The Angel in the House. Coventry Patmore
To cheat her in her ignorance;
How Heaven its very self conspires
With man and nature against love,
As pleased to couple cross desires,
And cross where they themselves approve.
Wretched were life, if the end were now!
But this gives tears to dry despair,
Faith shall be blest, we know not how,
And love fulfill’d, we know not where.
While thus I grieved, and kiss’d her glove,
My man brought in her note to say,
Papa had hid her send his love,
And would I dine with them next day?
They had learn’d and practised Purcell’s glee,
To sing it by to-morrow night.
The Postscript was: Her sisters and she
Inclosed some violets, blue and white;
She and her sisters found them where
I wager’d once no violets grew;
So they had won the gloves. And there
The violets lay, two white, one blue.
CANTO VI
The Dean
PRELUDES
Most rare is still most noble found,
Most noble still most incomplete;
Sad law, which leaves King Love uncrown’d
In this obscure, terrestrial seat!
With bale more sweet than others’ bliss,
And bliss more wise than others’ bale,
The secrets of the world are his.
And freedom without let or pale.
O, zealous good, O, virtuous glee,
Religious, and without alloy,
O, privilege high, which none but he
Who highly merits can enjoy;
O, Love, who art that fabled sun
Which all the world with bounty loads,
Without respect of realms, save one,
And gilds with double lustre Rhodes;
A day of whose delicious life,
Though full of terrors, full of tears,
Is better than of other life
A hundred thousand million years;
Thy heavenly splendour magnifies
The least commixture of earth’s mould,
Cheapens thyself in thine own eyes,
And makes the foolish mocker bold.
What if my pole-star of respect
Be dim to others? Shall their ‘Nay,’
Presumably their own defect,
Invalidate my heart’s strong ‘Yea’?
And can they rightly me condemn,
If I, with partial love, prefer?
I am not more unjust to them,
But only not unjust to her.
Leave us alone! After awhile,
This pool of private charity
Shall make its continent an isle,
And roll, a world-embracing sea;
This foolish zeal of lip for lip,
This fond, self-sanction’d, wilful zest,
Is that elect relationship
Which forms and sanctions all the rest;
This little germ of nuptial love,
Which springs so simply from the sod,
The root is, as my song shall prove,
Of all our love to man and God.
What measure Fate to him shall mete
Is not the noble Lover’s care;
He’s heart-sick with a longing sweet
To make her happy as she’s fair.
Oh, misery, should she him refuse,
And so her dearest good mistake!
His own success he thus pursues
With frantic zeal for her sole sake.
To lose her were his life to blight,
Being loss to hers; to make her his,
Except as helping her delight,
He calls but incidental bliss;
And holding life as so much pelf
To buy her posies, learns this lore:
He does not rightly love himself
Who does not love another more.
Kind souls, you wonder why, love you,
When you, you wonder why, love none.
We love, Fool, for the good we do,
Not that which unto us is done!
THE DEAN
The Ladies rose. I held the door,
And sigh’d, as her departing grace
Assured me that she always wore
A heart as happy as her face;
And, jealous of the winds that blew,
I dreaded, o’er the tasteless wine,
What fortune momently might do
To hurt the hope that she’d be mine.
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.
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