The Angel in the House
I found the dawning Sunday fine,
And could not rest, so rose. The air
Was dark and sharp; the roosted birds
Cheep’d, ‘Here am I, Sweet; are you there?’
On Avon’s misty flats the herds
Expected, comfortless, the day,
Which slowly fired the clouds above;
The cock scream’d, somewhere far away;
In sleep the matrimonial dove
Was crooning; no wind waked the wood,
Nor moved the midnight river-damps,
Nor thrill’d the poplar; quiet stood
The chestnut with its thousand lamps;
The moon shone yet, but weak and drear,
And seem’d to watch, with bated breath,
The landscape, all made sharp and clear
By stillness, as a face by death.
2
My pray’rs for her being done, I took
Occasion by the quiet hour
To find and know, by Rule and Book,
The rights of love’s beloved power.
3
Fronting the question without ruth,
Nor ignorant that, evermore,
If men will stoop to kiss the Truth,
She lifts them higher than before,
I, from above, such light required
As now should once for all destroy
The folly which at times desired
A sanction for so great a joy.
4
Thenceforth, and through that pray’r, I trod
A path with no suspicions dim.
I loved her in the name of God,
And for the ray she was of Him;
I ought to admire much more, not less
Her beauty was a godly grace;
The mystery of loveliness,
Which made an altar of her face,
Was not of the flesh, though that was fair,
But a most pure and living light
Without a name, by which the rare
And virtuous spirit flamed to sight.
If oft, in love, effect lack’d cause
And cause effect, ’twere vain to soar
Reasons to seek for that which was
Reason itself, or something more.
My joy was no idolatry
Upon the ends of the vile earth bent,
For when I loved her most then I
Most yearn’d for more divine content.
That other doubt, which, like a ghost,
In the brain’s darkness haunted me,
Was thus resolved: Him loved I most,
But her I loved most sensibly.
Lastly, my giddiest hope allow’d
No selfish thought, or earthly smirch;
And forth I went, in peace, and proud
To take my passion into Church;
Grateful and glad to think that all
Such doubts would seem entirely vain
To her whose nature’s lighter fall
Made no divorce of heart from brain.
5
I found them, with exactest grace
And fresh as Spring, for Spring attired;
And by the radiance in her face
I saw she felt she was admired;
And, through the common luck of love,
A moment’s fortunate delay,
To fit the little lilac glove,
Gave me her arm; and I and they
(They true to this and every hour,
As if attended on by Time),
Enter’d the Church while yet the tower
Was noisy with the finish’d chime.
6
Her soft voice, singularly heard
Beside me, in her chant, withstood
The roar of voices, like a bird
Sole warbling in a windy wood;
And, when we knelt, she seem’d to be
An angel teaching me to pray;
And all through the high Liturgy
My spirit rejoiced without allay,
Being, for once, borne clearly above
All banks and bars of ignorance,
By this bright spring-tide of pure love,
And floated in a free expanse,
Whence it could see from side to side,
The obscurity from every part
Winnow’d away and purified
By the vibrations of my heart.
CANTO XI.
The Dance.
PRELUDES.
I.
_The Daughter of Eve_.
THE woman’s gentle mood o’erstept
Withers my love, that lightly scans
The rest, and does in her accept
All her own faults, but none of man’s.
As man I cannot judge her ill,
Or honour her fair station less,
Who, with a woman’s errors, still
Preserves a woman’s gentleness;
For thus I think, if one I see
Who disappoints my high desire,
‘How admirable would she be,
Could she but know how I admire!’
Or fail she, though from blemish clear,
To charm, I call it my defect;
And so my thought, with reverent fear
To err by doltish disrespect,
Imputes love’s great regard, and says,
‘Though unapparent ’tis to me,
Be sure this Queen some other sways
With well-perceiv’d supremacy.’
Behold the worst! Light from above
On the blank ruin writes ‘Forbear!
Her first crime was unguarded love,
And all the rest, perhaps, despair.’
Discrown’d, dejected, but not lost,
O, sad one, with no more a name
Or place in all the honour’d host
Of maiden and of matron fame,
Grieve on; but, if thou grievest right,
’Tis not that these abhor thy state,
Nor would’st thou lower the least the height
Which makes thy casting down so great.
Good is thy lot in its degree;
For hearts that verily repent
Are burden’d with impunity
And comforted by chastisement.
Sweet patience sanctify thy woes!
And doubt not but our God is just,
Albeit unscathed thy traitor goes,
And thou art stricken to the dust.
That penalty’s the best to bear
Which follows soonest on the sin;
And guilt’s a game where losers fare
Better than those who seem to win.
II.
_Aurea Dicta_.
’Tis truth (although this truth’s a star
Too deep-enskied for all to see),
As poets of grammar, lovers are
The fountains of morality.
Child, would you shun the vulgar doom,
In love disgust, in death despair?
Know, death must come and love must come,
And so for each your soul prepare.
Who pleasure follows pleasure slays;
God’s wrath upon himself he wreaks;
But all delights rejoice his days
Who takes with thanks, and never seeks.
The wrong is made and measured by
The right’s inverted dignity.
Change love to shame, as love is high
So low in hell your bed shall be.
How easy to keep free from sin!
How hard that freedom to recall!
For dreadful truth it is that men
Forget the heavens from which they fall.
Lest sacred love your soul ensnare,
With pious fancy still infer
‘How loving and how lovely fair
Must He be who has fashion’d her!’
Become whatever good you see,
Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view
The grace of which you may not be
The subject and spectator too.
Love’s perfect blossom only blows
Where noble manners veil defect
Angels maybe familiar; those
Who err each other must respect.
Love blabb’d of is a great decline;
A careless word unsanctions sense;
But he who casts Heaven’s truth to swine
Consummates all incontinence.
Not to unveil before the gaze
Of an imperfect sympathy
In aught we are, is the sweet praise
And the main sum of modesty.
THE DANCE.
1
‘My memory of Heaven awakes!
She’s not of the earth, although her light,
As lantern’d by her body, makes
A piece of it past bearing bright.
So innocently proud and fair
She is, that Wisdom sings for glee
And Folly dies, breathing one air
With such a bright-cheek’d chastity;
And though her charms are a strong law
Compelling all men to admire,
They go so clad with lovely awe
None but the noble dares desire.
He who would seek to make her his
Will comprehend that souls of grace
Own sweet repulsion, and that ’tis
The quality of their embrace
To be like the majestic reach
Of coupled suns, that, from afar,
Mingle their mutual spheres, while each
Circles the twin obsequious star;
And, in the warmth of hand to hand,
Of heart to heart, he’ll vow to note
And reverently understand
How the two spirits shine remote;
And ne’er to numb fine honour’s nerve,
Nor let sweet awe in passion melt,
Nor fail by courtesies to observe
The space which makes attraction felt;
Nor cease to guard like life the sense
Which tells him that the embrace of love
Is o’er a gulf of difference
Love cannot sound, nor death remove.’
2
This learn’d I, watching where she danced,
Native to melody and light,
And now and then toward me glanced,
Pleased, as I hoped, to please my sight.
3
Ah, love to speak was impotent,
Till music did a tongue confer,
And I ne’er knew what music meant,
Until I danced to it with her.
Too proud of the sustaining power
Of my, till then, unblemish’d joy.
My passion, for reproof, that hour
Tasted mortality’s alloy,
And bore me down an eddying gulf;
I wish’d the world might run to wreck,
So I but once might fling myself
Obliviously about her neck.
I press’d her hand, by will or chance
I know not, but I saw the rays
Withdrawn, which did till then enhance
Her fairness with its thanks for praise.
I knew my spirit’s vague offence
Was patent to the dreaming eye
And heavenly tact of innocence,
And did for fear my fear defy,
And ask’d her for the next dance. ‘Yes.’
‘No,’ had not fall’n with half the force.
She was fulfill’d with gentleness,
And I with measureless remorse;
And, ere I slept, on bended knee
I own’d myself, with many a tear,
Unseasonable, disorderly,
And a deranger of love’s sphere;
Gave thanks that, when we stumble and fall,
We hurt ourselves, and not the truth;
And, rising, found its brightness all
The brighter through the tears of ruth.
4
Nor was my hope that night made less,
Though order’d, humbled, and reproved;
Her farewell did her heart express
As much, but not with anger, moved.
My trouble had my soul betray’d;
And, in the night of my despair,
My love, a flower of noon afraid,
Divulged its fulness unaware.
I saw she saw; and, O sweet Heaven,
Could my glad mind have credited
That influence had to me been given
To affect her so, I should have said
That, though she from herself conceal’d
Love’s felt delight and fancied harm,
They made her face the jousting field
Of joy and beautiful alarm.
CANTO XII.
The Abdication.
PRELUDES.
I.
_The Chace_.
SHE wearies with an ill unknown;
In sleep she sobs and seems to float,
A water-lily, all alone
Within a lonely castle-moat;
And as the full-moon, spectral, lies
Within the crescent’s gleaming arms,
The present shows her heedless eyes
A future dim with vague alarms.
She sees, and yet she scarcely sees,
For, life-in-life not yet begun,
Too many are its mysteries
For thought to fix on any one.
She’s told that maidens are by youths
Extremely honour’d and desired;
And sighs, ‘If those sweet tales be truths,
What bliss to be so much admired!’
The suitors come; she sees them grieve;
Her coldness fills them with despair;
She’d pity if she could believe;
She’s sorry that she cannot care.
But who now meets her on her way?
Comes he as enemy or friend,
Or both? Her bosom seems to say,
He cannot pass, and there an end.
Whom does he love? Does he confer
His heart on worth that answers his?
Or is he come to worship her?
She fears, she hopes, she thinks he is!
Advancing stepless, quick, and still,
As in the grass a serpent glides,
He fascinates her fluttering will,
Then terrifies with dreadful strides.
At first, there’s nothing to resist;
He fights with all the forms of peace;