The Angel in the House. Coventry Patmore

But, time-bound, he arose the first.

       Stay’d he in Sarum long? If so

       I hoped to see him at the Hurst.

       No: he had call’d here, on his way

       To Portsmouth, where the Arrogant,

       His ship, was; he should leave next day,

       For two years’ cruise in the Levant.

      3

      Had love in her yet struck its germs?

       I watch’d. Her farewell show’d me plain

       She loved, on the majestic terms

       That she should not be loved again;

       And so her cousin, parting, felt.

       Hope in his voice and eye was dead.

       Compassion did my malice melt;

       Then went I home to a restless bed.

       I, who admired her too, could see

       His infinite remorse at this

       Great mystery, that she should be

       So beautiful, yet not be his,

       And, pitying, long’d to plead his part;

       But scarce could tell, so strange my whim,

       Whether the weight upon my heart

       Was sorrow for myself or him.

      4

      She was all mildness; yet ’twas writ

       In all her grace, most legibly,

       ‘He that’s for heaven itself unfit,

       Let him not hope to merit me.’

       And such a challenge, quite apart

       From thoughts of love, humbled, and thus

       To sweet repentance moved my heart,

       And made me more magnanimous,

       And led me to review my life,

       Inquiring where in aught the least,

       If question were of her for wife,

       Ill might be mended, hope increas’d.

       Not that I soar’d so far above

       Myself, as this great hope to dare;

       And yet I well foresaw that love

       Might hope where reason must despair;

       And, half-resenting the sweet pride

       Which would not ask me to admire,

       ‘Oh,’ to my secret heart I sigh’d,

       ‘That I were worthy to desire!’

      5

      As drowsiness my brain reliev’d,

       A shrill defiance of all to arms,

       Shriek’d by the stable-cock, receiv’d

       An angry answer from three farms.

       And, then, I dream’d that I, her knight,

       A clarion’s haughty pathos heard,

       And rode securely to the fight,

       Cased in the scarf she had conferr’d;

       And there, the bristling lists behind,

       Saw many, and vanquish’d all I saw

       Of her unnumber’d cousin-kind,

       In Navy, Army, Church, and Law;

       Smitten, the warriors somehow turn’d

       To Sarum choristers, whose song,

       Mix’d with celestial sorrow, yearn’d

       With joy no memory can prolong;

       And phantasms as absurd and sweet

       Merged each in each in endless chace,

       And everywhere I seem’d to meet

       The haunting fairness of her face.