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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book II. Canto IV.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Preludes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I Honour and Desert <br>O queen, awake to thy renown,<br>Require what 'tis our wealth to give,<br>And comprehend and wear the crown<br>Of thy despised prerogative!<br>I, who in manhood's name at length<br>With glad songs come to abdicate<br>The gross regality of strength,<br>Must yet in this thy praise abate,<br>That, through thine erring humbleness<br>And disregard of thy degree,<br>Mainly, has man been so much less<br>Than fits his fellowship with thee.<br>High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow,<br>The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword,<br>The vilest had been great, hadst thou,<br>Just to thyself, been worth's reward.<br>But lofty honours undersold<br>Seller and buyer both disgrace;<br>And favours that make folly bold<br>Banish the light from virtue's face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II Love and Honour <br>What man with baseness so content,<br>Or sick with false conceit of right,<br>As not to know that the element<br>And inmost warmth of love's delight<br>Is honour? Who'd not rather kiss<br>A duchess than a milkmaid, prank<br>The two in equal grace, which is<br>Precedent Nature's obvious rank?<br>Much rather, then, a woman deck'd<br>With saintly honours, chaste and good,<br>Whose thoughts celestial things affect,<br>Whose eyes express her heavenly mood!<br>Those lesser vaunts are dimm'd or lost<br>Which plume her name or paint her lip,<br>Extinct in the deep-glowing boast<br>Of her angelic fellowship.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III Valour misdirected <br>‘I'll hunt for dangers North and South,<br>‘To prove my love, which sloth maligns!’<br>What seems to say her rosy mouth?<br>‘I'm not convinced by proofs but signs.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Love In Idleness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>What should I do? In such a wife<br>Fortune had lavish'd all her store,<br>And nothing now seem'd left for life<br>But to deserve her more and more.<br>To this I vow'd my life's whole scope;<br>And Love said, ‘I forewarn you now,<br>‘The Maiden will fulfil your hope<br>‘Only as you fulfil your vow.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II<br>A promised service, (task for days),<br>Was done this morning while she slept,<br>With that full heart which thinks no praise<br>Of vows which are not more than kept;<br>But loftier work did love impose,<br>And studious hours. Alas, for these,<br>While she from all my thoughts arose<br>Like Venus from the restless seas!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III<br>I conn'd a scheme, with mind elate:<br>My Uncle's land would fall to me,<br>My skill was much in school debate,<br>My friends were strong in Salisbury;<br>A place in Parliament once gain'd,<br>Thro' saps first labour'd out of sight,<br>Far loftier peaks were then attain'd<br>With easy leaps from height to height;<br>And that o'erwhelming honour paid,<br>Or recognised, at least, in life, <br>Which this most sweet and noble Maid<br>Should yield to him who call'd her Wife.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br>I fix'd this rule: in Sarum Close<br>To make two visits every week,<br>The first to-day; and, save on those,<br>I nought would do, think, read, or speak,<br>Which did not help my settled will<br>To earn the Statesman's proud applause.<br>And now, forthwith, to mend my skill<br>In ethics, politics, and laws,<br>The Statesman's learning! Flush'd with power<br>And pride of freshly-form'd resolve,<br>I read Helvetius half-an-hour;<br>But, halting in attempts to solve<br>Why, more than all things else that be,<br>A lady's grace hath force to move<br>That sensitive appetency<br>Of intellectual good, call'd love,<br>Took Blackstone down, only to draw<br>My swift-deriving thoughts ere long<br>To love, which is the source of law,<br>And, like a king, can do no wrong;<br>Then open'd Hyde, where loyal hearts,<br>With faith unpropp'd by precedent,<br>Began to play rebellious parts.<br>O, mighty stir that little meant!<br>How dull the crude, plough'd fields of fact<br>To me who trod the Elysian grove!<br>How idle all heroic act<br>By the least suffering of love!<br>I could not read; so took my pen,<br>And thus commenced, in form of notes,<br>A Lecture for the Salisbury men,<br>With due regard to Tory votes: <br>‘A road's a road, though worn to ruts;<br>‘They speed who travel straight therein;<br>‘But he who tacks and tries short cuts<br>‘Gets fools' praise and a broken shin—’<br>And here I stopp'd in sheer despair;<br>But, what to-day was thus begun,<br>I vow'd, up starting from my chair,<br>To-morrow should indeed be done;<br>So loosed my chafing thoughts from school,<br>To play with fancy as they chose,<br>And then, according to my rule,<br>I dress'd, and came to Sarum Close.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V<br>Ah, that sweet laugh! Diviner sense<br>Did Nature, forming her, inspire<br>To omit the grosser elements,<br>And make her all of air and fire!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII<br>To-morrow, Cowes Regatta fell:<br>The Dean would like his girls to go,<br>If I went too. ‘Most gladly.’ Well,<br>I did but break a foolish vow!<br>Unless Love's toil has love for prize,<br>(And then he's Hercules), above<br>All other contrarieties<br>Is labour contrary to love.<br>No fault of Love's, but nature's laws!<br>And Love, in idleness, lies quick;<br>For as the worm whose powers make pause,<br>And swoon, through alteration sick,<br>The soul, its wingless state dissolved,<br>Awaits its nuptial life complete,<br>All indolently self-convolved,<br>Cocoon'd in silken fancies sweet.</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 Honour and Desert 
O queen, awake to thy renown,
Require what 'tis our wealth to give,
And comprehend and wear the crown
Of thy despised prerogative!
I, who in manhood's name at length
With glad songs come to abdicate
The gross regali..."></div>
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