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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359155" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book I. Canto III.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Preludes</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I The Lover <br>He meets, by heavenly chance express,<br>The destined maid; some hidden hand<br>Unveils to him that loveliness<br>Which others cannot understand.<br>His merits in her presence grow,<br>To match the promise in her eyes,<br>And round her happy footsteps blow<br>The authentic airs of Paradise.<br>For joy of her he cannot sleep;<br>Her beauty haunts him all the night;<br>It melts his heart, it makes him weep<br>For wonder, worship, and delight.<br>O, paradox of love, he longs,<br>Most humble when he most aspires,<br>To suffer scorn and cruel wrongs<br>From her he honours and desires.<br>Her graces make him rich, and ask<br>No guerdon; this imperial style<br>Affronts him; he disdains to bask,<br>The pensioner of her priceless smile. <br>He prays for some hard thing to do,<br>Some work of fame and labour immense,<br>To stretch the languid bulk and thew<br>Of love's fresh-born magnipotence.<br>No smallest boon were bought too dear,<br>Though barter'd for his love-sick life;<br>Yet trusts he, with undaunted cheer,<br>To vanquish heaven, and call her Wife.<br>He notes how queens of sweetness still<br>Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate;<br>How, self-consign'd with lavish will,<br>They ask but love proportionate;<br>How swift pursuit by small degrees,<br>Love's tactic, works like miracle;<br>How valour, clothed in courtesies,<br>Brings down the haughtiest citadel;<br>And therefore, though he merits not<br>To kiss the braid upon her skirt,<br>His hope, discouraged ne'er a jot,<br>Out-soars all possible desert.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II Love a Virtue <br>Strong passions mean weak will, and he<br>Who truly knows the strength and bliss<br>Which are in love, will own with me<br>No passion but a virtue 'tis.<br>Few hear my word; it soars above<br>The subtlest senses of the swarm<br>Of wretched things which know not love,<br>Their Psyche still a wingless worm.<br>Ice-cold seems heaven's noble glow<br>To spirits whose vital heat is hell;<br>And to corrupt hearts even so<br>The songs I sing, the tale I tell. <br>These cannot see the robes of white<br>In which I sing of love. Alack,<br>But darkness shows in heavenly light,<br>Though whiteness, in the dark, is black!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III Unthrift <br>Ah, wasteful woman, she who may<br>On her sweet self set her own price,<br>Knowing man cannot choose but pay,<br>How has she cheapen'd paradise;<br>How given for nought her priceless gift,<br>How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine,<br>Which, spent with due, respective thrift,<br>Had made brutes men, and men divine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV The Attainment <br>You love? That's high as you shall go;<br>For 'tis as true as Gospel text,<br>Not noble then is never so,<br>Either in this world or the next.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Honoria. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>Grown weary with a week's exile<br>From those fair friends, I rode to see<br>The church-restorings; lounged awhile,<br>And met the Dean; was ask'd to tea,<br>And found their cousin, Frederick Graham,<br>At Honor's side. Was I concern'd,<br>If, when she sang, his colour came,<br>That mine, as with a buffet, burn'd?<br>A man to please a girl! thought I,<br>Retorting his forced smiles, the shrouds<br>Of wrath, so hid as she was by,<br>Sweet moon between her lighted clouds!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II <br>Whether this Cousin was the cause<br>I know not, but I seem'd to see,<br>The first time then, how fair she was,<br>How much the fairest of the three.<br>Each stopp'd to let the other go;<br>But, time-bound, he arose the first.<br>Stay'd he in Sarum long? If so<br>I hoped to see him at the Hurst.<br>No: he had call'd here, on his way<br>To Portsmouth, where the ‘Arrogant,’<br>His ship, was; he should leave next day,<br>For two years' cruise in the Levant.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II <br>Had love in her yet struck its germs?<br>I watch'd. Her farewell show'd me plain <br>She loved, on the majestic terms<br>That she should not be loved again.<br>And so her cousin, parting, felt.<br>Hope in his voice and eye was dead.<br>Compassion did my malice melt;<br>Then went I home to a restless bed.<br>I, who admired her too, could see<br>His infinite remorse at this<br>Great mystery, that she should be<br>So beautiful, yet not be his,<br>And, pitying, long'd to plead his part;<br>But scarce could tell, so strange my whim,<br>Whether the weight upon my heart<br>Was sorrow for myself or him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br>She was all mildness; yet 'twas writ<br>In all her grace, most legibly,<br>‘He that's for heaven itself unfit,<br>‘Let him not hope to merit me.’<br>And such a challenge, quite apart<br>From thoughts of love, humbled, and thus<br>To sweet repentance moved my heart,<br>And made me more magnanimous,<br>And led me to review my life,<br>Inquiring where in aught the least,<br>If question were of her for wife,<br>Ill might be mended, hope increas'd.<br>Not that I soar'd so far above<br>Myself, as this great hope to dare;<br>And yet I well foresaw that love<br>Might hope where reason must despair;<br>And, half-resenting the sweet pride<br>Which would not ask me to admire,<br>‘Oh,’ to my secret heart I sigh'd,<br>‘That I were worthy to desire!’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V<br>As drowsiness my brain reliev'd,<br>A shrill defiance of all to arms,<br>Shriek'd by the stable-cock, receiv'd<br>An angry answer from three farms.<br>And, then, I dream'd that I, her knight,<br>A clarion's haughty pathos heard,<br>And rode securely to the fight,<br>Cased in the scarf she had conferr'd;<br>And there, the bristling lists behind,<br>Saw many, and vanquish'd all I saw<br>Of her unnumber'd cousin-kind,<br>In Navy, Army, Church, and Law;<br>Smitten, the warriors somehow turn'd<br>To Sarum choristers, whose song,<br>Mix'd with celestial sorrow, yearn'd<br>With joy no memory can prolong;<br>And phantasms as absurd and sweet<br>Merged each in each in endless chace,<br>And everywhere I seem'd to meet<br>The haunting fairness of her face.</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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I The Lover 
He meets, by heavenly chance express,
The destined maid; some hidden hand
Unveils to him that loveliness
Which others cannot understand.
His merits in her presence grow,
To match the promise in her eyes,
And round her happy ..."></div>
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