The sweet hour lapsed, and left my breastA load of joy and tender care;And this delight, which life oppress’d,To fix’d aims grew, that ask’d for pray’r.I rode home slowly; whip-in-handAnd soil’d bank-notes all ready, stoodThe Farmer who farm’d all my land,Except the little Park and Wood;And with the accustom’d complimentOf talk, and beef, and frothing beer,I, my own steward, took my rent,Three hundred pounds for half the year;Our witnesses the Cook and Groom,We sign’d the lease for seven years more,And bade Good-day; then to my roomI went, and closed and lock’d the door,And cast myself down on my bed,And there, with many a blissful tear,I vow’d to love and pray’d to wedThe maiden who had grown so dear;Thank’d God who had set her in my path;And promised, as I hoped to win,That I would never dim my faithBy the least selfishness or sin;Whatever in her sight I’d seemI’d truly be; I’d never blendWith my delight in her a dream’Twould change her cheek to comprehend;And, if she wish’d it, I’d preferAnother’s to my own success;And always seek the best for herWith unofficious tenderness.
Rising, I breathed a brighter clime,And found myself all self above,And, with a charity sublime,Contemn’d not those who did not love:And I could not but feel that thenI shone with something of her grace,And went forth to my fellow menMy commendation in my face.
Whereshe succeeds with cloudless brow,In common and in holy course,He fails, in spite of prayer and vowAnd agonies of faith and force;Or, if his suit with Heaven prevailsTo righteous life, his virtuous deedsLack beauty, virtue’s badge; she failsMore graciously than he succeeds.Her spirit, compact of gentleness,If Heaven postpones or grants her pray’r,Conceives no pride in its success,And in its failure no despair;But his, enamour’d of its hurt,Baffled, blasphemes, or, not denied,Crows from the dunghill of desert,And wags its ugly wings for pride.He’s never young nor ripe; she growsMore infantine, auroral, mild,And still the more she lives and knowsThe lovelier she’s express’d a child.Say that she wants the will of manTo conquer fame, not check’d by cross,Nor moved when others bless or ban;She wants but what to have were loss.Or say she wants the patient brainTo track shy truth; her facile witAt that which he hunts down with painFlies straight, and does exactly hit.Were she but half of what she is,He twice himself, mere love alone,Her special crown, as truth is his,Gives title to the worthier throne;For love is substance, truth the form;Truth without love were less than nought;But blindest love is sweet and warm,And full of truth not shaped by thought,And therefore in herself she standsAdorn’d with undeficient grace,Her happy virtues taking hands,Each smiling in another’s face.So, dancing round the Tree of Life,They make an Eden in her breast,While his, disjointed and at strife,Proud-thoughted, do not bring him rest.
If fate Love’s dear ambition mar,And load his breast with hopeless pain,And seem to blot out sun and star,Love, won or lost, is countless gain;His sorrow boasts a secret blissWhich sorrow of itself beguiles,And Love in tears too noble isFor pity, save of Love in smiles.But, looking backward through his tears,With vision of maturer scope,How often one dead joy appearsThe platform of some better hope!And, let us own, the sharpest smartWhich human patience may endurePays light for that which leaves the heartMore generous, dignified, and pure.
They safely walk in darkest waysWhose youth is lighted from above,Where, through the senses’ silvery haze,Dawns the veil’d moon of nuptial love.Who is the happy husband? HeWho, scanning his unwedded life,Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,’Twas faithful to his future wife.
Fatal in force, yet gentle in will,Defeats, from her, are tender pacts,For, like the kindly lodestone, stillShe’s drawn herself by what she attracts.
I went not to the Dean’s unbid:I would not have my mystery,From her so delicately hid,The guess of gossips at their tea.A long, long week, and not once there,Had made my spirit sick and faint,And lack-love, foul as love is fair,Perverted all things to complaint.How vain the world had grown to be!How mean all people and their ways,How ignorant their sympathy,And how impertinent their praise;What they for virtuousness esteem’d,How far removed from heavenly right;What pettiness their trouble seem’d,How undelightful their delight;To my necessity how strangeThe sunshine and the song of birds;How dull the clouds’ continual change,How foolishly content the herds;How unaccountable the lawWhich bade me sit in blindness here,While she, the sun by which I saw,Shed splendour in an idle sphere!And then I kiss’d her stolen glove,And sigh’d to reckon and defineThe modes of martyrdom in love,And how far each one might be mine.I thought how love, whose vast estateIs earth and air and sun and sea,Encounters oft the beggar’s fate,Despised on score of poverty;How Heaven, inscrutable in this,Lets the gross general make or marThe destiny of love, which isSo tender and particular;How nature, as unnaturalAnd contradicting nature’s source,Which is but love, seems most of allWell-pleased to harry true love’s course;How, many times, it comes to passThat trifling shades of temperament,Affecting only one, alas,Not love, but love’s success prevent;How manners often falsely paintThe man; how passionate respect,Hid by itself, may bear the taintOf coldness and a dull neglect;And how a little outward dustCan a clear merit quite o’ercloud,And make her fatally unjust,And him desire a darker shroud;How senseless opportunityGives baser men the better chance;How powers, adverse else, agreeTo cheat her in her ignorance;How Heaven its very self conspiresWith 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 sheInclosed some violets, blue and white;She and her sisters found them whereI wager’d once no violets grew;So they had won the gloves. And thereThe violets lay, two white, one blue.
Mostrare is still most noble found,Most noble still most incomplete;Sad law, which leaves King Love uncrown’dIn 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 heWho highly merits can enjoy;O, Love, who art that fabled sunWhich 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 lifeA hundred thousand million years;Thy heavenly splendour magnifiesThe least commixture of earth’s mould,Cheapens thyself in thine own eyes,And makes the foolish mocker bold.
What if my pole-star of respectBe 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 charityShall 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 relationshipWhich 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 meteIs not the noble Lover’s care;He’s heart-sick with a longing sweetTo make her happy as she’s fair.Oh, misery, should she him refuse,And so her dearest good mistake!His own success he thus pursuesWith 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 pelfTo buy her posies, learns this lore:He does not rightly love himselfWho 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 Ladies rose. I held the door,And sigh’d, as her departing graceAssured me that she always woreA heart as happy as her face;And, jealous of the winds that blew,I dreaded, o’er the tasteless wine,What fortune momently might doTo 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 metAt Sarum; he was pleased to seeI had not stopp’d, as some men had,At Wrangler and Prize Poet; last,He hoped the business was not badI came about: then the wine pass’d.
A full glass prefaced my reply:I loved his daughter, Honor; I toldMy estate and prospects; might I tryTo win her? At my words so boldMy sick heart sank. Then he: He gaveHis glad consent, if I could getHer love. A dear, good Girl! she’d haveOnly three thousand pounds as yet;More bye and bye. Yes, his good willShould go with me; he would not stir;He and my father in old time stillWish’d I should one day marry her;But God so seldom lets us takeOur chosen pathway, when it liesIn steps that either mar or makeOr alter others’ destinies,That, though his blessing and his pray’rHad help’d, should help, my suit, yet heLeft all to me, his passive shareConsent and opportunity.My chance, he hoped, was good: I’d wonSome name already; friends and placeAppear’d within my reach, but noneHer mind and manners would not grace.Girls love to see the men in whomThey invest their vanities admired;Besides, where goodness is, there roomFor good to work will be desired.’Twas so with one now pass’d away;And what she was at twenty-two,Honor was now; and he might sayMine was a choice I could not rue.
He ceased, and gave his hand. He had won(And all my heart was in my word),From me the affection of a son,Whichever fortune Heaven conferr’d!Well, well, would I take more wine? Then goTo her; she makes tea on the lawnThese fine warm afternoons. And soWe went whither my soul was drawn;And her light-hearted ignoranceOf interest in our discourseFill’d me with love, and seem’d to enhanceHer beauty with pathetic force,As, through the flowery mazes sweet,Fronting the wind that flutter’d blythe,And loved her shape, and kiss’d her feet,Shown to their insteps proud and lithe,She approach’d, all mildness and young trust,And ever her chaste and noble airGave to love’s feast its choicest gust,A vague, faint augury of despair.
How vilely ’twere to misdeserveThe poet’s gift of perfect speech,In song to try, with trembling nerve,The limit of its utmost reach,Only to sound the wretched praiseOf what to-morrow shall not be;So mocking with immortal baysThe cross-bones of mortality!I do not thus. My faith is fastThat all the loveliness I singIs made to bear the mortal blast,And blossom in a better Spring.Doubts of eternity ne’er crossThe Lover’s mind, divinely clear;For everis the gain or lossWhich maddens him with hope or fear:So trifles serve for his relief,And trifles make him sick and pale;And yet his pleasure and his griefAre both on a majestic scale.The chance, indefinitely small,Of issue infinitely great,Eclipses finite interests all,And has the dignity of fate.
How long shall men deny the flowerBecause its roots are in the earth,And crave with tears from God the dowerThey have, and have despised as dearth,And scorn as low their human lot,With frantic pride, too blind to seeThat standing on the head makes notEither for ease or dignity!But fools shall feel like fools to find(Too late inform’d) that angels’ mirthIs one in cause, and mode, and kindWith that which they profaned on earth.
To soothe my heart I, feigning, seizedA pen, and, showering tears, declaredMy unfeign’d passion; sadly pleasedOnly to dream that so I dared.Thus was the fervid truth confess’d,But wild with paradox ran the plea.As wilfully in hope depress’d,Yet bold beyond hope’s warranty:
‘O, more than dear, be more than just,And do not deafly shut the door!I claim no right to speak; I trustMercy, not right; yet who has more?For, if more love makes not more fit,Of claimants here none’s more nor less,Since your great worth does not permitDegrees in our unworthiness.Yet, if there’s aught that can be doneWith arduous labour of long years,By which you’ll say that you’ll be won,O tell me, and I’ll dry my tears.Ah, no; if loving cannot move,How foolishly must labour fail!The use of deeds is to show love;If signs suffice let these avail:Your name pronounced brings to my heartA feeling like the violet’s breath,Which does so much of heaven impartIt makes me amorous of death;The winds that in the garden tossThe Guelder-roses give me pain,Alarm me with the dread of loss,Exhaust me with the dream of gain;I’m troubled by the clouds that move;Tired by the breath which I respire;And ever, like a torch, my love,Thus agitated, flames the higher;All’s hard that has not you for goal;I scarce can move my hand to write,For love engages all my soul,And leaves the body void of might;The wings of will spread idly, as doThe bird’s that in a vacuum lies;My breast, asleep with dreams of you,Forgets to breathe, and bursts in sighs;I see no rest this side the grave,No rest nor hope, from you apart;Your life is in the rose you gave,Its perfume suffocates my heart;There’s no refreshment in the breeze;The heaven o’erwhelms me with its blue;I faint beside the dancing seas;Winds, skies, and waves are only you;The thought or act which not intendsYou service seems a sin and shame;In that one only object endsConscience, religion, honour, fame.Ah, could I put off love! Could weNever have met! What calm, what ease!Nay, but, alas, this remedyWere ten times worse than the disease!For when, indifferent, I pursueThe world’s best pleasures for relief,My heart, still sickening back to you,Finds none like memory of its grief;And, though ’twere very hell to hearYou felt such misery as I,All good, save you, were far less dear!Than is that ill with which I dieWhere’er I go, wandering forlorn,You are the world’s love, life, and glee:Oh, wretchedness not to be borneIf she that’s Love should not love me!’
I could not write another word,Through pity for my own distress;And forth I went, untimely stirr’dTo make my misery more or less.I went, beneath the heated noon,To where, in her simplicity,She sate at work; and, as the MoonOn Ætna smiles, she smiled on me.But, now and then, in cheek and eyes,I saw, or fancied, such a glowAs when, in summer-evening skies,Some say, ‘It lightens,’ some say, ‘No.’‘Honoria,’ I began—No more.The Dean, by ill or happy hap,Came home; and Wolf burst in before,And put his nose upon her lap.
What’sthat, which, ere I spake, was gone?So joyful and intense a sparkThat, whilst o’erhead the wonder shone,The day, before but dull, grew dark.I do not know; but this I know,That, had the splendour lived a year,The truth that I some heavenly showDid see, could not be now more clear.This know I too: might mortal breathExpress the passion then inspired,Evil would die a natural death,And nothing transient be desired;And error from the soul would pass,And leave the senses pure and strongAs sunbeams. But the best, alas,Has neither memory nor tongue!
An idle poet, here and there,Looks round him; but, for all the rest,The world, unfathomably fair,Is duller than a witling’s jest.Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;They lift their heavy lids, and look;And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,They read with joy, then shut the book.And some give thanks, and some blaspheme,And most forget; but, either way,That and the Child’s unheeded dreamIs all the light of all their day.
Not in the crises of events,Of compass’d hopes, or fears fulfill’d,Or acts of gravest consequence,Are life’s delight and depth reveal’d.The day of days was not the day;That went before, or was postponed;The night Death took our lamp awayWas not the night on which we groan’d.I drew my bride, beneath the moon,Across my threshold; happy hour!But, ah, the walk that afternoonWe saw the water-flags in flower!
Lo, there, whence love, life, light are pour’d,Veil’d with impenetrable rays,Amidst the presence of the LordCo-equal Wisdom laughs and plays.Female and male God made the man;His image is the whole, not half;And in our love we dimly scanThe love which is between Himself.
Spirit of Knowledge, grant me this:A simple heart and subtle witTo praise the thing whose praise it isThat all which can be praised is it.
Breakfast enjoy’d, ’mid hush of boughsAnd perfumes thro’ the windows blown;Brief worship done, which still endowsThe day with beauty not its own;With intervening pause, that paintsEach act with honour, life with calm(As old processions of the SaintsAt every step have wands of palm),We rose; the ladies went to dress,And soon return’d with smiles; and then,Plans fix’d, to which the Dean said ‘Yes,’Once more we drove to Salisbury Plain.We past my house (observed with praiseBy Mildred, Mary acquiesced),And left the old and lazy greysBelow the hill, and walk’d the rest.
The moods of love are like the wind,And none knows whence or why they rise:I ne’er before felt heart and mindSo much affected through mine eyes.How cognate with the flatter’d air,How form’d for earth’s familiar zone,She moved; how feeling and how fairFor others’ pleasure and her own!And, ah, the heaven of her face!How, when she laugh’d, I seem’d to seeThe gladness of the primal grace,And how, when grave, its dignity!Of all she was, the least not lessDelighted the devoted eye;No fold or fashion of her dressHer fairness did not sanctify.I could not else than grieve. What cause?Was I not blest? Was she not there?Likely my own? Ah, that it was:How like seem’d ‘likely’ to despair!
And yet to see her so benign,So honourable and womanly,In every maiden kindness mine,And full of gayest courtesy,Was pleasure so without alloy,Such unreproved, sufficient bliss,I almost wish’d, the while, that joyMight never further go than this.So much it was as now to walk,And humbly by her gentle sideObserve her smile and hear her talk,Could it be more to call her Bride?I feign’d her won: the mind finite,Puzzled and fagg’d by stress and strainTo comprehend the whole delight,Made bliss more hard to bear than pain.All good, save heart to hold, so summ’dAnd grasp’d, the thought smote, like a knife,How laps’d mortality had numb’dThe feelings to the feast of life;How passing good breathes sweetest breath;And love itself at highest revealsMore black than bright, commending deathBy teaching how much life conceals.
But happier passions these subdued,When from the close and sultry lane,With eyes made bright by what they view’d,We emerged upon the mounded Plain.As to the breeze a flag unfurls,My spirit expanded, sweetly embracedBy those same gusts that shook her curlsAnd vex’d the ribbon at her waist.To the future cast I future cares;Breathed with a heart unfreighted, free,And laugh’d at the presumptuous airsThat with her muslins folded me;Till, one vague rack along my sky,The thought that she might ne’er be mineLay half forgotten by the eyeSo feasted with the sun’s warm shine.
By the great stones we chose our groundFor shade; and there, in converse sweet,Took luncheon. On a little moundSat the three ladies; at their feetI sat; and smelt the heathy smell,Pluck’d harebells, turn’d the telescopeTo the country round. My life went well,For once, without the wheels of hope;And I despised the Druid rocksThat scowl’d their chill gloom from above,Like churls whose stolid wisdom mocksThe lightness of immortal love.And, as we talk’d, my spirit quaff’dThe sparkling winds; the candid skiesAt our untruthful strangeness laugh’d;I kiss’d with mine her smiling eyes;And sweet familiarness and awePrevail’d that hour on either part,And in the eternal light I sawThat she was mine; though yet my heartCould not conceive, nor would confessSuch contentation; and there grewMore form and more fair statelinessThan heretofore between us two.
Manmust be pleased; but him to pleaseIs woman’s pleasure; down the gulfOf his condoled necessitiesShe casts her best, she flings herself.How often flings for nought, and yokesHer heart to an icicle or whim,Whose each impatient word provokesAnother, not from her, but him;While she, too gentle even to forceHis penitence by kind replies,Waits by, expecting his remorse,With pardon in her pitying eyes;And if he once, by shame oppress’d,A comfortable word confers,She leans and weeps against his breast,And seems to think the sin was hers;And whilst his love has any life,Or any eye to see her charms,At any time, she’s still his wife,Dearly devoted to his arms;She loves with love that cannot tire;And when, ah woe, she loves alone,Through passionate duty love springs higher,As grass grows taller round a stone.
Is nature in thee too spiritless,Ignoble, impotent, and dead,To prize her love and lovelinessThe more for being thy daily bread?And art thou one of that vile crewWhich see no splendour in the sun,Praising alone the good that’s new,Or over, or not yet begun?And has it dawn’d on thy dull witsThat love warms many as soft a nest,That, though swathed round with benefits,Thou art not singularly blest?And fail thy thanks for gifts divine,The common food of many a heart,Because they are not only thine?Beware lest in the end thou artCast for thy pride forth from the fold,Too good to feel the common graceOf blissful myriads who beholdFor evermore the Father’s face.
Give thanks. It is not time misspent;Worst fare this betters, and the best,Wanting this natural condiment,Breeds crudeness, and will not digest.The grateful love the Giver’s law;But those who eat, and look no higher,From sin or doubtful sanction drawThe biting sauce their feasts require.Give thanks for nought, if you’ve no more,And, having all things, do not doubtThat nought, with thanks, is blest beforeWhate’er the world can give, without.
Endow the fool with sun and moon,Being his, he holds them mean and low,But to the wise a little boonIs great, because the giver’s so.
I stood by Honor and the Dean,They seated in the London train.A month from her! yet this had been,Ere now, without such bitter pain.But neighbourhood makes parting light,And distance remedy has none;Alone, she near, I felt as mightA blind man sitting in the sun;She near, all for the time was well;Hope’s self, when we were far apart,With lonely feeling, like the smellOf heath on mountains, fill’d my heart.To see her seem’d delight’s full scope,And her kind smile, so clear of care,Ev’n then, though darkening all my hope,Gilded the cloud of my despair.
She had forgot to bring a book.I lent one; blamed the print for old;And did not tell her that she tookA Petrarch worth its weight in gold.I hoped she’d lose it; for my loveWas grown so dainty, high, and nice,It prized no luxury aboveThe sense of fruitless sacrifice.
The bell rang, and, with shrieks like death,Link catching link, the long array,With ponderous pulse and fiery breath,Proud of its burthen, swept away;And through the lingering crowd I broke,Sought the hill-side, and thence, heart-sick,Beheld, far off, the little smokeAlong the landscape kindling quick.
What should I do, where should I go,Now she was gone, my love! for mineShe was, whatever here belowCross’d or usurp’d my right divine.Life, without her, was vain and gross,The glory from the world was gone,And on the gardens of the CloseAs on Sahara shone the sun.Oppress’d with her departed grace,My thoughts on ill surmises fed;The harmful influence of the placeShe went to fill’d my soul with dread.She, mixing with the people there,Might come back alter’d, having caughtThe foolish, fashionable airOf knowing all, and feeling nought.Or, giddy with her beauty’s praise,She’d scorn our simple country life,Its wholesome nights and tranquil days.And would not deign to be my Wife.‘My Wife,’ ‘my Wife,’ ah, tenderest word!How oft, as fearful she might hear,Whispering that name of ‘Wife,’ I heardThe chiming of the inmost sphere.
I pass’d the home of my regret.The clock was striking in the hall,And one sad window open yet,Although the dews began to fall.Ah, distance show’d her beauty’s scope!How light of heart and innocentThat loveliness which sicken’d hopeAnd wore the world for ornament!How perfectly her life was framed;And, thought of in that passionate mood,How her affecting graces shamedThe vulgar life that was but good!
I wonder’d, would her bird be fed,Her rose-plots water’d, she not by;Loading my breast with angry dreadOf light, unlikely injury.So, fill’d with love and fond remorse,I paced the Close, its every partEndow’d with reliquary forceTo heal and raise from death my heart.How tranquil and unsecularThe precinct! Once, through yonder gate,I saw her go, and knew from farHer love-lit form and gentle state.Her dress had brush’d this wicket; hereShe turn’d her face, and laugh’d, with lightLike moonbeams on a wavering mere.Weary beforehand of the night,I went; the blackbird, in the woodTalk’d by himself, and eastward grewIn heaven the symbol of my mood,Where one bright star engross’d the blue.
WouldWisdom for herself be woo’d,And wake the foolish from his dream,She must be glad as well as good,And must not only be, but seem.Beauty and joy are hers by right;And, knowing this, I wonder lessThat she’s so scorn’d, when falsely dightIn misery and ugliness.What’s that which Heaven to man endears,And that which eyes no sooner seeThan the heart says, with floods of tears,‘Ah, that’s the thing which I would be!’Not childhood, full of frown and fret;Not youth, impatient to disownThose visions high, which to forgetWere worse than never to have known;Not worldlings, in whose fair outsideNor courtesy nor justice fails,Thanks to cross-pulling vices tied,Like Samson’s foxes, by the tails;Not poets; real things are dreams,When dreams are as realities,And boasters of celestial gleamsGo stumbling aye for want of eyes;Not patriots or people’s men,In whom two worse-match’d evils meetThan ever sought Adullam’s den,Base conscience and a high conceit;Not new-made saints, their feelings iced,Their joy in man and nature gone,Who sing ‘O easy yoke of Christ!’But find ’tis hard to get it on;Not great men, even when they’re good;The good man whom the time makes great,By some disgrace of chance or blood,God fails not to humiliate;Not these: but souls, found here and there,Oases in our waste of sin,Where everything is well and fair,And Heav’n remits its discipline;Whose sweet subdual of the worldThe worldling scarce can recognise,And ridicule, against it hurl’d,Drops with a broken sting and dies;Who nobly, if they cannot knowWhether a ’scutcheon’s dubious fieldCarries a falcon or a crow,Fancy a falcon on the shield;Yet, ever careful not to hurtGod’s honour, who creates success,Their praise of even the best desertIs but to have presumed no less;Who, should their own life plaudits bring,Are simply vex’d at heart that suchAn easy, yea, delightful thingShould move the minds of men so much.They live by law, not like the fool,But like the bard, who freely singsIn strictest bonds of rhyme and rule,And finds in them, not bonds, but wings.Postponing still their private easeTo courtly custom, appetite,Subjected to observances,To banquet goes with full delight;Nay, continence and gratitudeSo cleanse their lives from earth’s alloy,They taste, in Nature’s common food,Nothing but spiritual joy.They shine like Moses in the face,And teach our hearts, without the rod,That God’s grace is the only grace,And all grace is the grace of God.
Love, kiss’d by Wisdom, wakes twice Love,And Wisdom is, thro’ loving, wise.Let Dove and Snake, and Snake and Dove,This Wisdom’s be, that Love’s device.
I woke at three; for I was bidTo breakfast with the Dean at nine,And thence to Church. My curtain slid,I found the dawning Sunday fine,And could not rest, so rose. The airWas dark and sharp; the roosted birdsCheep’d, ‘Here am I, Sweet; are you there?’On Avon’s misty flats the herdsExpected, comfortless, the day,Which slowly fired the clouds above;The cock scream’d, somewhere far away;In sleep the matrimonial doveWas crooning; no wind waked the wood,Nor moved the midnight river-damps,Nor thrill’d the poplar; quiet stoodThe 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 clearBy stillness, as a face by death.
My pray’rs for her being done, I tookOccasion by the quiet hourTo find and know, by Rule and Book,The rights of love’s beloved power.
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 requiredAs now should once for all destroyThe folly which at times desiredA sanction for so great a joy.
Thenceforth, and through that pray’r, I trodA 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 lessHer 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 lightWithout a name, by which the rareAnd virtuous spirit flamed to sight.If oft, in love, effect lack’d causeAnd cause effect, ’twere vain to soarReasons to seek for that which wasReason itself, or something more.My joy was no idolatryUpon the ends of the vile earth bent,For when I loved her most then IMost 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’dNo selfish thought, or earthly smirch;And forth I went, in peace, and proudTo take my passion into Church;Grateful and glad to think that allSuch doubts would seem entirely vainTo her whose nature’s lighter fallMade no divorce of heart from brain.
I found them, with exactest graceAnd fresh as Spring, for Spring attired;And by the radiance in her faceI 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 towerWas noisy with the finish’d chime.
Her soft voice, singularly heardBeside me, in her chant, withstoodThe roar of voices, like a birdSole warbling in a windy wood;And, when we knelt, she seem’d to beAn angel teaching me to pray;And all through the high LiturgyMy spirit rejoiced without allay,Being, for once, borne clearly aboveAll 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 partWinnow’d away and purifiedBy the vibrations of my heart.
Thewoman’s gentle mood o’ersteptWithers my love, that lightly scansThe rest, and does in her acceptAll 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, stillPreserves a woman’s gentleness;For thus I think, if one I seeWho 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 fearTo err by doltish disrespect,Imputes love’s great regard, and says,‘Though unapparent ’tis to me,Be sure this Queen some other swaysWith well-perceiv’d supremacy.’Behold the worst! Light from aboveOn 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 nameOr place in all the honour’d hostOf 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 heightWhich makes thy casting down so great.Good is thy lot in its degree;For hearts that verily repentAre burden’d with impunityAnd 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 bearWhich follows soonest on the sin;And guilt’s a game where losers fareBetter than those who seem to win.
’Tis truth (although this truth’s a starToo deep-enskied for all to see),As poets of grammar, lovers areThe 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 daysWho takes with thanks, and never seeks.
The wrong is made and measured byThe right’s inverted dignity.Change love to shame, as love is highSo 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 menForget the heavens from which they fall.
Lest sacred love your soul ensnare,With pious fancy still infer‘How loving and how lovely fairMust He be who has fashion’d her!’
Become whatever good you see,Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from viewThe grace of which you may not beThe subject and spectator too.
Love’s perfect blossom only blowsWhere noble manners veil defectAngels maybe familiar; thoseWho 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 swineConsummates all incontinence.
Not to unveil before the gazeOf an imperfect sympathyIn aught we are, is the sweet praiseAnd the main sum of modesty.
‘My memory of Heaven awakes!She’s not of the earth, although her light,As lantern’d by her body, makesA piece of it past bearing bright.So innocently proud and fairShe is, that Wisdom sings for gleeAnd Folly dies, breathing one airWith such a bright-cheek’d chastity;And though her charms are a strong lawCompelling all men to admire,They go so clad with lovely aweNone but the noble dares desire.He who would seek to make her hisWill comprehend that souls of graceOwn sweet repulsion, and that ’tisThe quality of their embraceTo be like the majestic reachOf coupled suns, that, from afar,Mingle their mutual spheres, while eachCircles the twin obsequious star;And, in the warmth of hand to hand,Of heart to heart, he’ll vow to noteAnd reverently understandHow 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 observeThe space which makes attraction felt;Nor cease to guard like life the senseWhich tells him that the embrace of loveIs o’er a gulf of differenceLove cannot sound, nor death remove.’
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.
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 powerOf my, till then, unblemish’d joy.My passion, for reproof, that hourTasted 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 myselfObliviously about her neck.I press’d her hand, by will or chanceI know not, but I saw the raysWithdrawn, which did till then enhanceHer fairness with its thanks for praise.I knew my spirit’s vague offenceWas patent to the dreaming eyeAnd 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 kneeI 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 allThe brighter through the tears of ruth.
Nor was my hope that night made less,Though order’d, humbled, and reproved;Her farewell did her heart expressAs 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 creditedThat influence had to me been givenTo affect her so, I should have saidThat, though she from herself conceal’dLove’s felt delight and fancied harm,They made her face the jousting fieldOf joy and beautiful alarm.
Shewearies with an ill unknown;In sleep she sobs and seems to float,A water-lily, all aloneWithin a lonely castle-moat;And as the full-moon, spectral, liesWithin the crescent’s gleaming arms,The present shows her heedless eyesA future dim with vague alarms.She sees, and yet she scarcely sees,For, life-in-life not yet begun,Too many are its mysteriesFor thought to fix on any one.She’s told that maidens are by youthsExtremely 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 conferHis 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;He comes about her like a mist,With subtle, swift, unseen increase;And then, unlook’d for, strikes amainSome stroke that frightens her to death,And grows all harmlessness again,Ere she can cry, or get her breath.At times she stops, and stands at bay;But he, in all more strong than she,Subdues her with his pale dismay,Or more admired audacity.She plans some final, fatal blow,But when she means with frowns to kill,He looks as if he loved her so,She smiles to him against her will.How sweetly he implies her praise!His tender talk, his gentle tone,The manly worship in his gaze,They nearly make her heart his own.With what an air he speaks her name;His manner always recollectsHer sex, and still the woman’s claimIs taught its scope by his respects.Her charms, perceived to prosper firstIn his beloved advertencies,When in her glass they are rehearsed,Prove his most powerful allies.Ah, whither shall a maiden flee,When a bold youth so swift pursues,And siege of tenderest courtesy,With hope perseverant, still renews!Why fly so fast? Her flatter’d breastThanks him who finds her fair and good;She loves her fears; veil’d joys arrestThe foolish terrors of her blood;By secret, sweet degrees, her heart,Vanquish’d, takes warmth from his desire;She makes it more, with hidden art,And fuels love’s late dreaded fire.The generous credit he accordsTo all the signs of good in herRedeems itself; his praiseful wordsThe virtues they impute confer.Her heart is thrice as rich in bliss,She’s three times gentler than before;He gains a right to call her his,Now she through him is so much more;’Tis heaven where’er she turns her head;’Tis music when she talks; ’tis airOn which, elate, she seems to tread,The convert of a gladder sphere!Ah, might he, when by doubts aggrieved,Behold his tokens next her breast,At all his words and sighs perceivedAgainst its blythe upheaval press’d!But still she flies. Should she be won,It must not be believed or thoughtShe yields; she’s chased to death, undone,Surprised, and violently caught.
The storm-cloud, whose portentous shadeFumes from a core of smother’d fire,His livery is whose worshipp’d maidDenies herself to his desire.Ah, grief that almost crushes life,To lie upon his lonely bed,And fancy her another’s wife!His brain is flame, his heart is lead.Sinking at last, by nature’s course,Cloak’d round with sleep from his despair,He does but sleep to gather forceThat goes to his exhausted care.He wakes renew’d for all the smart.His only Love, and she is wed!His fondness comes about his heart,As milk comes, when the babe is dead.The wretch, whom she found fit for scorn,His own allegiant thoughts despise;And far into the shining mornLazy with misery he lies.
This marks the Churl: when spousals crownHis selfish hope, he finds the grace,Which sweet love has for ev’n the clown,Was not in the woman, but the chace.
From little signs, like little stars,Whose faint impression on the senseThe very looking straight at mars,Or only seen by confluence;From instinct of a mutual thought,Whence sanctity of manners flow’d;From chance unconscious, and from whatConcealment, overconscious, show’d;Her hand’s less weight upon my arm,Her lowlier mien; that match’d with this;I found, and felt with strange alarmI stood committed to my bliss.
I grew assured, before I ask’d,That she’d be mine without reserve,And in her unclaim’d graces bask’d,At leisure, till the time should serve,With just enough of dread to thrillThe hope, and make it trebly dear;Thus loth to speak the word to killEither the hope or happy fear.
Till once, through lanes returning late,Her laughing sisters lagg’d behind;And, ere we reach’d her father’s gate,We paused with one presentient mind;And, in the dim and perfumed mist,Their coming stay’d, who, friends to me,And very women, loved to assistLove’s timid opportunity.
Twice rose, twice died my trembling word;The faint and frail Cathedral chimesSpake time in music, and we heardThe chafers rustling in the limes.Her dress, that touch’d me where I stood,The warmth of her confided arm,Her bosom’s gentle neighbourhood,Her pleasure in her power to charm;Her look, her love, her form, her touch,The least seem’d most by blissful turn,Blissful but that it pleased too much,And taught the wayward soul to yearn.It was as if a harp with wiresWas traversed by the breath I drew;And, oh, sweet meeting of desires,She, answering, own’d that she loved too.
Honoria was to be my bride!The hopeless heights of hope were scaledThe summit won, I paused and sigh’d,As if success itself had fail’d.It seem’d as if my lips approach’dTo touch at Tantalus’ reward,And rashly on Eden life encroach’d,Half-blinded by the flaming sword.The whole world’s wealthiest and its best,So fiercely sought, appear’d when found,Poor in its need to be possess’d,Poor from its very want of bound.My queen was crouching at my side,By love unsceptred and brought low,Her awful garb of maiden prideAll melted into tears like snow;The mistress of my reverent thought,Whose praise was all I ask’d of fame,In my close-watch’d approval soughtProtection as from danger and blame;Her soul, which late I loved to investWith pity for my poor desert,Buried its face within my breast,Like a pet fawn by hunters hurt.
Hersons pursue the butterflies,Her baby daughter mocks the dovesWith throbbing coo; in his fond eyesShe’s Venus with her little Loves;Her footfall dignifies the earth,Her form’s the native-land of grace,And, lo, his coming lights with mirthIts court and capital her face!Full proud her favour makes her lord,And that her flatter’d bosom knows.She takes his arm without a word,In lanes of laurel and of rose.Ten years to-day has she been his.He but begins to understand,He says, the dignity and blissShe gave him when she gave her hand.She, answering, says, he disenchantsThe past, though that was perfect; heRejoins, the present nothing wantsBut briefness to be ecstasy.He lands her charms; her beauty’s glowWins from the spoiler Time new rays;Bright looks reply, approving soBeauty’s elixir vitæ, praise.Upon a beech he bids her markWhere, ten years since, he carved her name;It grows there with the growing bark,And in his heart it grows the same.For that her soft arm presses hisClose to her fond, maternal breast;He tells her, each new kindness isThe effectual sum of all the rest!And, whilst the cushat, mocking, coo’d,They blest the days they had been wed,At cost of those in which he woo’d,Till everything was three times said;And words were growing vain, when Briggs,Factotum, Footman, Butler, Groom,Who press’d the cyder, fed the pigs,Preserv’d the rabbits, drove the brougham,And help’d, at need, to mow the lawns,And sweep the paths and thatch the hay,Here brought the Post down, Mrs. Vaughan’sSole rival, but, for once, to-day,Scarce look’d at; for the ‘Second Book,’Till this tenth festival kept close,Was thus commenced, while o’er them shookThe laurel married with the rose.
‘The pulse of War, whose bloody heatsSane purposes insanely work,Now with fraternal frenzy beats,And binds the Christian to the Turk,And shrieking fifes’—
But, with a roar,In rush’d the Loves; the tallest roll’dA hedgehog from his pinafore,Which saved his fingers; Baby, bold,Touch’d it, and stared, and scream’d for life,And stretch’d her hand for Vaughan to kiss,Who hugg’d his Pet, and ask’d his wife,‘Is this for love, or love for this?’But she turn’d pale, for, lo, the beast,Found stock-still in the rabbit-trap,And feigning so to be deceased,And laid by Frank upon her lap,Unglobed himself, and show’d his snout,And fell, scatt’ring the Loves amain,With shriek, with laughter, and with shout;And, peace at last restored again,The bard, who this untimely hitchBore with a calm magnanimous,(The hedgehog rolled into a ditch,And Venus sooth’d), proceeded thus:
Thepulse of War, whose bloody heatsSane purposes insanely work,Now with fraternal frenzy beats,And binds the Christian to the Turk,And shrieking fifes and braggart flags,Through quiet England, teach our breathThe courage corporate that dragsThe coward to heroic death.Too late for song! Who henceforth sings,Must fledge his heavenly flight with moreSong-worthy and heroic thingsThan hasty, home-destroying war.While might and right are not agreed,And battle thus is yet to wage,So long let laurels be the meedOf soldier as of poet sage;But men expect the Tale of Love,And weary of the Tale of Hate;Lift me, O Muse, myself above,And let the world no longer wait!
I saw three Cupids (so I dream’d),Who made three kites, on which were drawn,In letters that like roses gleam’d,‘Plato,’ ‘Anacreon,’ and ‘Vaughan.’The boy who held by Plato triedHis airy venture first; all sail,It heav’nward rush’d till scarce descried,Then pitch’d and dropp’d for want of tail.Anacreon’s Love, with shouts of mirthThat pride of spirit thus should fall,To his kite link’d a lump of earth,And, lo, it would not soar at all.Last, my disciple freighted hisWith a long streamer made of flowers,The children of the sod, and thisRose in the sun, and flew for hours.
The music of the Sirens foundUlysses weak, though cords were strong;But happier Orpheus stood unbound,And shamed it with a sweeter song.His mode be mine. Of Heav’n I ask,May I, with heart-persuading might,Pursue the Poet’s sacred taskOf superseding faith by sight,Till ev’n the witless Gadarene,Preferring Christ to swine, shall knowThat life is sweetest when it’s clean.To prouder folly let me showEarth by divine light made divine;And let the saints, who hear my word,Say, ‘Lo, the clouds begin to shineAbout the coming of the Lord!’
Till Eve was brought to Adam, heA solitary desert trod,Though in the great societyOf nature, angels, and of God.If one slight column counterweighsThe ocean, ’tis the Maker’s law,Who deems obedience better praiseThan sacrifice of erring awe.
What seems to us for us is true.The planet has no proper light,And yet, when Venus is in view,No primal star is half so bright.
What fortune did my heart foretell?What shook my spirit, as I woke,Like the vibration of a bellOf which I had not heard the stroke?Was it some happy vision shutFrom memory by the sun’s fresh ray?Was it that linnet’s song; or butA natural gratitude for day?Or the mere joy the senses weave,A wayward ecstasy of life?Then I remember’d, yester-eveI won Honoria for my Wife.
Forth riding, while as yet the dayWas dewy, watching Sarum Spire,Still beckoning me along my way,And growing every minute higher,I reach’d the Dean’s. One blind was down,Though nine then struck. My bride to be!And had she rested ill, my own,With thinking (oh, my heart!) of me?I paced the streets; a pistol chose,To guard my now important lifeWhen riding late from Sarum Close;At noon return’d. Good Mrs. Fife,To my, ‘The Dean, is he at home?’Said, ‘No, sir; but Miss Honor is;’And straight, not asking if I’d come,Announced me, ‘Mr. Felix, Miss,’To Mildred, in the Study. ThereWe talk’d, she working. We agreedThe day was fine; the Fancy-FairSuccessful; ‘Did I ever readDe Genlis?’ ‘Never.’ ‘Do! She heardI was engaged.’ ‘To whom?’ ‘Miss FryWas it the fact?’ ‘No!’ ‘On my word?’‘What scandal people talk’d!’ ‘Would IHold out this skein of silk.’ So pass’dI knew not how much time away.‘How were her sisters?’ ‘Well.’ At lastI summon’d heart enough to say,‘I hoped to have seen Miss Churchill too.’‘Miss Churchill, Felix! What is this?I said, and now I find ’tis true,Last night you quarrell’d! Here she is.’
She came, and seem’d a morning roseWhen ruffling rain has paled its blush;Her crown once more was on her brows;And, with a faint, indignant flush,And fainter smile, she gave her hand,But not her eyes, then sate apart,As if to make me understandThe honour of her vanquish’d heart.But I drew humbly to her side;And she, well pleased, perceiving meLiege ever to the noble prideOf her unconquer’d majesty,Once and for all put it away;The faint flush pass’d; and, thereupon,Her loveliness, which rather layIn light than colour, smiled and shone,Till sick was all my soul with bliss;Or was it with remorse and ireOf such a sanctity as thisSubdued by love to my desire?