Buch lesen: «The Angel in the House»

Book I

THE PROLOGUE

1

 
‘Mine is no horse with wings, to gain
   The region of the spheral chime;
He does but drag a rumbling wain,
   Cheer’d by the coupled bells of rhyme;
And if at Fame’s bewitching note
   My homely Pegasus pricks an ear,
The world’s cart-collar hugs his throat,
   And he’s too wise to prance or rear.’
 

2

 
Thus ever answer’d Vaughan his Wife,
   Who, more than he, desired his fame;
But, in his heart, his thoughts were rife
   How for her sake to earn a name.
With bays poetic three times crown’d,
   And other college honours won,
He, if he chose, might be renown’d,
   He had but little doubt, she none;
And in a loftier phrase he talk’d
   With her, upon their Wedding-Day,
(The eighth), while through the fields they walk’d,
   Their children shouting by the way.
 

3

 
‘Not careless of the gift of song,
   Nor out of love with noble fame,
I, meditating much and long
   What I should sing, how win a name,
Considering well what theme unsung,
   What reason worth the cost of rhyme,
Remains to loose the poet’s tongue
   In these last days, the dregs of time,
Learn that to me, though born so late,
   There does, beyond desert, befall
(May my great fortune make me great!)
   The first of themes, sung last of all.
In green and undiscover’d ground,
   Yet near where many others sing,
I have the very well-head found
   Whence gushes the Pierian Spring.’
 

4

 
Then she: ‘What is it, Dear?  The Life
   Of Arthur, or Jerusalem’s Fall?’
‘Neither: your gentle self, my Wife,
   And love, that grows from one to all.
And if I faithfully proclaim
   Of these the exceeding worthiness,
Surely the sweetest wreath of Fame
   Shall, to your hope, my brows caress;
And if, by virtue of my choice
   Of this, the most heart-touching theme
That ever tuned a poet’s voice,
   I live, as I am bold to dream,
To be delight to many days,
   And into silence only cease
When those are still, who shared their bays
   With Laura and with Beatrice,
Imagine, Love, how learned men
   Will deep-conceiv’d devices find,
Beyond my purpose and my ken,
   An ancient bard of simple mind.
You, Sweet, his Mistress, Wife, and Muse,
   Were you for mortal woman meant?
Your praises give a hundred clues
   To mythological intent!
And, severing thus the truth from trope,
   In you the Commentators see
Outlines occult of abstract scope,
   A future for philosophy!
Your arm’s on mine! these are the meads
   In which we pass our living days;
There Avon runs, now hid with reeds,
   Now brightly brimming pebbly bays;
Those are our children’s songs that come
   With bells and bleatings of the sheep;
And there, in yonder English home,
   We thrive on mortal food and sleep!’
She laugh’d.  How proud she always was
   To feel how proud he was of her!
But he had grown distraught, because
   The Muse’s mood began to stir.
 

5

 
His purpose with performance crown’d,
   He to his well-pleased Wife rehears’d,
When next their Wedding-Day came round,
   His leisure’s labour, ‘Book the First.’
 

CANTO I
The Cathedral Close

PRELUDES

I

The Impossibility

 
Lo, love’s obey’d by all.  ’Tis right
   That all should know what they obey,
Lest erring conscience damp delight,
   And folly laugh our joys away.
Thou Primal Love, who grantest wings
   And voices to the woodland birds,
Grant me the power of saying things
   Too simple and too sweet for words!
 

II

Love’s Really

 
I walk, I trust, with open eyes;
   I’ve travell’d half my worldly course;
And in the way behind me lies
   Much vanity and some remorse;
I’ve lived to feel how pride may part
   Spirits, tho’ match’d like hand and glove;
I’ve blush’d for love’s abode, the heart;
   But have not disbelieved in love;
Nor unto love, sole mortal thing
   Of worth immortal, done the wrong
To count it, with the rest that sing,
   Unworthy of a serious song;
And love is my reward; for now,
   When most of dead’ning time complain,
The myrtle blooms upon my brow,
   Its odour quickens all my brain.
 

III

The Poet’s Confidence

 
The richest realm of all the earth
   Is counted still a heathen land:
Lo, I, like Joshua, now go forth
   To give it into Israel’s hand.
I will not hearken blame or praise;
   For so should I dishonour do
To that sweet Power by which these Lays
   Alone are lovely, good, and true;
Nor credence to the world’s cries give,
   Which ever preach and still prevent
Pure passion’s high prerogative
   To make, not follow, precedent.
From love’s abysmal ether rare
   If I to men have here made known
New truths, they, like new stars, were there
   Before, though not yet written down.
Moving but as the feelings move,
   I run, or loiter with delight,
Or pause to mark where gentle Love
   Persuades the soul from height to height.
Yet, know ye, though my words are gay
   As David’s dance, which Michal scorn’d.
If kindly you receive the Lay,
   You shall be sweetly help’d and warn’d.
 

THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE

1

 
Once more I came to Sarum Close,
   With joy half memory, half desire,
And breathed the sunny wind that rose
   And blew the shadows o’er the Spire,
And toss’d the lilac’s scented plumes,
   And sway’d the chestnut’s thousand cones,
And fill’d my nostrils with perfumes,
   And shaped the clouds in waifs and zones,
And wafted down the serious strain
   Of Sarum bells, when, true to time,
I reach’d the Dean’s, with heart and brain
   That trembled to the trembling chime.
 

2

 
’Twas half my home, six years ago.
   The six years had not alter’d it:
Red-brick and ashlar, long and low,
   With dormers and with oriels lit.
Geranium, lychnis, rose array’d
   The windows, all wide open thrown;
And some one in the Study play’d
   The Wedding-March of Mendelssohn.
And there it was I last took leave:
   ’Twas Christmas: I remember’d now
The cruel girls, who feign’d to grieve,
   Took down the evergreens; and how
The holly into blazes woke
   The fire, lighting the large, low room,
A dim, rich lustre of old oak
   And crimson velvet’s glowing gloom.
No change had touch’d Dean Churchill: kind,
   By widowhood more than winters bent,
And settled in a cheerful mind,
   As still forecasting heaven’s content.
Well might his thoughts be fix’d on high,
   Now she was there!  Within her face
Humility and dignity
   Were met in a most sweet embrace.
She seem’d expressly sent below
   To teach our erring minds to see
The rhythmic change of time’s swift flow
   As part of still eternity.
Her life, all honour, observed, with awe
   Which cross experience could not mar,
The fiction of the Christian law
   That all men honourable are;
And so her smile at once conferr’d
   High flattery and benign reproof;
And I, a rude boy, strangely stirr’d,
   Grew courtly in my own behoof.
The years, so far from doing her wrong,
   Anointed her with gracious balm,
And made her brows more and more young
   With wreaths of amaranth and palm.
 

3

 
Was this her eldest, Honor; prude,
   Who would not let me pull the swing;
Who, kiss’d at Christmas, call’d me rude,
   And, sobbing low, refused to sing?
How changed!  In shape no slender Grace,
   But Venus; milder than the dove;
Her mother’s air; her Norman face;
   Her large sweet eyes, clear lakes of love.
Mary I knew.  In former time
   Ailing and pale, she thought that bliss
Was only for a better clime,
   And, heavenly overmuch, scorn’d this.
I, rash with theories of the right,
   Which stretch’d the tether of my Creed,
But did not break it, held delight
   Half discipline.  We disagreed.
She told the Dean I wanted grace.
   Now she was kindest of the three,
And soft wild roses deck’d her face.
   And, what, was this my Mildred, she
To herself and all a sweet surprise?
   My Pet, who romp’d and roll’d a hoop?
I wonder’d where those daisy eyes
   Had found their touching curve and droop.
 

4

 
Unmannerly times!  But now we sat
   Stranger than strangers; till I caught
And answer’d Mildred’s smile; and that
   Spread to the rest, and freedom brought.
The Dean talk’d little, looking on,
   Of three such daughters justly vain.
What letters they had had from Bonn,
   Said Mildred, and what plums from Spain!
By Honor I was kindly task’d
   To excuse my never coming down
From Cambridge; Mary smiled and ask’d
   Were Kant and Goethe yet outgrown?
And, pleased, we talk’d the old days o’er;
   And, parting, I for pleasure sigh’d.
To be there as a friend, (since more),
   Seem’d then, seems still, excuse for pride;
For something that abode endued
   With temple-like repose, an air
Of life’s kind purposes pursued
   With order’d freedom sweet and fair.
A tent pitch’d in a world not right
   It seem’d, whose inmates, every one,
On tranquil faces bore the light
   Of duties beautifully done,
And humbly, though they had few peers,
   Kept their own laws, which seem’d to be
The fair sum of six thousand years’
   Traditions of civility.
 

CANTO II
Mary And Mildred

PRELUDES

I

The Paragon

 
When I behold the skies aloft
   Passing the pageantry of dreams,
The cloud whose bosom, cygnet-soft,
   A couch for nuptial Juno seems,
The ocean broad, the mountains bright,
   The shadowy vales with feeding herds,
I from my lyre the music smite,
   Nor want for justly matching words.
All forces of the sea and air,
   All interests of hill and plain,
I so can sing, in seasons fair,
   That who hath felt may feel again.
Elated oft by such free songs,
   I think with utterance free to raise
That hymn for which the whole world longs,
   A worthy hymn in woman’s praise;
A hymn bright-noted like a bird’s,
   Arousing these song-sleepy times
With rhapsodies of perfect words,
   Ruled by returning kiss of rhymes.
But when I look on her and hope
   To tell with joy what I admire,
My thoughts lie cramp’d in narrow scope,
   Or in the feeble birth expire;
No mystery of well-woven speech,
   No simplest phrase of tenderest fall,
No liken’d excellence can reach
   Her, thee most excellent of all,
The best half of creation’s best,
   Its heart to feel, its eye to see,
The crown and complex of the rest,
   Its aim and its epitome.
Nay, might I utter my conceit,
   ’Twere after all a vulgar song,
For she’s so simply, subtly sweet,
   My deepest rapture does her wrong.
Yet is it now my chosen task
   To sing her worth as Maid and Wife;
Nor happier post than this I ask,
   To live her laureate all my life.
On wings of love uplifted free,
   And by her gentleness made great,
I’ll teach how noble man should be
   To match with such a lovely mate;
And then in her may move the more
   The woman’s wish to be desired,
(By praise increased), till both shall soar,
   With blissful emulations fired.
And, as geranium, pink, or rose
   Is thrice itself through power of art,
So may my happy skill disclose
   New fairness even in her fair heart;
Until that churl shall nowhere be
   Who bends not, awed, before the throne
Of her affecting majesty,
   So meek, so far unlike our own;
Until (for who may hope too much
   From her who wields the powers of love?)
Our lifted lives at last shall touch
   That happy goal to which they move;
Until we find, as darkness rolls
   Away, and evil mists dissolve,
That nuptial contrasts are the poles
   On which the heavenly spheres revolve.
 

II

Love at Large

 
Whene’er I come where ladies are,
   How sad soever I was before,
Though like a ship frost-bound and far
   Withheld in ice from the ocean’s roar,
Third-winter’d in that dreadful dock,
   With stiffen’d cordage, sails decay’d,
And crew that care for calm and shock
   Alike, too dull to be dismay’d,
Yet, if I come where ladies are,
   How sad soever I was before,
Then is my sadness banish’d far,
   And I am like that ship no more;
Or like that ship if the ice-field splits,
   Burst by the sudden polar Spring,
And all thank God with their warming wits,
   And kiss each other and dance and sing,
And hoist fresh sails, that make the breeze
   Blow them along the liquid sea,
Out of the North, where life did freeze,
   Into the haven where they would be.
 

III

Love and Duty

 
Anne lived so truly from above,
   She was so gentle and so good,
That duty bade me fall in love,
   And ‘but for that,’ thought I, ‘I should!’
I worshipp’d Kate with all my will,
   In idle moods you seem to see
A noble spirit in a hill,
   A human touch about a tree.
 

IV

A Distinction

 
The lack of lovely pride, in her
   Who strives to please, my pleasure numbs,
And still the maid I most prefer
   Whose care to please with pleasing comes.
 

MARY AND MILDRED

1

 
One morning, after Church, I walk’d
   Alone with Mary on the lawn,
And felt myself, howe’er we talk’d,
   To grave themes delicately drawn.
When she, delighted, found I knew
   More of her peace than she supposed,
Our confidences heavenwards grew,
   Like fox-glove buds, in pairs disclosed.
Our former faults did we confess,
   Our ancient feud was more than heal’d,
And, with the woman’s eagerness
   For amity full-sign’d and seal’d,
She, offering up for sacrifice
   Her heart’s reserve, brought out to show
Some verses, made when she was ice
   To all but Heaven, six years ago;
Since happier grown!  I took and read
   The neat-writ lines.  She, void of guile,
Too late repenting, blush’d, and said,
   I must not think about the style.
 

2

 
‘Day after day, until to-day,
   Imaged the others gone before,
The same dull task, the weary way,
   The weakness pardon’d o’er and o’er,
‘The thwarted thirst, too faintly felt,
   For joy’s well-nigh forgotten life,
The restless heart, which, when I knelt,
   Made of my worship barren strife.
‘Ah, whence to-day’s so sweet release,
   This clearance light of all my care,
This conscience free, this fertile peace,
   These softly folded wings of prayer,
‘This calm and more than conquering love,
   With which nought evil dares to cope,
This joy that lifts no glance above,
   For faith too sure, too sweet for hope?
‘O, happy time, too happy change,
   It will not live, though fondly nurst!
Full soon the sun will seem as strange
   As now the cloud which seems dispersed.’
 

3

 
She from a rose-tree shook the blight;
   And well she knew that I knew well
Her grace with silence to requite;
   And, answering now the luncheon bell,
I laugh’d at Mildred’s laugh, which made
   All melancholy wrong, its mood
Such sweet self-confidence display’d,
   So glad a sense of present good.
 

4

 
I laugh’d and sigh’d: for I confess
   I never went to Ball, or Fête,
Or Show, but in pursuit express
   Of my predestinated mate;
And thus to me, who had in sight
   The happy chance upon the cards,
Each beauty blossom’d in the light
   Of tender personal regards;
And, in the records of my breast,
   Red-letter’d, eminently fair,
Stood sixteen, who, beyond the rest,
   By turns till then had been my care:
At Berlin three, one at St. Cloud,
   At Chatteris, near Cambridge, one,
At Ely four, in London two,
   Two at Bowness, in Paris none,
And, last and best, in Sarum three;
   But dearest of the whole fair troop,
In judgment of the moment, she
   Whose daisy eyes had learn’d to droop.
Her very faults my fancy fired;
   My loving will, so thwarted, grew;
And, bent on worship, I admired
   Whate’er she was, with partial view.
And yet when, as to-day, her smile
   Was prettiest, I could not but note
Honoria, less admired the while,
   Was lovelier, though from love remote.
 

CANTO III
Honoria

PRELUDES

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 footsteps blow
   The authentic airs of Paradise.
For joy of her he cannot sleep;
   Her beauty haunts him all the night;
It melts his heart, it makes him weep
   For wonder, worship, and delight.
O, paradox of love, he longs,
   Most humble when he most aspires,
To suffer scorn and cruel wrongs
   From her he honours and desires.
Her graces make him rich, and ask
   No guerdon; this imperial style
Affronts him; he disdains to bask,
   The pensioner of her priceless smile.
He prays for some hard thing to do,
   Some work of fame and labour immense,
To stretch the languid bulk and thew
   Of love’s fresh-born magnipotence.
No smallest boon were bought too dear,
   Though barter’d for his love-sick life;
Yet trusts he, with undaunted cheer,
   To vanquish heaven, and call her Wife
He notes how queens of sweetness still
   Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate;
How, self-consign’d with lavish will,
   They ask but love proportionate;
How swift pursuit by small degrees,
   Love’s tactic, works like miracle;
How valour, clothed in courtesies,
   Brings down the haughtiest citadel;
And therefore, though he merits not
   To kiss the braid upon her skirt,
His hope, discouraged ne’er a jot,
   Out-soars all possible desert.
 

II

Love a Virtue

 
Strong passions mean weak will, and he
   Who truly knows the strength and bliss
Which are in love, will own with me
   No passion but a virtue ’tis.
Few hear my word; it soars above
   The subtlest senses of the swarm
Of wretched things which know not love,
   Their Psyche still a wingless worm.
Ice-cold seems heaven’s noble glow
   To spirits whose vital heat is hell;
And to corrupt hearts even so
   The songs I sing, the tale I tell.
These cannot see the robes of white
   In which I sing of love.  Alack,
But darkness shows in heavenly light,
   Though whiteness, in the dark, is black!
 

III

The Attainment

 
You love?  That’s high as you shall go;
   For ’tis as true as Gospel text,
Not noble then is never so,
   Either in this world or the next.
 

HONORIA

1

 
Grown weary with a week’s exile
   From those fair friends, I rode to see
The church-restorings; lounged awhile,
   And met the Dean; was ask’d to tea,
And found their cousin, Frederick Graham
   At Honor’s side.  Was I concern’d,
If, when she sang, his colour came,
   That mine, as with a buffet, burn’d?
A man to please a girl! thought I,
   Retorting his forced smiles, the shrouds
Of wrath, so hid as she was by,
   Sweet moon between her lighted clouds!
 

2

 
Whether this Cousin was the cause
   I know not, but I seem’d to see,
The first time then, how fair she was,
   How much the fairest of the three.
Each stopp’d to let the other go;
   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.