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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359154" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book I. Canto II.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Preludes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I The Paragon <br>When I behold the skies aloft<br>Passing the pageantry of dreams,<br>The cloud whose bosom, cygnet-soft,<br>A couch for nuptial Juno seems,<br>The ocean broad, the mountains bright,<br>The shadowy vales with feeding herds,<br>I from my lyre the music smite,<br>Nor want for justly matching words.<br>All forces of the sea and air,<br>All interests of hill and plain,<br>I so can sing, in seasons fair,<br>That who hath felt may feel again.<br>Elated oft by such free songs,<br>I think with utterance free to raise<br>That hymn for which the whole world longs,<br>A worthy hymn in woman's praise;<br>A hymn bright-noted like a bird's,<br>Arousing these song-sleepy times<br>With rhapsodies of perfect words,<br>Ruled by returning kiss of rhymes. <br>But when I look on her and hope<br>To tell with joy what I admire,<br>My thoughts lie cramp'd in narrow scope,<br>Or in the feeble birth expire;<br>No mystery of well-woven speech,<br>No simplest phrase of tenderest fall,<br>No liken'd excellence can reach<br>Her, the most excellent of all,<br>The best half of creation's best,<br>Its heart to feel, its eye to see,<br>The crown and complex of the rest,<br>Its aim and its epitome.<br>Nay, might I utter my conceit,<br>'Twere after all a vulgar song,<br>For she's so simply, subtly sweet,<br>My deepest rapture does her wrong.<br>Yet is it now my chosen task<br>To sing her worth as Maid and Wife;<br>Nor happier post than this I ask,<br>To live her laureate all my life.<br>On wings of love uplifted free,<br>And by her gentleness made great,<br>I'll teach how noble man should be<br>To match with such a lovely mate;<br>And then in her may move the more<br>The woman's wish to be desired,<br>(By praise increased), till both shall soar,<br>With blissful emulations fired.<br>And, as geranium, pink, or rose<br>Is thrice itself through power of art,<br>So may my happy skill disclose<br>New fairness even in her fair heart;<br>Until that churl shall nowhere be<br>Who bends not, awed, before the throne<br>Of her affecting majesty,<br>So meek, so far unlike our own; <br>Until (for who may hope too much<br>From her who wields the powers of love?)<br>Our lifted lives at last shall touch<br>That happy goal to which they move;<br>Until we find, as darkness rolls<br>Away, and evil mists dissolve,<br>The nuptial contrasts are the poles<br>On which the heavenly spheres revolve.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II Love at Large <br>Whene'er I come where ladies are,<br>How sad soever I was before,<br>Though like a ship frost-bound and far<br>Withheld in ice from the ocean's roar,<br>Third-winter'd in that dreadful dock,<br>With stiffen'd cordage, sails decay'd,<br>And crew that care for calm and shock<br>Alike, too dull to be dismay'd,<br>Yet, if I come where ladies are,<br>How sad soever I was before,<br>Then is my sadness banish'd far,<br>And I am like that ship no more;<br>Or like that ship if the ice-field splits,<br>Burst by the sudden polar Spring,<br>And all thank God with their warming wits,<br>And kiss each other and dance and sing,<br>And hoist fresh sails, that make the breeze<br>Blow them along the liquid sea,<br>Out of the North, where life did freeze,<br>Into the haven where they would be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III Love and Duty <br>Anne lived so truly from above,<br>She was so gentle and so good, <br>That duty bade me fall in love,<br>And ‘but for that,’ thought I, ‘I should!’<br>I worshipp'd Kate with all my will.<br>In idle moods you seem to see<br>A noble spirit in a hill,<br>A human touch about a tree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV A Distinction <br>The lack of lovely pride, in her<br>Who strives to please, my pleasure numbs,<br>And still the maid I most prefer<br>Whose care to please with pleasing comes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Mary And Mildred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I <br>One morning, after Church, I walk'd<br>Alone with Mary on the lawn,<br>And felt myself, howe'er we talk'd,<br>To grave themes delicately drawn.<br>When she delighted, found I knew<br>More of her peace than she supposed,<br>Our confidences heavenwards grew,<br>Like fox-glove buds, in pairs disclosed.<br>Our former faults did we confess,<br>Our ancient feud was more than heal'd.<br>And, with the woman's eagerness<br>For amity full-sign'd and seal'd,<br>She, offering up for sacrifice<br>Her heart's reserve, brought out to show <br>Some verses, made when she was ice<br>To all but Heaven, six years ago;<br>Since happier grown! I took and read<br>The neat-writ lines. She, void of guile,<br>Too late repenting, blush'd, and said,<br>I must not think about the style.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II <br>‘Day after day, until to-day,<br>‘Imaged the others gone before,<br>‘The same dull task, the weary way,<br>‘The weakness pardon'd o'er and o'er,<br>‘The thwarted thirst, too faintly felt,<br>‘For joy's well-nigh forgotten life,<br>‘The restless heart, which, when I knelt,<br>‘Made of my worship barren strife.<br>‘Ah, whence to-day's so sweet release,<br>‘This clearance light of all my care,<br>‘This conscience free, this fertile peace,<br>‘These softly folded wings of prayer,<br>‘This calm and more than conquering love,<br>‘With which nought evil dares to cope,<br>‘This joy that lifts no glance above,<br>‘For faith too sure, too sweet for hope?<br>‘O, happy time, too happy change,<br>‘It will not live, though fondly nurst!<br>‘Full soon the sun will seem as strange<br>‘As now the cloud which seems dispersed.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III <br>She from a rose-tree shook the blight;<br>And well she knew that I knew well<br>Her grace with silence to requite;<br>And, answering now the luncheon-bell, <br>I laugh'd at Mildred's laugh, which made<br>All melancholy wrong, its mood<br>Such sweet self-confidence display'd,<br>So glad a sense of present good.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV <br>I laugh'd and sigh'd; for I confess<br>I never went to Ball, or Fête,<br>Or Show, but in pursuit express<br>Of my predestinated mate;<br>And thus to me, who had in sight<br>The happy chance upon the cards,<br>Each beauty blossom'd in the light<br>Of tender personal regards;<br>And, in the records of my breast,<br>Red-letter'd, eminently fair,<br>Stood sixteen, who, beyond the rest,<br>By turns till then had been my care:<br>At Berlin three, one at St. Cloud,<br>At Chatteris, near Cambridge, one,<br>At Ely four, in London two,<br>Two at Bowness, in Paris none,<br>And, last and best, in Sarum three;<br>But dearest of the whole fair troop,<br>In judgment of the moment, she<br>Whose daisy eyes had learn'd to droop<br>Her very faults my fancy fired;<br>My loving will, so thwarted, grew;<br>And, bent on worship, I admired<br>Whate'er she was, with partial view.<br>And yet when, as to-day, her smile<br>Was prettiest, I could not but note<br>Honoria, less admired the while,<br>Was lovelier, though from love remote.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Coventry+Patmore">Coventry Patmore</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359154" data-title="The Angel In The House. Book I. Canto II. de Coventry Patmore" data-description="Preludes.

I The Paragon 
When I behold the skies aloft
Passing the pageantry of dreams,
The cloud whose bosom, cygnet-soft,
A couch for nuptial Juno seems,
The ocean broad, the mountains bright,
The shadowy vales with feeding herds,
I from my lyr..."></div>
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