Free sample

Chapter I

THE Angel in the House.

BY COVENTRY PATMORE.

“Par la grace infinie, Dieu les mist au monde ensemble.” Rousier des Dames.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE. 1891.

p. vTHIS POEM IS INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF HER BY WHOM AND FOR WHOM I BECAME A POET.

p. viiINTRODUCTION.

There could be but one answer to the suggestion of Mr. Coventry Patmore that his “Angel in the House” might usefully have a place in this “National Library.” The suggestion was made with the belief that wide and cheap diffusion would not take from the value of a copyright library edition, while the best use of writing is fulfilled by the spreading of verse dedicated to the sacred love of home. The two parts of the Poem appeared in 1854 and 1856, were afterwards elaborately revised, and have since obtained a permanent place among the Home Books of the English People. Our readers will join, surely, in thanks to the author for the present he has made us.

H. M.

p. ixCONTENTS

BOOK I.

PAGE

THE PROLOGUE.

CANTO

THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE

Preludes:

The Impossibility

Love’s Really

The Poet’s Confidence

The Cathedral Close

II.

MARY AND MILDRED

Preludes:

The Paragon

Love at Large

Love and Duty

A Distinction

Mary and Mildred

III.

HONORIA

Preludes:

The Lover

Love a Virtue

The Attainment

Honoria

IV.

THE MORNING CALL

Preludes:

The Rose of the World

The Tribute

Compensation

The Morning Call

THE VIOLETS

Preludes:

The Comparison

Love in Tears

Prospective Faith

Venus Victrix

The Violets

p. xVI.

THE DEAN

Preludes:

Perfect Love rare

Love Justified

Love Serviceable

A Riddle Solved

The Dean

VII.

ÆTNA AND THE MOON

Preludes:

Love’s Immortality

Heaven and Earth

Ætna and the Moon

VIII.

SARUM PLAIN

Preludes:

Life of Life

The Revelation

The Spirit’s Epochs

The Prototype

The Praise of Love

Sarum Plain

IX.

SAHARA

Preludes:

The Wife’s Tragedy

Common Graces

The Zest of Life

Fool and Wise

Sahara

CHURCH TO CHURCH

Preludes:

The Joyful Wisdom

The Devices

Going to Church

XI.

THE DANCE

Preludes:

The Daughter of Eve

Aurea Dicta

The Dance

XII.

THE ABDICATION

Preludes:

The Chace

Denied

100

The Churl

101

The Abdication

102

p. xiBOOK II.

THE PROLOGUE

105

ACCEPTED

109

Preludes:

The Song of Songs

109

The Kites

110

Orpheus

111

Nearest the Dearest

111

Perspective

112

Accepted

112

II.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

116

Preludes:

The Changed Allegiance

116

Beauty

120

Lais and Lucretia

120

The Course of True Love

121

III.

THE COUNTRY BALL

126

Preludes:

Love Ceremonious

126

The Rainbow

127

A Paradox

127

The County Ball

128

IV.

LOVE IN IDLENESS

132

Preludes:

Honour and Desert

132

Love and Honour

133

Valour Misdirected

134

Love in Idleness

134

THE QUEEN’S ROOM

139

Preludes:

Rejected

139

Rachel

140

The Heart’s Prophecies

141

The Queen’s Room

141

VI.

THE LOVE-LETTERS

145

Preludes:

Love’s Perversity

145

The Power of Love

147

The Love-Letters

148

VII.

THE REVULSION

152

Preludes:

Joy and Use

152

‘She was Mine’

153

The Revulsion

153

p. xiiVIII.

THE KOH-I-NOOR

158

Preludes:

In Love

158

Love Thinking

160

The Kiss

161

The Koh-i-noor

161

IX.

THE FRIENDS

165

Preludes:

The Nursling of Civility

165

The Foreign Land

166

Disappointment

166

The Friends

167

THE EPITAPH

170

Preludes:

Frost in Harvest

170

Felicity

171

Marriage Indissoluble

172

The Epitaph

172

XI.

THE WEDDING

176

Preludes:

Platonic Love

176

A Demonstration

177

The Symbol

178

Constancy Rewarded

178

The Wedding

179

XII.

HUSBAND AND WIFE

183

Preludes:

The Married Lover

183

The Amaranth

184

Husband and Wife

185

The Epilogue

189

p. 13Book 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. p. 14With 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.’

p. 154

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! p. 16And, 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.’

p. 17CANTO 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; p. 18I’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. p. 19From 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, p. 20And 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. p. 21Well 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.

4

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? p. 22How 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.

5

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. p. 23The 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.

p. 24CANTO 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; p. 25A 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; p. 26And 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, p. 27Third-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.

p. 28IV. 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; p. 29Since 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.’

p. 303

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, p. 31And, 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.

p. 32CANTO 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. p. 33Her 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.

p. 34II. Love a Virtue.

The sample stops here

This is as far as the free sample of The Angel in the House goes

You have read 4 of 5 chapters. Start your trial to keep reading all 5 chapters, tap any word for an instant translation, hear the audio narration, and save your progress across devices.

Start your trial & keep reading Back to book

Free sampleTap to translateAudio narration