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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359157" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book I. Canto IX.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Preludes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I The Wife's Tragedy <br>Man must be pleased; but him to please<br>Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf<br>Of his condoled necessities<br>She casts her best, she flings herself.<br>How often flings for nought, and yokes<br>Her heart to an icicle or whim,<br>Whose each impatient word provokes<br>Another, not from her, but him;<br>While she, too gentle even to force<br>His penitence by kind replies,<br>Waits by, expecting his remorse,<br>With pardon in her pitying eyes;<br>And if he once, by shame oppress'd,<br>A comfortable word confers,<br>She leans and weeps against his breast,<br>And seems to think the sin was hers;<br>And whilst his love has any life,<br>Or any eye to see her charms,<br>At any time, she's still his wife,<br>Dearly devoted to his arms; <br>She loves with love that cannot tire;<br>And when, ah woe, she loves alone,<br>Through passionate duty love springs higher,<br>As grass grows taller round a stone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II Common Graces <br>Is nature in thee too spiritless,<br>Ignoble, impotent, and dead,<br>To prize her love and loveliness<br>The more for being thy daily bread?<br>And art thou one of that vile crew<br>Which see no splendour in the sun,<br>Praising alone the good that's new,<br>Or over, or not yet begun?<br>And has it dawn'd on thy dull wits<br>That love warms many as soft a nest,<br>That, though swathed round with benefits,<br>Thou art not singularly blest?<br>And fail thy thanks for gifts divine,<br>The common food of many a heart,<br>Because they are not only thine?<br>Beware lest in the end thou art<br>Cast for thy pride forth from the fold,<br>Too good to feel the common grace<br>Of blissful myriads who behold<br>For evermore the Father's face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III The Zest of Life <br>Give thanks. It is not time misspent;<br>Worst fare this betters, and the best,<br>Wanting this natural condiment,<br>Breeds crudeness, and will not digest. <br>The grateful love the Giver's law;<br>But those who eat, and look no higher,<br>From sin or doubtful sanction draw<br>The biting sauce their feasts require.<br>Give thanks for nought, if you've no more,<br>And, having all things, do not doubt<br>That nought, with thanks, is blest before<br>Whate'er the world can give, without.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV Fool and Wise <br>Endow the fool with sun and moon,<br>Being his, he holds them mean and low;<br>But to the wise a little boon<br>Is great, because the giver's so.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Sahara.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>I stood by Honor and the Dean,<br>They seated in the London train.<br>A month from her! yet this had been,<br>Ere now, without such bitter pain.<br>But neighbourhood makes parting light,<br>And distance remedy has none;<br>Alone, she near, I felt as might<br>A blind man sitting in the sun;<br>She near, all for the time was well;<br>Hope's self, when we were far apart,<br>With lonely feeling, like the smell<br>Of heath on mountains, fill'd my heart. <br>To see her seem'd delight's full scope,<br>And her kind smile, so clear of care,<br>Ev'n then, though darkening all my hope,<br>Gilded the cloud of my despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II<br>She had forgot to bring a book.<br>I lent one; blamed the print for old;<br>And did not tell her that she took<br>A Petrarch worth its weight in gold.<br>I hoped she'd lose it; for my love<br>Was grown so dainty, high, and nice,<br>It prized no luxury above<br>The sense of fruitless sacrifice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III<br>The bell rang, and, with shrieks like death,<br>Link catching link, the long array,<br>With ponderous pulse and fiery breath,<br>Proud of its burthen, swept away;<br>And through the lingering crowd I broke,<br>Sought the hill-side, and thence, heart-sick,<br>Beheld, far off, the little smoke<br>Along the landscape kindling quick.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br>What should I do, where should I go,<br>Now she was gone, my love! for mine<br>She was, whatever here below<br>Cross'd or usurp'd my right divine.<br>Life, without her, was vain and gross,<br>The glory from the world was gone,<br>And on the gardens of the Close<br>As on Sahara shone the sun. <br>Oppress'd with her departed grace,<br>My thoughts on ill surmises fed;<br>The harmful influence of the place<br>She went to fill'd my soul with dread.<br>She, mixing with the people there,<br>Might come back alter'd, having caught<br>The foolish, fashionable air<br>Of knowing all, and feeling nought.<br>Or, giddy with her beauty's praise,<br>She'd scorn our simple country life,<br>Its wholesome nights and tranquil days,<br>And would not deign to be my Wife.<br>‘My Wife,’ ‘my Wife,’ ah, tenderest word!<br>How oft, as fearful she might hear,<br>Whispering that name of ‘Wife,’ I heard<br>The chiming of the inmost sphere.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V<br>I pass'd the home of my regret.<br>The clock was striking in the hall,<br>And one sad window open yet,<br>Although the dews began to fall.<br>Ah, distance show'd her beauty's scope!<br>How light of heart and innocent<br>That loveliness which sicken'd hope<br>And wore the world for ornament!<br>How perfectly her life was framed;<br>And, thought of in that passionate mood,<br>How her affecting graces shamed<br>The vulgar life that was but good!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI<br>I wonder'd, would her bird be fed,<br>Her rose-plots water'd, she not by;<br>Loading my breast with angry dread<br>Of light, unlikely injury. <br>So, fill'd with love and fond remorse,<br>I paced the Close, its every part<br>Endow'd with reliquary force<br>To heal and raise from death my heart.<br>How tranquil and unsecular<br>The precinct! Once, through yonder gate,<br>I saw her go, and knew from far<br>Her love-lit form and gentle state.<br>Her dress had brush'd this wicket; here<br>She turn'd her face, and laugh'd, with light<br>Like moonbeams on a wavering mere.<br>Weary beforehand of the night,<br>I went; the blackbird, in the wood,<br>Talk'd by himself, and eastward grew<br>In heaven the symbol of my mood,<br>Where one bright star engross'd the blue.</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 Wife's Tragedy 
Man must be pleased; but him to please
Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf
Of his condoled necessities
She casts her best, she flings herself.
How often flings for nought, and yokes
Her heart to an icicle or whim,
W..."></div>
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