The Victories of Love, and Other Poems. Coventry Patmore

for pursuit;

      Who troubles not his lonely mood;

      And asks for love mere gratitude.

      Ah, desperate folly!  Yet, we know,

      Who wed through love wed mostly so.

         At least, my Son, when wed you do,

      See that the woman equals you,

      Nor rush, from having loved too high,

      Into a worse humility.

      A poor estate’s a foolish plea

      For marrying to a base degree.

      A woman grown cannot be train’d,

      Or, if she could, no love were gain’d;

      For, never was a man’s heart caught

      By graces he himself had taught.

      And fancy not ’tis in the might

      Of man to do without delight;

      For, should you in her nothing find

      To exhilarate the higher mind,

      Your soul would deaden useless wings

      With wickedness of lawful things,

      And vampire pleasure swift destroy

      Even the memory of joy.

      So let no man, in desperate mood,

      Wed a dull girl because she’s good.

      All virtues in his wife soon dim,

      Except the power of pleasing him,

      Which may small virtue be, or none!

         I know my just and tender Son,

      To whom the dangerous grace is given

      That scorns a good which is not heaven;

      My Child, who used to sit and sigh

      Under the bright, ideal sky,

      And pass, to spare the farmer’s wheat,

      The poppy and the meadow-sweet!

      He would not let his wife’s heart ache

      For what was mainly his mistake;

      But, having err’d so, all his force

      Would fix upon the hard, right course.

         She’s graceless, say, yet good and true,

      And therefore inly fair, and, through

      The veils which inward beauty fold,

      Faith can her loveliness behold.

      Ah, that’s soon tired; faith falls away

      Without the ceremonial stay

      Of outward loveliness and awe.

      The weightier matters of the law

      She pays: mere mint and cumin not;

      And, in the road that she was taught,

      She treads, and takes for granted still

      Nature’s immedicable ill;

      So never wears within her eyes

      A false report of paradise,

      Nor ever modulates her mirth

      With vain compassion of the earth,

      Which made a certain happier face

      Affecting, and a gayer grace

      With pathos delicately edged!

      Yet, though she be not privileged

      To unlock for you your heart’s delight,

      (Her keys being gold, but not the right,)

      On lower levels she may do!

      Her joy is more in loving you

      Than being loved, and she commands

      All tenderness she understands.

      It is but when you proffer more

      The yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore.

      It’s weary work enforcing love

      On one who has enough thereof,

      And honour on the lowlihead

      Of ignorance!  Besides, you dread,

      In Leah’s arms, to meet the eyes

      Of Rachel, somewhere in the skies,

      And both return, alike relieved,

      To life less loftily conceived.

      Alas, alas!

         Then wait the mood

      In which a woman may be woo’d

      Whose thoughts and habits are too high

      For honour to be flattery,

      And who would surely not allow

      The suit that you could proffer now.

      Her equal yoke would sit with ease;

      It might, with wearing, even please,

      (Not with a better word to move

      The loyal wrath of present love);

      She would not mope when you were gay,

      For want of knowing aught to say;

      Nor vex you with unhandsome waste

      Of thoughts ill-timed and words ill-placed;

      Nor reckon small things duties small,

      And your fine sense fantastical;

      Nor would she bring you up a brood

      Of strangers bound to you by blood,

      Boys of a meaner moral race,

      Girls with their mother’s evil grace.

      But not her chance to sometimes find

      Her critic past his judgment kind;

      Nor, unaccustom’d to respect,

      Which men, where ’tis not claim’d, neglect,

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        Written in 1856.