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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Angel In The House. Book II. Canto IV.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Preludes.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I Honour and Desert <br>O queen, awake to thy renown,<br>Require what 'tis our wealth to give,<br>And comprehend and wear the crown<br>Of thy despised prerogative!<br>I, who in manhood's name at length<br>With glad songs come to abdicate<br>The gross regality of strength,<br>Must yet in this thy praise abate,<br>That, through thine erring humbleness<br>And disregard of thy degree,<br>Mainly, has man been so much less<br>Than fits his fellowship with thee.<br>High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow,<br>The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword,<br>The vilest had been great, hadst thou,<br>Just to thyself, been worth's reward.<br>But lofty honours undersold<br>Seller and buyer both disgrace;<br>And favours that make folly bold<br>Banish the light from virtue's face.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>II Love and Honour <br>What man with baseness so content,<br>Or sick with false conceit of right,<br>As not to know that the element<br>And inmost warmth of love's delight<br>Is honour? Who'd not rather kiss<br>A duchess than a milkmaid, prank<br>The two in equal grace, which is<br>Precedent Nature's obvious rank?<br>Much rather, then, a woman deck'd<br>With saintly honours, chaste and good,<br>Whose thoughts celestial things affect,<br>Whose eyes express her heavenly mood!<br>Those lesser vaunts are dimm'd or lost<br>Which plume her name or paint her lip,<br>Extinct in the deep-glowing boast<br>Of her angelic fellowship.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III Valour misdirected <br>‘I'll hunt for dangers North and South,<br>‘To prove my love, which sloth maligns!’<br>What seems to say her rosy mouth?<br>‘I'm not convinced by proofs but signs.’</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>Love In Idleness.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I<br>What should I do? In such a wife<br>Fortune had lavish'd all her store,<br>And nothing now seem'd left for life<br>But to deserve her more and more.<br>To this I vow'd my life's whole scope;<br>And Love said, ‘I forewarn you now,<br>‘The Maiden will fulfil your hope<br>‘Only as you fulfil your vow.’</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>II<br>A promised service, (task for days),<br>Was done this morning while she slept,<br>With that full heart which thinks no praise<br>Of vows which are not more than kept;<br>But loftier work did love impose,<br>And studious hours. Alas, for these,<br>While she from all my thoughts arose<br>Like Venus from the restless seas!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III<br>I conn'd a scheme, with mind elate:<br>My Uncle's land would fall to me,<br>My skill was much in school debate,<br>My friends were strong in Salisbury;<br>A place in Parliament once gain'd,<br>Thro' saps first labour'd out of sight,<br>Far loftier peaks were then attain'd<br>With easy leaps from height to height;<br>And that o'erwhelming honour paid,<br>Or recognised, at least, in life, <br>Which this most sweet and noble Maid<br>Should yield to him who call'd her Wife.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV<br>I fix'd this rule: in Sarum Close<br>To make two visits every week,<br>The first to-day; and, save on those,<br>I nought would do, think, read, or speak,<br>Which did not help my settled will<br>To earn the Statesman's proud applause.<br>And now, forthwith, to mend my skill<br>In ethics, politics, and laws,<br>The Statesman's learning! Flush'd with power<br>And pride of freshly-form'd resolve,<br>I read Helvetius half-an-hour;<br>But, halting in attempts to solve<br>Why, more than all things else that be,<br>A lady's grace hath force to move<br>That sensitive appetency<br>Of intellectual good, call'd love,<br>Took Blackstone down, only to draw<br>My swift-deriving thoughts ere long<br>To love, which is the source of law,<br>And, like a king, can do no wrong;<br>Then open'd Hyde, where loyal hearts,<br>With faith unpropp'd by precedent,<br>Began to play rebellious parts.<br>O, mighty stir that little meant!<br>How dull the crude, plough'd fields of fact<br>To me who trod the Elysian grove!<br>How idle all heroic act<br>By the least suffering of love!<br>I could not read; so took my pen,<br>And thus commenced, in form of notes,<br>A Lecture for the Salisbury men,<br>With due regard to Tory votes: <br>‘A road's a road, though worn to ruts;<br>‘They speed who travel straight therein;<br>‘But he who tacks and tries short cuts<br>‘Gets fools' praise and a broken shin—’<br>And here I stopp'd in sheer despair;<br>But, what to-day was thus begun,<br>I vow'd, up starting from my chair,<br>To-morrow should indeed be done;<br>So loosed my chafing thoughts from school,<br>To play with fancy as they chose,<br>And then, according to my rule,<br>I dress'd, and came to Sarum Close.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V<br>Ah, that sweet laugh! Diviner sense<br>Did Nature, forming her, inspire<br>To omit the grosser elements,<br>And make her all of air and fire!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=359169" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VII<br>To-morrow, Cowes Regatta fell:<br>The Dean would like his girls to go,<br>If I went too. ‘Most gladly.’ Well,<br>I did but break a foolish vow!<br>Unless Love's toil has love for prize,<br>(And then he's Hercules), above<br>All other contrarieties<br>Is labour contrary to love.<br>No fault of Love's, but nature's laws!<br>And Love, in idleness, lies quick;<br>For as the worm whose powers make pause,<br>And swoon, through alteration sick,<br>The soul, its wingless state dissolved,<br>Awaits its nuptial life complete,<br>All indolently self-convolved,<br>Cocoon'd in silken fancies sweet.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Coventry+Patmore">Coventry Patmore</a></strong></div>