Читать книгу The Angel in the House - Coventry Patmore - Страница 7

Most rare is still most noble found,

   Most noble still most incomplete;

Sad law, which leaves King Love uncrown’d

   In this obscure, terrestrial seat!

With bale more sweet than others’ bliss,

   And bliss more wise than others’ bale,

The secrets of the world are his.

   And freedom without let or pale.

O, zealous good, O, virtuous glee,

   Religious, and without alloy,

O, privilege high, which none but he

   Who highly merits can enjoy;

O, Love, who art that fabled sun

   Which all the world with bounty loads,

Without respect of realms, save one,

   And gilds with double lustre Rhodes;

A day of whose delicious life,

   Though full of terrors, full of tears,

Is better than of other life

   A hundred thousand million years;

Thy heavenly splendour magnifies

   The least commixture of earth’s mould,

Cheapens thyself in thine own eyes,

   And makes the foolish mocker bold.

What if my pole-star of respect

   Be dim to others?  Shall their ‘Nay,’

Presumably their own defect,

   Invalidate my heart’s strong ‘Yea’?

And can they rightly me condemn,

   If I, with partial love, prefer?

I am not more unjust to them,

   But only not unjust to her.

Leave us alone!  After awhile,

   This pool of private charity

Shall make its continent an isle,

   And roll, a world-embracing sea;

This foolish zeal of lip for lip,

   This fond, self-sanction’d, wilful zest,

Is that elect relationship

   Which forms and sanctions all the rest;

This little germ of nuptial love,

   Which springs so simply from the sod,

The root is, as my song shall prove,

   Of all our love to man and God.

What measure Fate to him shall mete

   Is not the noble Lover’s care;

He’s heart-sick with a longing sweet

   To make her happy as she’s fair.

Oh, misery, should she him refuse,

   And so her dearest good mistake!

His own success he thus pursues

   With frantic zeal for her sole sake.

To lose her were his life to blight,

   Being loss to hers; to make her his,

Except as helping her delight,

   He calls but incidental bliss;

And holding life as so much pelf

   To buy her posies, learns this lore:

He does not rightly love himself

   Who does not love another more.

Kind souls, you wonder why, love you,

   When you, you wonder why, love none.

We love, Fool, for the good we do,

   Not that which unto us is done!

The Ladies rose.  I held the door,

   And sigh’d, as her departing grace

Assured me that she always wore

   A heart as happy as her face;

And, jealous of the winds that blew,

   I dreaded, o’er the tasteless wine,

What fortune momently might do

   To hurt the hope that she’d be mine.

Towards my mark the Dean’s talk set:

   He praised my ‘Notes on Abury,’

Read when the Association met

   At Sarum; he was pleased to see

I had not stopp’d, as some men had,

   At Wrangler and Prize Poet; last,

He hoped the business was not bad

   I came about: then the wine pass’d.

A full glass prefaced my reply:

   I loved his daughter, Honor; I told

My estate and prospects; might I try

   To win her?  At my words so bold

My sick heart sank.  Then he: He gave

   His glad consent, if I could get

Her love.  A dear, good Girl! she’d have

   Only three thousand pounds as yet;

More bye and bye.  Yes, his good will

   Should go with me; he would not stir;

He and my father in old time still

   Wish’d I should one day marry her;

But God so seldom lets us take

   Our chosen pathway, when it lies

In steps that either mar or make

   Or alter others’ destinies,

That, though his blessing and his pray’r

   Had help’d, should help, my suit, yet he

Left all to me, his passive share

   Consent and opportunity.

My chance, he hoped, was good: I’d won

   Some name already; friends and place

Appear’d within my reach, but none

   Her mind and manners would not grace.

Girls love to see the men in whom

   They invest their vanities admired;

Besides, where goodness is, there room

   For good to work will be desired.

’Twas so with one now pass’d away;

   And what she was at twenty-two,

Honor was now; and he might say

   Mine was a choice I could not rue.