not intends
You service seems a sin and shame;
In that one only object ends
Conscience, religion, honour, fame.
Ah, could I put off love! Could we
Never have met! What calm, what ease!
Nay, but, alas, this remedy
Were ten times worse than the disease!
For when, indifferent, I pursue
The world’s best pleasures for relief,
My heart, still sickening back to you,
Finds none like memory of its grief;
And, though ’twere very hell to hear
You felt such misery as I,
All good, save you, were far less dear!
Than is that ill with which I die
Where’er I go, wandering forlorn,
You are the world’s love, life, and glee:
Oh, wretchedness not to be borne
If she that’s Love should not love me!’
3
I could not write another word,
Through pity for my own distress;
And forth I went, untimely stirr’d
To make my misery more or less.
I went, beneath the heated noon,
To where, in her simplicity,
She sate at work; and, as the Moon
On Ætna smiles, she smiled on me.
But, now and then, in cheek and eyes,
I saw, or fancied, such a glow
As when, in summer-evening skies,
Some say, ‘It lightens,’ some say, ‘No.’
‘Honoria,’ I began—No more.
The Dean, by ill or happy hap,
Came home; and Wolf burst in before,
And put his nose upon her lap.
CANTO VIII.
Sarum Plain.
PRELUDES.
I.
_Life of Life_.
WHAT’S that, which, ere I spake, was gone?
So joyful and intense a spark
That, whilst o’erhead the wonder shone,
The day, before but dull, grew dark.
I do not know; but this I know,
That, had the splendour lived a year,
The truth that I some heavenly show
Did see, could not be now more clear.
This know I too: might mortal breath
Express the passion then inspired,
Evil would die a natural death,
And nothing transient be desired;
And error from the soul would pass,
And leave the senses pure and strong
As sunbeams. But the best, alas,
Has neither memory nor tongue!
II.
_The Revelation_.
An idle poet, here and there,
Looks round him; but, for all the rest,
The world, unfathomably fair,
Is duller than a witling’s jest.
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
They read with joy, then shut the book.
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,
And most forget; but, either way,
That and the Child’s unheeded dream
Is all the light of all their day.
III.
_The Spirit’s Epochs_.
Not in the crises of events,
Of compass’d hopes, or fears fulfill’d,
Or acts of gravest consequence,
Are life’s delight and depth reveal’d.
The day of days was not the day;
That went before, or was postponed;
The night Death took our lamp away
Was not the night on which we groan’d.
I drew my bride, beneath the moon,
Across my threshold; happy hour!
But, ah, the walk that afternoon
We saw the water-flags in flower!
IV.
_The Prototype_.
Lo, there, whence love, life, light are pour’d,
Veil’d with impenetrable rays,
Amidst the presence of the Lord
Co-equal Wisdom laughs and plays.
Female and male God made the man;
His image is the whole, not half;
And in our love we dimly scan
The love which is between Himself.
V.
_The Praise of Love_.
Spirit of Knowledge, grant me this:
A simple heart and subtle wit
To praise the thing whose praise it is
That all which can be praised is it.
SARUM PLAIN.
1
Breakfast enjoy’d, ’mid hush of boughs
And perfumes thro’ the windows blown;
Brief worship done, which still endows
The day with beauty not its own;
With intervening pause, that paints
Each act with honour, life with calm
(As old processions of the Saints
At every step have wands of palm),
We rose; the ladies went to dress,
And soon return’d with smiles; and then,
Plans fix’d, to which the Dean said ‘Yes,’
Once more we drove to Salisbury Plain.
We past my house (observed with praise
By Mildred, Mary acquiesced),
And left the old and lazy greys
Below the hill, and walk’d the rest.
2
The moods of love are like the wind,
And none knows whence or why they rise:
I ne’er before felt heart and mind
So much affected through mine eyes.
How cognate with the flatter’d air,
How form’d for earth’s familiar zone,
She moved; how feeling and how fair
For others’ pleasure and her own!
And, ah, the heaven of her face!
How, when she laugh’d, I seem’d to see
The gladness of the primal grace,
And how, when grave, its dignity!
Of all she was, the least not less
Delighted the devoted eye;
No fold or fashion of her dress
Her fairness did not sanctify.
I could not else than grieve. What cause?
Was I not blest? Was she not there?
Likely my own? Ah, that it was:
How like seem’d ‘likely’ to despair!
3
And yet to see her so benign,
So honourable and womanly,
In every maiden kindness mine,
And full of gayest courtesy,
Was pleasure so without alloy,
Such unreproved, sufficient bliss,
I almost wish’d, the while, that joy
Might never further go than this.
So much it was as now to walk,
And humbly by her gentle side