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.

2

      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

IPerfect Love rare

      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.

IILove Justified

      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.

IIILove Serviceable

      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.

IVA Riddle Solved

      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

1

      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.

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