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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=359174" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book II. Canto VIII.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Preludes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I In Love <br>If he's capricious she'll be so,<br>But, if his duties constant are,<br>She lets her loving favour glow<br>As steady as a tropic star;<br>Appears there nought for which to weep,<br>She'll weep for nought, for his dear sake;<br>She clasps her sister in her sleep;<br>Her love in dreams is most awake.<br>Her soul, that once with pleasure shook,<br>Did any eyes her beauty own,<br>Now wonders how they dare to look<br>On what belongs to him alone;<br>The indignity of taking gifts<br>Exhilarates her loving breast;<br>A rapture of submission lifts<br>Her life into celestial rest; <br>There's nothing left of what she was;<br>Back to the babe the woman dies,<br>And all the wisdom that she has<br>Is to love him for being wise.<br>She's confident because she fears,<br>And, though discreet when he's away,<br>If none but her dear despot hears,<br>She prattles like a child at play.<br>Perchance, when all her praise is said,<br>He tells the news, a battle won,<br>On either side ten thousand dead.<br>‘Alas!’ she says; but, if 'twere known,<br>She thinks, ‘He's looking on my face!<br>‘I am his joy; whate'er I do,<br>‘He sees such time-contenting grace<br>‘In that, he'd have me always so!’<br>And, evermore, for either's sake,<br>To the sweet folly of the dove,<br>She joins the cunning of the snake,<br>To rivet and exalt his love;<br>Her mode of candour is deceit;<br>And what she thinks from what she'll say,<br>(Although I'll never call her cheat),<br>Lies far as Scotland from Cathay.<br>Without his knowledge he was won;<br>Against his nature kept devout;<br>She'll never tell him how 'twas done,<br>And he will never find it out.<br>If, sudden, he suspects her wiles,<br>And hears her forging chain and trap,<br>And looks, she sits in simple smiles,<br>Her two hands lying in her lap.<br>Her secret (privilege of the Bard,<br>Whose fancy is of either sex),<br>Is mine; but let the darkness guard<br>Myst'ries that light would more perplex!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II Love Thinking <br>What lifts her in my thought so far<br>Beyond all else? Let Love not err!<br>'Tis that which all right women are,<br>But which I'll know in none but her.<br>She is to me the only Ark<br>Of that high mystery which locks<br>The lips of joy, or speaks in dark<br>Enigmas and in paradox;<br>That potent charm, which none can fly,<br>Nor would, which makes me bond and free,<br>Nor can I tell if first 'twas I<br>Chose it, or it elected me;<br>Which, when I look intentest, lo,<br>Cheats most mine eyes, albeit my heart,<br>Content to feel and not to know,<br>Perceives it all in every part;<br>I kiss its cheek; its life divine<br>Exhales from its resplendent shroud;<br>Ixion's fate reversed is mine,<br>Authentic Juno seems a cloud;<br>I feel a blessed warmth, I see<br>A bright circumference of rays,<br>But darkness, where the sun should be,<br>Fills admiration with amaze;<br>And when, for joy's relief, I think<br>To fathom with the line of thought<br>The well from which I, blissful, drink,<br>The spring's so deep I come to nought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III The Kiss <br>‘I saw you take his kiss!’ ‘'Tis true.’<br>‘O, modesty!’ ‘'Twas strictly kept:<br>‘He thought me asleep; at least, I knew<br>‘He thought I thought he thought I slept.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The Koh-I-Noor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>‘Be man's hard virtues highly wrought,<br>‘But let my gentle Mistress be,<br>‘In every look, word, deed, and thought,<br>‘Nothing but sweet and womanly!<br>‘Her virtues please my virtuous mood,<br>‘But what at all times I admire<br>‘Is, not that she is wise or good,<br>‘But just the thing which I desire.<br>‘With versatility to sing<br>‘The theme of love to any strain,<br>‘If oft'nest she is anything,<br>‘Be it careless, talkative, and vain.<br>‘That seems in her supremest grace<br>‘Which, virtue or not, apprises me<br>‘That my familiar thoughts embrace<br>‘Unfathomable mystery.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II<br>I answer'd thus; for she desired<br>To know what mind I most approved;<br>Partly to learn what she inquired,<br>Partly to get the praise she loved.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III<br>I praised her, but no praise could fill<br>The depths of her desire to please,<br>Though dull to others as a Will<br>To them that have no legacies.<br>The more I praised the more she shone,<br>Her eyes incredulously bright,<br>And all her happy beauty blown<br>Beneath the beams of my delight.<br>Sweet rivalry was thus begot;<br>By turns, my speech, in passion's style,<br>With flatteries the truth o'ershot,<br>And she surpass'd them with her smile.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br>‘You have my heart so sweetly seized,<br>‘And I confess, nay, 'tis my pride<br>‘That I'm with you so solely pleased,<br>‘That, if I'm pleased with aught beside,<br>‘As music, or the month of June,<br>‘My friend's devotion, or his wit,<br>‘A rose, a rainbow, or the moon,<br>‘It is that you illustrate it.<br>‘All these are parts, you are the whole;<br>‘You fit the taste for Paradise,<br>‘To which your charms draw up the soul<br>‘As turning spirals draw the eyes.<br>‘Nature to you was more than kind;<br>‘'Twas fond perversity to dress<br>‘So much simplicity of mind<br>‘In such a pomp of loveliness!<br>‘But, praising you, the fancy deft<br>‘Flies wide, and lets the quarry stray,<br>‘And, when all's said, there's something left,<br>‘And that's the thing I meant to say.’ <br>‘Dear Felix!’ ‘Sweet, my Love!’ But there<br>Was Aunt Maude's noisy ring and knock!<br>‘Stay, Felix; you have caught my hair.<br>‘Stoop! Thank you!’ ‘May I have that lock?’<br>‘Not now. Good morning, Aunt!’ ‘Why, Puss,<br>‘You look magnificent to-day.’<br>‘Here's Felix, Aunt.’ ‘Fox and green goose!<br>‘Who handsome gets should handsome pay!’<br>‘Aunt, you are friends!’ ‘Ah, to be sure!<br>‘Good morning! Go on flattering, Sir;<br>‘A woman, like the Koh-i-noor,<br>‘Mounts to the price that's put on her.’</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 In Love 
If he's capricious she'll be so,
But, if his duties constant are,
She lets her loving favour glow
As steady as a tropic star;
Appears there nought for which to weep,
She'll weep for nought, for his dear sake;
She clasps her s..."></div>
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