The Angel in the House. Coventry Patmore

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664155528

Table of Contents

       INTRODUCTION.

       Book I.

       THE PROLOGUE.

       CANTO I The Cathedral Close.

       CANTO II. Mary And Mildred.

       CANTO III. Honoria

       CANTO IV. The Morning Call.

       CANTO V. The Violets.

       CANTO VI. The Dean.

       CANTO VII. Ætna and the Moon.

       CANTO VIII. Sarum Plain.

       CANTO IX. Sahara.

       CANTO X. Church to Church.

       CANTO XI. The Dance.

       CANTO XII. The Abdication.

       Book II.

       THE PROLOGUE.

       CANTO I. Accepted.

       CANTO II. The Course of True Love.

       CANTO III. The Country Ball.

       CANTO IV. Love in Idleness.

       CANTO V. The Queen’s Room.

       CANTO VI. The Love-Letters.

       CANTO VII. The Revulsion.

       CANTO VIII. The Koh-i-noor.

       CANTO IX. The Friends.

       CANTO X. The Epitaph.

       CANTO XI. The Wedding.

       CANTO XII. Husband and Wife.

INTRODUCTION.

       Table of Contents

      There could be but one answer to the suggestion of Mr. Coventry Patmore that his “Angel in the House” might usefully have a place in this “National Library.” The suggestion was made with the belief that wide and cheap diffusion would not take from the value of a copyright library edition, while the best use of writing is fulfilled by the spreading of verse dedicated to the sacred love of home. The two parts of the Poem appeared in 1854 and 1856, were afterwards elaborately revised, and have since obtained a permanent place among the Home Books of the English People. Our readers will join, surely, in thanks to the author for the present he has made us.

      H. M.

Book I.

       Table of Contents

THE PROLOGUE.

       Table of Contents

      1

      ‘Mine is no horse with wings, to gain

       The region of the spheral chime;

       He does but drag a rumbling wain,

       Cheer’d by the coupled bells of rhyme;

       And if at Fame’s bewitching note

       My homely Pegasus pricks an ear,

       The world’s cart-collar hugs his throat,

       And he’s too wise to prance or rear.’

      2

      Thus ever answer’d Vaughan his Wife,

       Who, more than he, desired his fame;

       But, in his heart, his thoughts were rife

       How for her sake to earn a name.

       With bays poetic three times crown’d,

       And other college honours won,

       He, if he chose, might be renown’d,

       He had but little doubt, she none;

       And in a loftier phrase he talk’d

       With her, upon their Wedding-Day,

       (The eighth), while through the fields they walk’d,

       Their children shouting by the way.

      3

      ‘Not careless of the gift of song,

       Nor out of love with noble fame,

       I, meditating much and long

       What I should sing, how win a name,

       Considering well what theme unsung,

       What reason worth the cost of rhyme,

       Remains to loose the poet’s tongue