CCCLXXIX. COVENTRY PATMORE, 1823
Whenever I come where women 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 decayed,
And crew that care for calm and shock
Alike, too full to be dismayed;
Yet, if I come where women 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
2. BACHELORS.
We who are married, let us own
A bachelor's chief thought in life
Is, or the fool's not worth a groan,
To win a woman for his wife.
I kept the custom. 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.
3. WOMAN'S DRESS.
That nothing here may want its praise,
Know, she who in her dress reveals
A fine and modest taste, displays
More loveliness than she conceals.
4. WOMAN'S MARRIAGE.
Maid, choosing man, remember this :
You take his nature with his name.
Ask, too, what his religion is,
For you will soon be of the same.
Mine is no horse with wings to gain
The region of the spheral clime;
He does but drag a rumbling wain,
Cheered by the silver 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 kick or rear.
The king, he reigns on a throne of gold,
Fenced round by his right divine;
The baron, he sits in his castle old,
Drinking his ripe red wine:
But below, below, in his ragged coat,
The beggar he tuneth a hungry note,
And the spinner is bound to his weary thread,
And the debtor lies down with an aching head.
So the world goes!
Yet there is a fellow whom nobody knows,
Who maketh all free
On land and sea,
And forceth the rich like the
The lady lies down in her warm white lawn
And dreams of the pearlèd pride;
The milk-maid sings, to the wild-eyed dawn,
Sad songs on the cold hill-side:
And the bishop smiles, as on high he sits,
On the scholar who writes and starves by fits;
And the girl, who her nightly needle plies,
Looks out for the summer of life-and dies.
So the world goes!
Yet there is a fellow whom nobody knows,
Who maketh all free
And forceth the rich like the poor to flee.
CCCLXXXI. GERALD MASSEY, 1828
There's no dearth of kindness
In this world of ours;
Only, in our blindness,
We gather thorns for flowers.
Outward, we are spurning,
Trampling one another!
While we are inly yearning
At the name of "Brother."
There's no dearth of kindness
Or love among mankind;
But in darkling loneness
Hooded hearts grow blind!
Full of kindness tingling
Soul is shut from soul,
When they might be mingling
In one kindred whole.
There's no dearth of kindness,
Though it be unspoken;
From the heart it buildeth
Rainbow smiles in token.
That there be none so lowly
But have some angel touch;
Yet, nursing loves unholy,
We live for self too much.
As the wild rose bloweth,
As runs the happy river,
Kindness freely floweth
In the heart for ever.
But, if men will hanker
Ever for golden dust,
Kindliest hearts will canker,
Brightest spirits rust.
There's no dearth of kindness
In this world of ours;
Only, in our blindness,
We gather thorns for flowers!
O, cherish God's best giving,
Falling from above!
Life were not worth living,
Were it not for love.
CCCLXXXII. ALEXANDER SMITH, 1830
Books, written when the soul is at spring-tide-
When it is laden, like a groaning sky,
Before a thunder-storm, are a power and gladness
And majesty and beauty. They seize the reader,
As tempests seize a ship, and bear him on
With a wild joy. Some books are drenchéd sands,
On which a great soul's wealth lies, all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy. What power in books!
They mingle gloom and splendour; as I've oft,
In thunderous sunsets, seen the thunder-piles
Seamed with dull fire and fiercest glory-rents.
They awe me to my knees; as if I stood
In presence of a king. They give me tears-
Such glorious tears as Eve's fair daughters shed,
When first they clasped a Son of God, all bright
With burning plumes and splendours of the sky,
In zoning heaven of their milky arms.
How few read books aright! most souls are shut
By sense from grandeur, as a man, who snores,
Night-capped and wrapped in blankets to the nose,
Is shut in from the night, which, like a sea,
Breaketh for ever on a strand of stars!
Lady! in book-world have I ever dwelt.
This book has domed by being, like a sky!
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