Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heartAre not half known till they depart!Although I long’d, for many a year,To love with love that casts out fear,My Frederick’s kindness frighten’d me,And heaven seem’d less far off than he;And in my fancy I would traceA lady with an angel’s face,That made devotion simply debt,Till sick with envy and regret,And wicked grief that God should e’erMake women, and not make them fair.That me might love me more becauseAnother in his memory was,And that my indigence might beTo him what Baby’s was to me,The chief of charms, who could have thought?But God’s wise way is to give noughtTill we with asking it are tired;And when, indeed, the change desiredComes, lest we give ourselves the praise,It comes by Providence, not Grace;And mostly our thanks for granted pray’rsAre groans at unexpected cares,First Baby went to heaven, you know,And, five weeks after, Grace went, too,Then he became more talkative,And, stooping to my heart, would giveSigns of his love, which pleased me moreThan all the proofs he gave before;And, in that time of our great grief,We talk’d religion for relief;For, though we very seldom nameReligion, we now think the same!Oh, what a bar is thus removedTo loving and to being loved!For no agreement really isIn anything when none’s in this.Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press’dHis wife against his hearty breast,The interior difference seem’d to tearMy own, until I could not bearThe trouble. ’Twas a dreadful strife,And show’d, indeed, that faith is life.He never felt this. If he did,I’m sure it could not have been hid;For wives, I need not say to you,Can feel just what their husbands do,Without a word or look; but thenIt is not so, you know, with men.From that time many a Scripture textHelp’d me, which had, before, perplex’d.Oh, what a wond’rous word seem’d thisHe is my head, as Christ is his!None ever could have dared to seeIn marriage such a dignityFor man, and for his wife, still less,Such happy, happy lowliness,Had God himself not made it plain!This revelation lays the rein—If I may speak so—on the neckOf a wife’s love, takes thence the checkOf conscience, and forbids to doubtIts measure is to be withoutAll measure, and a fond excessIs here her rule of godliness.I took him not for love but fright;He did but ask a dreadful right.In this was love, that he loved meThe first, who was mere poverty.All that I know of love he taught;And love is all I know of aught.My merit is so small by his,That my demerit is my bliss.My life is hid with him in Christ,Never therefrom to be enticed;And in his strength have I such restAs when the baby on my breastFinds what it knows not how to seek,And, very happy, very weak,Lies, only knowing all is well,Pillow’d on kindness palpable.
Dear Saint, I’m still at High-Hurst Park.The house is fill’d with folks of mark.Honoria suits a good estateMuch better than I hoped. How fateLoads her with happiness and pride!And such a loving lord, beside!But between us, Sweet, everythingHas limits, and to build a wingTo this old house, when Courtholm standsEmpty upon his Berkshire lands,And all that Honor might be nearPapa, was buying love too dear.With twenty others, there are twoGuests here, whose names will startle you:Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Graham!I thought he stay’d away for shame.He and his wife were ask’d, you know,And would not come, four years ago.You recollect Miss Smythe found outWho she had been, and all aboutHer people at the Powder-mill;And how the fine Aunt tried to instilHaut ton, and how, at last poor JaneHad got so shy andgauchethat, whenThe Dockyard gentry came to sup,She always had to be lock’d up;And some one wrote to us and saidHer mother was a kitchen-maid.Dear Mary, you’ll be charm’d to knowItmustbe all a fib. But, oh,Sheisthe oddest little PetOn which my eyes were ever set!She’s sooutréeand naturalThat, when she first arrived, we allWonder’d, as when a robin comesIn through the window to eat crumbsAt breakfast with us. She has sense,Humility, and confidence;And, save in dressing just a thoughtGayer in colours than she ought,(To-day she looks a cross betweenGipsy and Fairy, red and green,)She always happens to do well.And yet one never quite can tellWhat shemightdo or utter next.Lord Clitheroe is much perplex’d.Her husband, every now and then,Looks nervous; all the other menAre charm’d. Yet she has neither grace,Nor one good feature in her face.Her eyes, indeed, flame in her head,Like very altar-fires to Fred,Whose steps she follows everywhereLike a tame duck, to the despairOf Colonel Holmes, who does his partTo break her funny little heart.Honor’s enchanted. ’Tis her viewThat people, if they’re good and true,And treated well, and let alone,Will kindly take to what’s their own,And always be original,Like children. Honor’s just like allThe rest of us! But, thinking so,’Tis well she miss’d Lord Clitheroe,Who hates originality,Though he puts up with it in me.Poor Mrs. Graham has never beenTo the Opera! You should have seenThe innocent way she told the EarlShe thought Plays sinful when a girl,And now she never had a chance!Frederick’s complacent smile and glanceTowards her, show’d me, past a doubt,Honoria had been quite cut out.’Tis very strange; for Mrs. Graham,Though Frederick’s fancy none can blame,Seems the last woman you’d have thoughtHerlover would have ever sought.She never reads, I find, nor goesAnywhere; so that I supposeShe got at all she ever knewBy growing up, as kittens do.Talking of kittens, by-the-bye,You have more influence than IWith dear Honoria. Get her, Dear,To be a little more severeWith those sweet Children. They’ve the runOf all the place. When school was done,Maud burst in, while the Earl was there,With ‘Oh, Mama, do be a bear!’Do you know, Dear, this odd wife of FredAdores his old Love in his stead!Sheisso nice, yet, I should say,Not quite the thing for every day.Wonders are wearying! Felix goesNext Sunday with her to the Close,And you will judge.Honoria asksAll Wiltshire Belles here; Felix basksLike Puss in fire-shine, when the roomIs thus aflame with female bloom.But then she smiles when most would pout;And so his lawless loves go outWith the last brocade. ’Tis not the same,I fear, with Mrs. Frederick Graham.Honoria should not have her here,—And this you might just hint, my Dear,—For Felix says he never sawSuch proof of what he holds for law,That ‘beauty is love which can be seen.’Whatever he by this may mean,Were it not dreadful if he fellIn love with her on principle!
Mother, I told you how, at first,I fear’d this visit to the Hurst.Fred must, I felt, be so distress’dBy aught in me unlike the restWho come here. But I find the placeDelightful; there’s such ease, and grace,And kindness, and all seem to beOn such a high equality.They have not got to think, you know,How far to make the money go.But Frederick says it’s less the expenseOf money, than of sound good-sense,Quickness to care what others feelAnd thoughts with nothing to conceal;Which I’ll teach Johnny. Mrs. VaughanWas waiting for us on the Lawn,And kiss’d and call’d me ‘Cousin.’ FredNeglected his old friends, she said.He laugh’d, and colour’d up at this.She was, you know, a flame of his;But I’m not jealous! Luncheon done,I left him, who had just begunTo talk about the Russian WarWith an old Lady, Lady Carr,—A Countess, but I’m more afraid,A great deal, of the Lady’s Maid,—And went with Mrs. Vaughan to seeThe pictures, which appear’d to beOf sorts of horses, clowns, and cowsCall’d Wouvermans and Cuyps and Dows.And then she took me up, to showHer bedroom, where, long years ago,A Queen slept. ’Tis all tapestriesOf Cupids, Gods, and Goddesses,And black, carved oak. A curtain’d doorLeads thence into her soft Boudoir,Where even her husband may but comeBy favour. He, too, has his room,Kept sacred to his solitude.Did I not think the plan was good?She ask’d me; but I said how smallOur house was, and that, after all,Though Frederick would not say his prayersAt night till I was safe upstairs,I thought it wrong to be so shyOf being good when I was by.‘Oh, you should humour him!’ she said,With her sweet voice and smile; and ledThe way to where the children ateTheir dinner, and Miss Williams sate.She’s only Nursery-Governess,Yet they consider her no lessThan Lord or Lady Carr, or me.Just think how happy she must be!The Ball-Room, with its painted skyWhere heavy angels seem to fly,Is a dull place; its size and gloomMake them prefer, for drawing-room,The Library, all done up newAnd comfortable, with a viewOf Salisbury Spire between the boughs.When she had shown me through the house,(I wish I could have let her knowThat she herself was half the show;Sheisso handsome, and so kind!)She fetch’d the children, who had dined;And, taking one in either hand,Show’d me how all the grounds were plann’d.The lovely garden gently slopesTo where a curious bridge of ropesCrosses the Avon to the Park.We rested by the stream, to markThe brown backs of the hovering trout.Frank tickled one, and took it outFrom under a stone. We saw his owls,And awkward Cochin-China fowls,And shaggy pony in the croft;And then he dragg’d us to a loft,Where pigeons, as he push’d the door,Fann’d clear a breadth of dusty floor,And set us coughing. I confessI trembled for my nice silk dress.I cannot think how Mrs. VaughanVentured with that which she had on,—A mere white wrapper, with a fewPlain trimmings of a quiet blue,But, oh, so pretty! Then the bellFor dinner rang. I look’d quite well(‘Quite charming,’ were the words Fred said,)With the new gown that I’ve had madeIamso proud of Frederick.He’s so high-bred and lordly-likeWith Mrs. Vaughan! He’s not quite soAt home with me; but that, you know,I can’t expect, or wish. ’Twould hurt,And seem to mock at my desert.Not but that I’m a duteous wifeTo Fred; but, in another life,Where all are fair that have been true,I hope I shall be graceful too,Like Mrs. Vaughan. And, now, good-bye!That happy thought has made me cry,And feel half sorry that my cough,In this fine air, is leaving off.
Honoria, trebly fair and mildWith added loves of lord and child,Is else unalter’d. Years, which wrongThe rest, touch not her beauty, youngWithin youth which rather seems her clime,Than aught that’s relative to time.How beyond hope was heard the prayerI offer’d in my love’s despair!Could any, whilst there’s any woe,Be wholly blest, then she were so.She is, and is aware of it,Her husband’s endless benefit;But, though their daily ways revealThe depth of private joy they feel,’Tis not their bearing each to eachThat does abroad their secret preach,But such a lovely good-intentTo all within their governmentAnd friendship as, ’tis well discern’d,Each of the other must have learn’d;For no mere dues of neighbourhoodEver begot so blest a mood.And fair, indeed, should be the fewGod dowers with nothing else to do,And liberal of their light, and freeTo show themselves, that all may see!For alms let poor men poorly giveThe meat whereby men’s bodies live;But they of wealth are stewards wiseWhose graces are their charities.The sunny charm about this homeMakes all to shine who thither come.My own dear Jane has caught its grace,And, honour’d, honours too the place.Across the lawn I lately walk’dAlone, and watch’d where mov’d and talk’d,Gentle and goddess-like of air,Honoria and some Stranger fair.I chose a path unblest by these;When one of the two Goddesses,With my Wife’s voice, but softer, said,‘Will you not walk with us, dear Fred?’She moves, indeed, the modest peerOf all the proudest ladies here.Unawed she talks with men who standAmong the leaders of the land,And women beautiful and wise,With England’s greatness in their eyes.To high, traditional good-sense,And knowledge ripe without pretence,And human truth exactly hitBy quiet and conclusive wit,Listens my little, homely Jane,Mistakes the points and laughs amain;And, after, stands and combs her hair,And calls me much the wittiest there!With reckless loyalty, dear Wife,She lays herself about my life!The joy I might have had of yoreI have not; for ’tis now no more,With me, the lyric time of youth,And sweet sensation of the truth.Yet, past my hope or purpose bless’d,In my chance choice let be confess’dThe tenderer Providence that rulesThe fates of children and of fools!I kiss’d the kind, warm neck that slept,And from her side this morning stepp’d,To bathe my brain from drowsy nightIn the sharp air and golden light.The dew, like frost, was on the pane.The year begins, though fair, to wane.There is a fragrance in its breathWhich is not of the flowers, but death;And green above the ground appearThe lilies of another year.I wander’d forth, and took my pathAmong the bloomless aftermath;And heard the steadfast robin singAs if his own warm heart were Spring.And watch’d him feed where, on the yew,Hung honey’d drops of crimson dew;And then return’d, by walls of peach,And pear-trees bending to my reach,And rose-beds with the roses gone,To bright-laid breakfast. Mrs. VaughanWas there, none with her. I confessI love her than of yore no less!But she alone was loved of old;Now love is twain, nay, manifold;For, somehow, he whose daily lifeAdjusts itself to one true wife,Grows to a nuptial, near degreeWith all that’s fair and womanly.Therefore, as more than friends, we met,Without constraint, without regret;The wedded yoke that each had donn’dSeeming a sanction, not a bond.
Your love lacks joy, your letter says.Yes; love requires the focal spaceOf recollection or of hope,E’er it can measure its own scope.Too soon, too soon comes Death to showWe love more deeply than we know!The rain, that fell upon the heightToo gently to be call’d delight,Within the dark vale reappearsAs a wild cataract of tears;And love in life should strive to seeSometimes what love in death would be!Easier to love, we so should find.It is than to be just and kind.She’s gone: shut close the coffin-lid:What distance for another didThat death has done for her! The goodOnce gazed upon with heedless mood,Now fills with tears the famish’d eye,And turns all else to vanity.’Tis sad to see, with death between,The good we have pass’d and have not seen!How strange appear the words of all!The looks of those that live appal.They are the ghosts, and check the breath:There’s no reality but death,And hunger for some signal givenThat we shall have our own in heaven.But this the God of love lets beA horrible uncertainty.How great her smallest virtue seems,How small her greatest fault! Ill dreamsWere those that foil’d with loftier graceThe homely kindness of her face.’Twas here she sat and work’d, and thereShe comb’d and kiss’d the children’s hair;Or, with one baby at her breast,Another taught, or hush’d to rest.Praise does the heart no more refuseTo the chief loveliness of use.Her humblest good is hence most highIn the heavens of fond memory;And Love says Amen to the word,A prudent wife is from the Lord.Her worst gown’s kept, (’tis now the best,As that in which she oftenest dress’d,)For memory’s sake more precious grownThan she herself was for her own.Poor child! Foolish it seem’d to flyTo sobs instead of dignity,When she was hurt. Now, none than all,Heart-rending and angelicalThat ignorance of what to do,Bewilder’d still by wrong from you:For what man ever yet had graceNe’er to abuse his power and place?No magic of her voice or smileSuddenly raised a fairy isle,But fondness for her underwentAn unregarded increment,Like that which lifts, through centuries,The coral-reef within the seas,Till, lo! the land where was the wave.Alas! ’tis everywhere her grave.
Dear Mother, I can surely tell,Now, that I never shall get wellBesides the warning in my mind,All suddenly are grown so kind.Fred stopp’d the Doctor, yesterday,Downstairs, and, when he went away,Came smiling back, and sat with me,Pale, and conversing cheerfullyAbout the Spring, and how my cough,In finer weather, would leave off.I saw it all, and told him plainI felt no hope of Spring again.Then he, after a word of jest,Burst into tears upon my breast,And own’d, when he could speak, he knewThere was a little danger, too.This made me very weak and ill,And while, last night, I lay quite still,And, as he fancied, in the deep,Exhausted rest of my short sleep,I heard, or dream’d I heard him pray:‘Oh, Father, take her not away!Let not life’s dear assurance lapseInto death’s agonised “Perhaps,”A hope without Thy promise, whereLess than assurance is despair!Give me some sign, if go she must,That death’s not worse than dust to dust,Not heaven, on whose oblivious shoreJoy I may have, but her no more!The bitterest cross, it seems to me,Of all is infidelity;And so, if I may choose, I’ll missThe kind of heaven which comes to this.If doom’d, indeed, this fever ceased,To die out wholly, like a beast,Forgetting all life’s ill successIn dark and peaceful nothingness,I could but say, Thy will be done;For, dying thus, I were but oneOf seed innumerable which ne’erIn all the worlds shall bloom or bear.I’ve put life past to so poor useWell may’st Thou life to come refuse;And justice, which the spirit contents,Shall still in me all vain laments;Nay, pleased, I will, while yet I live,Think Thou my forfeit joy may’st giveTo some fresh life, else unelect,And heaven not feel my poor defect!Only let not Thy method beTo make that life, and call it me;Still less to sever mine in twain,And tell each half to live again,And count itself the whole! To die,Is it love’s disintegrity?Answer me, “No,” and I, with grace,Will life’s brief desolation face,My ways, as native to the clime,Adjusting to the wintry time,Ev’n with a patient cheer thereof—’He started up, hearing me cough.Oh, Mother, now my last doubt’s gone!He likes memorethan Mrs. Vaughan;And death, which takes me from his side,Shows me, in very deed, his bride!
I leave this, Dear, for you to read,For strength and hope, when I am dead.When Grace died, I was so perplex’d,I could not find one helpful text;And when, a little while before,I saw her sobbing on the floor,Because I told her that in heavenShe would be as the angels even,And would not want her doll, ’tis trueA horrible fear within me grew,That, since the preciousness of loveWent thus for nothing, mine might proveTo be no more, and heaven’s blissSome dreadful good which is not this.But being about to die makes clearMany dark things. I have no fear,Now that my love, my grief, my joyIs but a passion for a toy.I cannot speak at all, I find,The shining something in my mindThat shows so much that, if I tookMy thoughts all down, ’twould make a book.God’s Word, which lately seem’d aboveThe simpleness of human love,To my death-sharpen’d hearing tellsOf little or of nothing else;And many things I hoped were true,When first they came, like songs, from you,Now rise with witness past the reachOf doubt, and I to you can teach,As if with felt authorityAnd as things seen, what you taught me.Yet how? I have no words but thoseWhich every one already knows:As, ‘No man hath at any timeSeen God, but ’tis the love of HimMade perfect, and He dwells in us,If we each other love.’ Or thus,‘My goodness misseth in extentOf Thee, Lord! In the excellentI know Thee; and the Saints on EarthMake all my love and holy mirth.’And further, ‘Inasmuch as yeDid it to one of these, to MeYe did it, though ye nothing thoughtNor knew of Me, in that ye wrought.’What shall I dread? Will God undoOur bond, which is all others too?And when I meet you will you sayTo my reclaiming looks, ‘Away!A dearer love my bosom warmsWith higher rights and holier charms.The children, whom thou here may’st see,Neighbours that mingle thee and me,And gaily on impartial lyresRenounce the foolish filial firesThey felt, with “Praise to God on high,Goodwill to all else equally;”The trials, duties, service, tears;The many fond, confiding yearsOf nearness sweet with thee apart;The joy of body, mind, and heart;The love that grew a reckless growth,Unmindful that the marriage-oathTo love in an eternal styleMeant—only for a little while:Sever’d are now those bonds earth-wrought;All love, not new, stands here for nought!’Why, it seems almost wicked, Dear,Even to utter such a fear!Are we not ‘heirs,’ as man and wife,‘Together of eternal life?’Was Paradise e’er meant to fade,To make which marriage first was made?Neither beneath him nor aboveCould man in Eden find his Love;Yet with him in the garden walk’dHis God, and with Him mildly talk’d!Shall the humble preference offendIn Heaven, which God did there commend?Are ‘Honourable and undefiled’The names of aught from heaven exiled?And are we not forbid to grieveAs without hope? Does God deceive,And call that hope which is despair,Namely, the heaven we should not share!Image and glory of the man,As he of God, is woman. CanThis holy, sweet proportion dieInto a dull equality?Are we not one flesh, yea, so farMore than the babe and mother are,That sons are bid mothers to leaveAnd to their wives alone to cleave,‘Fortheytwo are one flesh!’ But ’tisIn the flesh we rise. Our union is,You know ’tis said, ‘great mystery.’Great mockery, it appears to me;Poor image of the spousal bondOf Christ and Church, if loosed beyondThis life!—’Gainst which, and much more yet,There’s not a single word to set.The speech to the scoffing SadduceeIs not in point to you and me;For how could Christ have taught such clodsThat Caesar’s things are also God’s?The sort of Wife the Law could makeMight well be ‘hated’ for Love’s sake,And left, like money, land, or house;For out of Christ is no true spouse.I used to think it strange of HimTo make love’s after-life so dim,Or only clear by inference:But God trusts much to common sense,And only tells us what, withoutHis Word, we could not have found outOn fleshly tables of the heartHe penn’d truth’s feeling counterpartIn hopes that come to all: so, Dear,Trust these, and be of happy cheer,Nor think that he who has loved wellIs of all men most miserable.There’s much more yet I want to say,But cannot now. You know my wayOf feeling strong from Twelve till TwoAfter my wine. I’ll write to youDaily some words, which you shall haveTo break the silence of the grave.
You think, perhaps, ‘Ah, could she knowHow much I loved her!’ Dear, I do!And you may say, ‘Of this new aweOf heart which makes her fancies law,These watchful duties of despair,She does not dream, she cannot care!’Frederick, you see how false that is,Or how could I have written this?And, should it ever cross your mindThat, now and then, you were unkind.You never, never, were at all!Remember that! It’s naturalFor one like Mr. Vaughan to come,From a morning’s useful pastime, home,And greet, with such a courteous zestHis handsome wife, still newly dress’d,As if the Bird of ParadiseShould daily change her plumage thrice.He’s always well, she’s always gay.Of course! But he who toils all day,And comes home hungry, tired, or cold,And feels ’twould do him good to scoldHis wife a little, let him trustHer love, and say the things he must,Till sooth’d in mind by meat and rest.If, after that, she’s well caress’d,And told how good she is, to bearHis humour, fortune makes it fair.Women like men to be like men;That is, at least, just now and then.Thus, I have nothing to forgive,But those first years, (how could I live!)When, though I really did behaveSo stupidly, you never gaveOne unkind word or look at all:As if I was some animalYou pitied! Now in later life,You used me like a proper Wife.You feel, Dear, in your present mood,Your Jane, since she was kind and good,A child of God, a living soul,Was not so different, on the whole,From Her who had a little moreOf God’s best gifts: but, oh, be sure,My dear, dear Love, to take no blameBecause you could not feel the sameTowards me, living, as when dead.A hungry man must needs think breadSo sweet! and, only at their riseAnd setting, blessings, to thine eyes,Like the sun’s course, grow visible.If you are sad, remember well,Against delusions of despair,That memory sees things as they were,And not as they were misenjoy’d,And would be still, if aught destroy’dThe glory of their hopelessness:So that, in truth, you had me lessIn days when necessary zealFor my perfection made you feelMy faults the most, than now your loveForgets but where it can approve.You gain by loss, if that seem’d smallPossess’d, which, being gone, turns allSurviving good to vanity.Oh, Fred, this makes it sweet to die!Say to yourself: ‘’Tis comfort yetI made her that which I regret;And parting might have come to passIn a worse season; as it was,Love an eternal temper took,Dipp’d, glowing, in Death’s icy brook!’Or say, ‘On her poor feeble headThis might have fallen: ’tis mine instead!And so great evil sets me freeHenceforward from calamity.And, in her little children, too,How much for her I yet can do!’And grieve not for these orphans even;For central to the love of HeavenIs each child as each star to space.This truth my dying love has graceTo trust with a so sure content,I fear I seem indifferent.You must not think a child’s small heartCold, because it and grief soon part.Fanny will keep them all away,Lest you should hear them laugh and play.Before the funeral’s over. ThenI hope you’ll be yourself again,And glad, with all your soul, to findHow God thus to the sharpest windSuits the shorn lambs. Instruct them, Dear,For my sake, in His love and fear.And show now, till their journey’s done,Not to be weary they must run.Strive not to dissipate your griefBy any lightness. True reliefOf sorrow is by sorrow brought.And yet for sorrow’s sake, you oughtTo grieve with measure. Do not spendSo good a power to no good end!Would you, indeed, have memory stayIn the heart, lock up and put awayRelies and likenesses and allMusings, which waste what they recall.True comfort, and the only thingTo soothe without diminishingA prized regret, is to match here,By a strict life, God’s love severe.Yet, after all, by nature’s course,Feeling must lose its edge and force.Again you’ll reach the desert tractsWhere only sin or duty acts.But, if love always lit our path,Where were the trial of our faith?Oh, should the mournful honeymoonOf death be over strangely soon,And life-long resolutions, madeIn grievous haste, as quickly fade,Seeming the truth of grief to mock,Think, Dearest, ’tis not by the clockThat sorrow goes! A month of tearsIs more than many, many yearsOf common time. Shun, if you can,However, any passionate plan.Grieve with the heart; let not the headGrieve on, when grief of heart is dead:For all the powers of life defyA superstitions constancy.The only bond I hold you toIs that which nothing can undo.A man is not a young man twice;And if, of his young years, he liesA faithful score in one wife’s breast,She need not mind who has the rest.In this do what you will, dear Love,And feel quite sure that I approve.And, should it chance as it may be,Give her my wedding-ring from me;And never dream that you can errT’wards me by being good to her;Nor let remorseful thoughts destroyIn you the kindly flowering joyAnd pleasure of the natural life.But don’t forget your fond, dead Wife.And, Frederick, should you ever beTempted to think your love of meAll fancy, since it drew its breathSo much more sweetly after death,Remember that I never didA single thing you once forbid;All poor folks liked me; and, at the end,Your Cousin call’d me ‘Dearest Friend!’And, new, ’twill calm your grief to know,—You, who once loved Honoria so,—There’s kindness, that’s look’d kindly on,Between her Emily and John.Thus, in your children, you will wed!And John seemssomuch comforted,(Like Isaac whenhismother diedAnd fair Rebekah was his bride),By his new hope, for losing me!Soallis happiness, you see.And that reminds me how, last night,I dreamt of heaven, with great delight.A strange, kind Lady watch’d my face,Kiss’d me, and cried, ‘His hope found grace!’She bade me then, in the crystal floor,Look at myself, myself no more;And bright within the mirror shoneHonoria’s smile, and yet my own!‘And, when you talk, I hear,’ she sigh’d,‘How much he loved her! Many a brideIn heaven such countersemblance wearsThrough what Love deem’d rejected prayers.’She would have spoken still; but, lo,One of a glorious troop, aglowFrom some great work, towards her came,And she so laugh’d, ’twas such a flame,Aaron’s twelve jewels seem’d to mixWith the lights of the Seven Candlesticks.
My dearest Aunt, the Wedding-day,But for Jane’s loss, and you away,Was all a Bride from heaven could begSkies bluer than the sparrow’s egg.And clearer than the cuckoo’s call;And such a sun! the flowers allWith double ardour seem’d to blow!The very daisies were a show,Expanded with uncommon pride,Like little pictures of the Bride.Your Great-Niece and your Grandson werePerfection of a pretty pair.How well Honoria’s girls turn out,Although they never go about!Dear me, what trouble and expenseIt took to teach mine confidence!Hersgreet mankind as I’ve heard sayThat wild things do, where beasts of preyWere never known, nor any menHave met their fearless eyes till then.Their grave, inquiring trust to findAll creatures of their simple kindQuite disconcerts bold coxcombry,And makes less perfect candour shy.Ah, Mrs. Graham! people may scoff,But how your home-kept girls go off!How Hymen hastens to unbandThe waist that ne’er felt waltzer’s hand!At last I see my Sister’s right,And I’ve told Maud this very night,(But, oh, my daughters have such wills!)To knit, and only dance quadrilles.You say Fred never writes to youFrankly, as once he used to do,About himself; and you complainHe shared with none his grief for Jane.It all comes of the foolish frightMen feel at the word, hypocrite.Although, when first in love, sometimesThey rave in letters, talk, and rhymes,When once they find, as find they must,How hard ’tis to be hourly justTo those they love, they are dumb for shame,Where we, you see, talk on the same.Honoria, to whose heart aloneHe seems to open all his ownAt times, has tears in her kind eyes,After their private colloquies.He’s her most favour’d guest, and movesMy spleen by his impartial loves.His pleasure has some inner springDepending not on anything.Petting our Polly, none e’er smiledMore fondly on his favourite child;Yet, playing with his own, it isSomehow as if it were not his.He means to go again to sea,Now that the wedding’s over. HeWill leave to Emily and JohnThe little ones to practise on;And Major-domo, Mrs. Rouse,A dear old soul from Wilton House,Will scold the housemaids and the cook,Till Emily has learn’d to lookA little braver than a lambSurprised by dogs without its dam!Do, dear Aunt, use your influence,And try to teach some plain good senseTo Mary. ’Tis not yet too lateTo make her change her chosen stateOf single silliness. In truth,I fancy that, with fading youth,Her will now wavers. Yesterday,Though, till the Bride was gone away,Joy shone from Mary’s loving heart,I found her afterwards apart,Hysterically sobbing. IKnew much too well to ask her why.This marrying of Nieces dauntsThe bravest souls of maiden Aunts.Though Sisters’ children often blendSweetly the bonds of child and friend,They are but reeds to rest upon.When Emily comes back with John,Her right to go downstairs beforeAunt Mary will but be the moreObserved if kindly waived, and howShall these be as they were, when nowNiece has her John, and Aunt the senseOf her superior innocence?Somehow, all loves, however fond,Prove lieges of the nuptial bond;And she who dares at this to scoff,Finds all the rest in time drop off;While marriage, like a mushroom-ring,Spreads its sure circle every Spring.She twice refused George Vane, you know;Yet, when be died three years agoIn the Indian war, she put on gray,And wears no colours to this day.And she it is who chargesme,Dear Aunt, with ‘inconsistency!’
Cousin, my thoughts no longer tryTo cast the fashion of the sky.Imagination can extendScarcely in part to comprehendThe sweetness of our common foodAmbrosial, which ingratitudeAnd impious inadvertence waste,Studious to eat but not to taste.And who can tell what’s yet in storeThere, but that earthly things have moreOf all that makes their inmost bliss,And life’s an image still of this,But haply such a glorious oneAs is the rainbow of the sun?Sweet are your words, but, after allTheir mere reversal may befallThe partners of His glories whoDaily is crucified anew:Splendid privations, martyrdomsTo which no weak remission comesPerpetual passion for the goodOf them that feel no gratitude,Far circlings, as of planets’ fires,Round never-to-be-reach’d desires,Whatever rapturously sighsThat life is love, love sacrifice.All I am sure of heaven is this:Howe’er the mode, I shall not missOne true delight which I have known.Not on the changeful earth aloneShall loyalty remain unmovedT’wards everything I ever loved.So Heaven’s voice calls, like Rachel’s voiceTo Jacob in the field, ‘Rejoice!’Serve on some seven more sordid years,Too short for weariness or tears;Serve on; then, oh, Beloved, well-tried,Take me for ever as thy Bride!’
Charles does me honour, but ’twere vainTo reconsider now again,And so to doubt the clear-shown truthI sought for, and received, when youth,Being fair, and woo’d by one whose loveWas lovely, fail’d my mind to move.God bids them by their own will go,Who ask again the things they know!I grieve for my infirmity,And ignorance of how to beFaithful, at once to the heavenly life,And the fond duties of a wife.Narrow am I and want the artTo love two things with all my heart.Occupied singly in His search,Who, in the Mysteries of the Church,Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven,I tread a road, straight, hard, and even;But fear to wander all confused,By two-fold fealty abused.Either should I the one forget,Or scantly pay the other’s debt.You bid me, Father, count the cost.I have; and all that must be lostI feel as only woman can.To make the heart’s wealth of some man,And through the untender world to move,Wrapt safe in his superior love,How sweet! How sweet the household roundOf duties, and their narrow bound,So plain, that to transgress were hard,Yet full of manifest reward!The charities not marr’d, like mine,With chance of thwarting laws divine;The world’s regards and just delightIn one that’s clearly, kindly right,How sweet! Dear Father, I endure,Not without sharp regret, be sure,To give up such glad certainty,For what, perhaps, may never be.For nothing of my state I know,But that t’ward heaven I seem to go,As one who fondly landward hiesAlong a deck that seaward flies.With every year, meantime, some graceOf earthly happiness gives placeTo humbling ills, the very charmsOf youth being counted, henceforth, harms:To blush already seems absurd;Nor know I whether I should herdWith girls or wives, or sadlier balkMaids’ merriment or matrons’ talk.But strait’s the gate of life! O’er late,Besides, ’twere now to change my fate:For flowers and fruit of love to form,It must he Spring as well as warm.The world’s delight my soul dejects.Revenging all my disrespectsOf old, with incapacityTo chime with even its harmless glee,Which sounds, from fields beyond my range,Like fairies’ music, thin and strange.With something like remorse, I grantThe world has beauty which I want;And if, instead of judging it,I at its Council chance to sit,Or at its gay and order’d Feast,My place seems lower than the leastThe conscience of the life to beSmiles me with inefficiency,And makes me all unfit to blessWith comfortable earthlinessThe rest-desiring brain of man.Finally, them, I fix my planTo dwell with Him that dwells apartIn the highest heaven and lowliest heart;Nor will I, to my utter loss,Look to pluck roses from the Cross.As for the good of human love,’Twere countercheck almost enoughTo think that one must die beforeThe other; and perhaps ’tis moreIn love’s last interest to doNought the least contrary thereto,Than to be blest, and be unjust,Or suffer injustice; as they must,Without a miracle, whose pactCompels to mutual life and act,Whether love shines, or darkness sleepsCold on the spirit’s changeful deeps.Enough if, to my earthly share,Fall gleams that keep me from despair.Happy the things we here discern;More happy those for which we yearn;But measurelessly happy aboveAll else are those we guess not of!
Dearest, my Love and Wife, ’tis longAgo I closed the unfinish’d songWhich never could be finish’d; norWill ever Poet utter moreOf Love than I did, watching wellTo lure to speech the unspeakable!‘Why,having won her,do I woo?’That final strain to the last height flewOf written joy, which wants the smileAnd voice that are, indeed, the whileThey last, the very things you speak,Honoria, who mak’st music weakWith ways that say, ‘Shall I not beAs kind to all as Heaven to me?’And yet, ah, twenty-fold my Bride!Rising, this twentieth festal-tide,You still soft sleeping, on this dayOf days, some words I long to say,Some words superfluously sweetOf fresh assurance, thus to greetYour waking eyes, which never growWeary of telling what I knowSo well, yet only well enoughTo wish for further news thereof.Here, in this early autumn dawn,By windows opening on the lawn.Where sunshine seems asleep, though bright,And shadows yet are sharp with night,And, further on, the wealthy wheatBends in a golden drowse, how sweetTo sit and cast my careless looksAround my walls of well-read books,Wherein is all that stands redeem’dFrom time’s huge wreck, all men have dream’dOf truth, and all by poets knownOf feeling, and in weak sort shown,And, turning to my heart again,To find I have what makes them vain,The thanksgiving mind, which wisdom sums,And you, whereby it freshly comesAs on that morning, (can there beTwenty-two years ’twixt it and me?)When, thrill’d with hopeful love, I roseAnd came in haste to Sarum Close,Past many a homestead slumbering whiteIn lonely and pathetic light,Merely to fancy which drawn blindOf thirteen had my Love behind,And in her sacred neighbourhoodTo feel that sweet scorn of all goodBut her, which let the wise forfendWhen wisdom learns to comprehend!Dearest, as each returning MayI see the season new and gayWith new joy and astonishment,And Nature’s infinite ostentOf lovely flowers in wood and mead.That weet not whether any heed,So see I, daily wondering, you,And worship with a passion newThe Heaven that visibly allowsIts grace to go about my house,The partial Heaven, that, though I errAnd mortal am, gave all to herWho gave herself to me. Yet IBoldly thank Heaven, (and so defyThe beggarly soul’d humblenessWhich fears God’s bounty to confess,)That I was fashion’d with a mindSeeming for this great gift design’d,So naturally it moved aboveAll sordid contraries of love,Strengthen’d in youth with disciplineOf light, to follow the divineVision, (which ever to the darkIs such a plague as was the arkIn Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron,) stillDiscerning with the docile willWhich comes of full persuaded thought,That intimacy in love is noughtWithout pure reverence, whereas this,In tearfullest banishment, is bliss.And so, dearest Honoria, IHave never learn’d the weary sighOf those that to their love-feasts went,Fed, and forgot the Sacrament;And not a trifle now occursBut sweet initiation stirsOf new-discover’d joy, and lendsTo feeling change that never ends;And duties which the many irk,Are made all wages and no work.How sing of such things save to her,Love’s self, so love’s interpreter?How the supreme rewards confessWhich crown the austere voluptuousnessOf heart, that earns, in midst of wealth,The appetite of want and health,Relinquishes the pomp of lifeAnd beauty to the pleasant WifeAt home, and does all joy despiseAs out of place but in her eyes?How praise the years and gravityThat make each favour seem to beA lovelier weakness for her lord?And, ah, how find the tender wordTo tell aright of love that glowsThe fairer for the fading rose?Of frailty which can weight the armTo lean with thrice its girlish charm?Of grace which, like this autumn day,Is not the sad one of decay,Yet one whose pale brow ponderethThe far-off majesty of death?How tell the crowd, whom a passion rends,That love grows mild as it ascends?That joy’s most high and distant moodIs lost, not found in dancing blood;Albeit kind acts and smiling eyes,And all those fond realitiesWhich are love’s words, in us mean moreDelight than twenty years before?How, Dearest, finish without wrongTo the speechless heart, the unfinish’d song,Its high, eventful passagesConsisting, say, of things like these:—One morning, contrary to law,Which, for the most, we held in awe,Commanding either not to intrudeOn the other’s place of solitudeOr solitary mind, for fearOf coming there when God was near,And finding so what should be knownTo Him who is merciful alone,And views the working ferment baseOf waking flesh and sleeping grace,Not as we view, our kindness check’dBy likeness of our own defect,I, venturing to her room, because(Mark the excuse!) my Birthday ’twas,Saw, here across a careless chair,A ball-dress flung, as light as air,And, here, beside a silken couch,Pillows which did the pressure vouchOf pious knees, (sweet pietyOf goodness made and charity,If gay looks told the heart’s glad sense,Much rather than of penitence,)And, on the couch, an open book,And written list—I did not look,Yet just in her clear writing caught:—‘Habitual faults of life and thoughtWhich most I need deliverance from.’I turn’d aside, and saw her comeAdown the filbert-shaded way,Beautified with her usual gayHypocrisy of perfectness,Which made her heart, and mine no less,So happy! And she cried to me,‘You lose by breaking rules, you see!Your Birthday treat is now half-goneOf seeing my new ball-dress on.’And, meeting so my lovely Wife,A passing pang, to think that lifeWas mortal, when I saw her laugh,Shaped in my mind this epitaph:‘Faults had she, child of Adam’s stem.But only Heaven knew of them.’Or thus:For many a dreadful day,In sea-side lodgings sick she lay,Noteless of love, nor seem’d to hearThe sea, on one side, thundering near,Nor, on the other, the loud BallHeld nightly in the public hall;Nor vex’d they my short slumbers, thoughI woke up if she breathed too low.Thus, for three months, with terrors rife,The pending of her precious lifeI watched o’er; and the danger, at last,The kind Physician said, was past.Howbeit, for seven harsh weeks the EastBreathed witheringly, and Spring’s growth ceased,And so she only did not die;Until the bright and blighting skyChanged into cloud, and the sick flowersRemember’d their perfumes, and showersOf warm, small rain refreshing flewBefore the South, and the Park grew,In three nights, thick with green. Then sheRevived, no less than flower and tree,In the mild air, and, the fourth day,Looked supernaturally gayWith large, thanksgiving eyes, that shone,The while I tied her bonnet on,So that I led her to the glass,And bade her see how fair she was,And how love visibly could shine.Profuse of hers, desiring mine,And mindful I had loved her mostWhen beauty seem’d a vanish’d boast,She laugh’d. I press’d her then to me,Nothing but soft humility;Nor e’er enhanced she with such charmsHer acquiescence in my arms.And, by her sweet love-weakness madeCourageous, powerful, and glad.In a clear illustration highOf heavenly affection, IPerceived that utter love is allThe same as to be rational,And that the mind and heart of love,Which think they cannot do enough,Are truly the everlasting doorsWherethrough, all unpetition’d, poursThe eternal pleasance. Wherefore weHad innermost tranquillity,And breathed one life with such a senseOf friendship and of confidence,That, recollecting the sure word:‘If two of you are in accordOn earth, as touching any boonWhich ye shall ask, it shall be doneIn heaven,’ we ask’d that heaven’s blissMight ne’er be any less than this;And, for that hour, we seem’d to haveThe secret of the joy we gave.How sing of such things, save to her,Love’s self, so love’s interpreter?How read from such a homely pageIn the ear of this unhomely age?’Tis now as when the Prophet cried:‘The nation hast Thou multiplied,But Thou hast not increased the joy!’And yet, ere wrath or rot destroyOf England’s state the ruin fair,Oh, might I so its charm declare,That, in new Lands, in far-off years,Delighted he should cry that hears:‘Great is the Land that somewhat bestWorks, to the wonder of the rest!We, in our day, have better doneThis thing or that than any one;And who but, still admiring, seesHow excellent for imagesWas Greece, for laws how wise was Rome;But read this Poet, and say if homeAnd private love did e’er so smileAs in that ancient English isle!’
My dearest Niece, I’m charm’d to hearThe scenery’s fine at Windermere,And glad a six-weeks’ wife defersIn the least to wisdom not yet hers.But, Child, I’ve no advice to give!Rules only make it hard to live.And where’s the good of having beenWell taught from seven to seventeen,If, married, you may not leave off,And say, at last, ‘I’m good enough!’Weeding out folly, still leave some.It gives both lightness andaplomb.We know, however wise by rule,Woman is still by nature fool;And men have sense to like her allThe more when she is natural.’Tis true, that if we choose, we canMock to a miracle the man;But iron in the fire red hot,Though ’tis the heat, the fire ’tis not:And who, for such a feint, would pledgeThe babe’s and woman’s privilege,No duties and a thousand rights?Besides, defect love’s flow incites,As water in a well will runOnly the while ’tis drawn upon.‘Point de culte sans mystère,’ you say,‘And what if that should die away?’Child, never fear that either couldPull from Saint Cupid’s face the hood.The follies natural to eachSurpass the other’s moral reach.Just think how men, with sword and gun,Will really fight, and never run;And all in sport: they would have died,For sixpence more, on the other side!A woman’s heart must ever warmAt such odd ways: and so we charmBy strangeness which, the more they mark,The more men get into the dark.The marvel, by familiar life,Grows, and attaches to the wifeBy whom it grows. Thus, silly Girl,To John you’ll always be the pearlIn the oyster of the universe;And, though in time he’ll treat you worse,He’ll love you more, you need not doubt,And never, never find you out!My Dear, I know that dreadful thoughtThat you’ve been kinder than you ought.It almost makes you hate him! Yet’Tis wonderful how men forget,And how a merciful ProvidenceDeprives our husbands of all senseOf kindness past, and makes them deemWe always were what now we seem.For their own good we must, you knowHowever plain the way we go,Still make it strange with stratagem;And instinct tells us that, to them,’Tis always right to bate their price.Yet I must say they’re rather nice,And, oh, so easily taken inTo cheat them almost seems a sin!And, Dearest, ’twould be most unfairTo John your feelings to compareWith his, or any man’s; for sheWho loves at all loves always; he,Who loves far more, loves yet by fits,And, when the wayward wind remitsTo blow, his feelings faint and dropLike forge-flames when the bellows stop.Such things don’t trouble you at allWhen once you know they’re natural.My love to John; and, pray, my Dear,Don’t let me see you for a year;Unless, indeed, ere then you’ve learn’dThat Beauties wed are blossoms turn’dTo unripe codlings, meant to dwellIn modest shadow hidden well,Till this green stage again permuteTo glow of flowers with good of fruit.I will not have my patience triedBy your absurd new-married pride,That scorns the world’s slow-gather’d senseTies up the hands of Providence,Rules babes, before there’s hope of one,Better than mothers e’er have done,And, for your poor particular,Neglects delights and graces farBeyond your crude and thin conceit.Age has romance almost as sweetAnd much more generous than thisOf yours and John’s. With all the blissOf the evenings when you coo’d with himAnd upset home for your sole whim,You might have envied, were you wise,The tears within your Mother’s eyes,Which, I dare say, you did not see.But let that pass! Yours yet will be,I hope, as happy, kind, and trueAs lives which now seem void to you.Have you not seen shop-painters pasteTheir gold in sheets, then rub to wasteFull half, and, lo, you read the name?Well, Time, my Dear, does much the sameWith this unmeaning glare of love.But, though you yet may much improve,In marriage, be it still confess’d,There’s little merit at the best.Some half-a-dozen lives, indeed,Which else would not have had the need,Get food and nurture as the priceOf antedated Paradise;But what’s that to the varied wantSuccour’d by Mary, your dear Aunt,Who put the bridal crown thrice by,For that of which virginity,So used, has hope? She sends her love,As usual with a proof thereof—Papa’s discourse, which you, no doubt,Heard none of, neatly copied outWhilst we were dancing. All are well,Adieu, for there’s the Luncheon Bell.
The truths of Love are like the seaFor clearness and for mystery.Of that sweet love which, startling, wakesMaiden and Youth, and mostly breaksThe word of promise to the ear,But keeps it, after many a year,To the full spirit, how shall I speak?My memory with age is weak,And I for hopes do oft suspectThe things I seem to recollect.Yet who but must remember well’Twas this made heaven intelligibleAs motive, though ’twas small the powerThe heart might have, for even an hour.To hold possession of the heightOf nameless pathos and delight!
In Godhead rise, thither flow backAll loves, which, as they keep or lack.In their return, the course assign’d,Are virtue or sin. Love’s every kind.Lofty or low, of spirit or sense,Desire is, or benevolence.He who is fairer, better, higherThan all His works, claims all desire,And in His Poor, His Proxies, asksOur whole benevolence: He tasks,Howbeit, His People by their powers;And if, my Children, you, for hours,Daily, untortur’d in the heart,Can worship, and time’s other partGive, without rough recoils of sense,To the claims ingrate of indigence,Happy are you, and fit to beWrought to rare heights of sanctity,For the humble to grow humbler at.But if the flying spirit falls flat,After the modest spell of prayerThat saves the day from sin and care,And the upward eye a void descries,And praises are hypocrisies,And, in the soul, o’erstrain’d for grace,A godless anguish grows apace;Or, if impartial charitySeems, in the act, a sordid lie,Do not infer you cannot pleaseGod, or that He His promisesPostpones, but be content to loveNo more than He accounts enough.Account them poor enough who wantAny good thing which you can grant;And fathom well the depths of lifeIn loves of Husband and of Wife,Child, Mother, Father; simple keysTo what cold faith calls mysteries.
The love of marriage claims, aboveAll other kinds, the name of love,As perfectest, though not so highAs love which Heaven with single eyeConsiders. Equal and entire,Therein benevolence, desire,Elsewhere ill-join’d or found apart,Become the pulses of one heart,Which now contracts, and now dilates,And, both to the height exalting, matesSelf-seeking to self-sacrifice.Nay, in its subtle paradise(When purest) this one love unitesAll modes of these two opposites,All balanced in accord so richWho may determine which is which?Chiefly God’s Love does in it live,And nowhere else so sensitive;For each is all that the other’s eye,In the vague vast of Deity,Can comprehend and so containAs still to touch and ne’er to strainThe fragile nerves of joy. And then’Tis such a wise goodwill to menAnd politic economyAs in a prosperous State we see,Where every plot of common landIs yielded to some private handTo fence about and cultivate.Does narrowness its praise abate?Nay, the infinite of man is foundBut in the beating of its bound,And, if a brook its banks o’erpass,’Tis not a sea, but a morass.
No giddiest hope, no wildest guessOf Love’s most innocent loftinessHad dared to dream of its own worth,Till Heaven’s bold sun-gleam lit the earth.Christ’s marriage with the Church is more,My Children, than a metaphor.The heaven of heavens is symbol’d whereThe torch of Psyche flash’d despair.But here I speak of heights, and heightsAre hardly scaled. The best delightsOf even this homeliest passion, areIn the most perfect souls so rare,That they who feel them are as menSailing the Southern ocean, when,At midnight, they look up, and eyeThe starry Cross, and a strange skyOf brighter stars; and sad thoughts comeTo each how far he is from home.
Love’s inmost nuptial sweetness seeIn the doctrine of virginity!Could lovers, at their dear wish, blend,’Twould kill the bliss which they intend;For joy is love’s obedienceAgainst the law of natural sense;And those perpetual yearnings sweetOf lives which dream that they can meetAre given that lovers never mayBe without sacrifice to layOn the high altar of true love,With tears of vestal joy. To moveFrantic, like comets to our bliss,Forgetting that we always miss,And so to seek and fly the sun,By turns, around which love should run,Perverts the ineffable delightOf service guerdon’d with full sightAnd pathos of a hopeless want,To an unreal victory’s vaunt,And plaint of an unreal defeat.Yet no less dangerous misconceitMay also be of the virgin will,Whose goal is nuptial blessing still,And whose true being doth subsist,There where the outward forms are miss’d,In those who learn and keep the senseDivine of ‘due benevolence,’Seeking for aye, without alloyOf selfish thought, another’s joy,And finding in degrees unknownThat which in act they shunn’d, their own.For all delights of earthly loveAre shadows of the heavens, and moveAs other shadows do; they fleeFrom him that follows them; and heWho flies, for ever finds his feetEmbraced by their pursuings sweet.
Then, even in love humane, do INot counsel aspirations high,So much as sweet and regularUse of the good in which we are.As when a man along the waysWalks, and a sudden music plays,His step unchanged, he steps in time,So let your Grace with Nature chime.Her primal forces burst, like straws,The bonds of uncongenial laws.Right life is glad as well as just,And, rooted strong in ‘This I must,’It bears aloft the blossom gayAnd zephyr-toss’d, of ‘This I may;’Whereby the complex heavens rejoiceIn fruits of uncommanded choice.Be this your rule: seeking delightEsteem success the test of right;For ’gainst God’s will much may be done,But nought enjoy’d, and pleasures noneExist, but, like to springs of steel,Active no longer than they feelThe checks that make them serve the soul,They take their vigour from control.A man need only keep but wellThe Church’s indispensableFirst precepts, and she then allows,Nay, more, she bids him, for his spouse,Leave even his heavenly Father’s awe,At times, and His immaculate law,Construed in its extremer sense.Jehovah’s mild magnipotenceSmiles to behold His children playIn their own free and childish way,And can His fullest praise descryIn the exuberant libertyOf those who, having understoodThe glory of the Central Good,And how souls ne’er may match or merge,But as they thitherward converge,Take in love’s innocent gladness partWith infantine, untroubled heart,And faith that, straight t’wards heaven’s far Spring,Sleeps, like the swallow, on the wing.
Lovers, once married, deem their bondThen perfect, scanning nought beyondFor love to do but to sustainThe spousal hour’s delighted gain.But time and a right life aloneFulfil the promise then foreshown.The Bridegroom and the Bride withalAre but unwrought materialOf marriage; nay, so far is love,Thus crown’d, from being thereto enough,Without the long, compulsive aweOf duty, that the bond of lawDoes oftener marriage-love evoke,Than love, which does not wear the yokeOf legal vows, submits to beSelf-rein’d from ruinous liberty.Lovely is love; but age well knows’Twas law which kept the lover’s vowsInviolate through the year or yearsOf worship pieced with panic fears,When she who lay within his breastSeem’d of all women perhaps the best,But not the whole, of womankind,Or love, in his yet wayward mind,Had ghastly doubts its precious lifeWas pledged for aye to the wrong wife.Could it be else? A youth pursuesA maid, whom chance, not he, did choose,Till to his strange arms hurries sheIn a despair of modesty.Then, simply and without pretenceOf insight or experience,They plight their vows. The parents say‘We cannot speak them yea or nay;The thing proceedeth from the Lord!’And wisdom still approves their word;For God created so these twoThey match as well as others doThat take more pains, and trust Him lessWho never fails, if ask’d, to blessHis children’s helpless ignoranceAnd blind election of life’s chance.Verily, choice not matters much,If but the woman’s truly such,And the young man has led the lifeWithout which how shall e’er the wifeBe the one woman in the world?Love’s sensitive tendrils sicken, curl’dRound folly’s former stay; for ’tisThe doom of all unsanction’d blissTo mock some good that, gain’d, keeps stillThe taint of the rejected ill.
Howbeit, though both were perfect, sheOf whom the maid was prophecyAs yet lives not, and Love rebelsAgainst the law of any else;And, as a steed takes blind alarm,Disowns the rein, and hunts his harm,So, misdespairing word and actMay now perturb the happiest pact.The more, indeed, is love, the morePeril to love is now in store.Against it nothing can be doneBut only this: leave ill alone!Who tries to mend his wife succeedsAs he who knows not what he needs.He much affronts a worth as highAs his, and that equalityOf spirits in which abide the graceAnd joy of her subjected place;And does the still growth check and blurOf contraries, confusing herWho better knows what he desiresThan he, and to that mark aspiresWith perfect zeal, and a deep witWhich nothing helps but trusting it.So, loyally o’erlooking allIn which love’s promise short may fallOf full performance, honour thatAs won, which aye love worketh at!It is but as the pedigreeOf perfectness which is to beThat our best good can honour claim;Yet honour to deny were shameAnd robbery: for it is the mouldWherein to beauty runs the goldOf good intention, and the propThat lifts to the sun the earth-drawn cropOf human sensibilities.Such honour, with a conduct wiseIn common things, as, not to steepThe lofty mind of love in sleepOf over much familiarness;Not to degrade its kind caress,As those do that can feel no more,So give themselves to pleasures o’er;Not to let morning-sloth destroyThe evening-flower, domestic joy;Not by uxoriousness to chillThe warm devotion of her willWho can but half her love conferOn him that cares for nought but her;—These, and like obvious prudenciesObserved, he’s safest that relies,For the hope she will not always seem,Caught, but a laurel or a stream,On time; on her unsearchableLove-wisdom; on their work done well,Discreet with mutual aid; on mightOf shared affliction and delight;On pleasures that so childish beThey’re ’shamed to let the children see,By which life keeps the valleys lowWhere love does naturally grow;On much whereof hearts have account,Though heads forget; on babes, chief fountOf union, and for which babes areNo less than this for them, nay farMore, for the bond of man and wifeTo the very verge of future lifeStrengthens, and yearns for brighter day,While others, with their use, decay;And, though true marriage purpose keepsOf offspring, as the centre sleepsWithin the wheel, transmitting thenceFury to the circumference,Love’s self the noblest offspring is,And sanction of the nuptial kiss;Lastly, on either’s primal curse,Which help and sympathy reverseTo blessings.
God, who may be wellJealous of His chief miracle,Bids sleep the meddling soul of man,Through the long process of this plan,Whereby, from his unweeting side,The Wife’s created, and the Bride,That chance one of her strange, sweet sexHe to his glad life did annex,Grows more and more, by day and night,The one in the whole world oppositeOf him, and in her nature allSo suited and reciprocalTo his especial form of sense,Affection, and intelligence,That, whereas love at first had strangeRelapses into lust of change,It now finds (wondrous this, but true!)The long-accustom’d only new,And the untried common; and, whereasAn equal seeming danger wasOf likeness lacking joy and force,Or difference reaching to divorce,Now can the finish’d lover seeMarvel of me most far from me,Whom without pride he may admire,Without Narcissus’ doom desire,Serve without selfishness, and love‘Even as himself,’ in sense aboveNiggard ‘as much,’ yea, as she isThe only part of him that’s his.
I do not say love’s youth returns;That joy which so divinely yearns!But just esteem of present goodShows all regret such gratitudeAs if the sparrow in her nest,Her woolly young beneath her breast,Should these despise, and sorrow forHer five blue eggs that are no more.Nor say I the fruit has quite the scopeOf the flower’s spiritual hope.Love’s best is service, and of this,Howe’er devout, use dulls the bliss.Though love is all of earth that’s dear,Its home, my Children, is not here:The pathos of eternityDoes in its fullest pleasure sigh.Be grateful and most glad thereof.Parting, as ’tis, is pain enough.If love, by joy, has learn’d to givePraise with the nature sensitive,At last, to God, we then possessThe end of mortal happiness,And henceforth very well may waitThe unbarring of the golden gate,Wherethrough, already, faith can seeThat apter to each wish than weIs God, and curious to blessBetter than we devise or guess;Not without condescending craftTo disappoint with bliss, and waftOur vessels frail, when worst He mocksThe heart with breakers and with rocks,To happiest havens. You have heardYour bond death-sentenced by His Word.What, if, in heaven, the name be o’er,Because the thing is so much more?All are, ’tis writ, as angels there,Nor male nor female. Each a stairIn the hierarchical ascentOf active and recipientAffections, what if all are bothBy turn, as they themselves betrothTo adoring what is next above,Or serving what’s below their love?Of this we are certified, that weAre shaped here for eternity,So that a careless word will makeIts dint upon the form we takeFor ever. If, then, years have wroughtTwo strangers to become, in thought.Will, and affection, but one manFor likeness, as none others can,Without like process, shall this treeThe king of all the forest, be,Alas, the only one of allThat shall not lie where it doth fall?Shall this unflagging flame, here nurs’dBy everything, yea, when reversed,Blazing, in fury, brighter, wink,Flicker, and into darkness shrink,When all else glows, baleful or brave,In the keen air beyond the grave?Beware; for fiends in triumph laughO’er him who learns the truth by half!Beware; for God will not endureFor men to make their hope more pureThan His good promise, or requireAnother than the five-string’d lyreWhich He has vow’d again to the handsDevout of him who understandsTo tune it justly here! BewareThe Powers of Darkness and the Air,Which lure to empty heights man’s hope,Bepraising heaven’s ethereal cope,But covering with their cloudy cantIts ground of solid adamant,That strengthens ether for the flightOf angels, makes and measures height,And in materialityExceeds our Earth’s in such degreeAs all else Earth exceeds! Do IHere utter aught too dark or high?Have you not seen a bird’s beak slayProud Psyche, on a summer’s day?Down fluttering drop the frail wings four,Missing the weight which made them soar.Spirit is heavy nature’s wing,And is not rightly anythingWithout its burthen, whereas this,Wingless, at least a maggot is,And, wing’d, is honour and delightIncreasing endlessly with height.
If unto any here that chanceFell not, which makes a month’s romance,Remember, few wed whom they would.And this, like all God’s laws, is good;For nought’s so sad, the whole world o’er,As much love which has once been more.Glorious for light is the earliest love;But worldly things, in the rays thereof,Extend their shadows, every oneFalse as the image which the sunAt noon or eve dwarfs or protracts.A perilous lamp to light men’s acts!By Heaven’s kind, impartial plan,Well-wived is he that’s truly manIf but the woman’s womanly,As such a man’s is sure to be.Joy of all eyes and pride of lifePerhaps she is not; the likelier wife!If it be thus; if you have known,(As who has not?) some heavenly one.Whom the dull background of despairHelp’d to show forth supremely fair;If memory, still remorseful, shapesYoung Passion bringing Eshcol grapesTo travellers in the Wilderness,This truth will make regret the less:Mighty in love as graces are,God’s ordinance is mightier far;And he who is but just and kindAnd patient, shall for guerdon find,Before long, that the body’s bondIs all else utterly beyondIn power of love to actualiseThe soul’s bond which it signifies,And even to deck a wife with graceExternal in the form and face.A five years’ wife, and not yet fair?Blame let the man, not Nature, bear!For, as the sun, warming a bankWhere last year’s grass droops gray and dank,Evokes the violet, bids discloseIn yellow crowds the fresh primrose,And foxglove hang her flushing head,So vernal love, where all seems dead,Makes beauty abound.Then was that nought,That trance of joy beyond all thought,The vision, in one, of womanhood?Nay, for all women holding good,Should marriage such a prologue want,’Twere sordid and most ignorantProfanity; but, having this,’Tis honour now, and future bliss;For where is he that, knowing the heightAnd depth of ascertain’d delight,Inhumanly henceforward liesContent with mediocrities!