I found them, with exactest grace
And fresh as Spring, for Spring attired;
And by the radiance in her face
I saw she felt she was admired;
And, through the common luck of love,
A moment’s fortunate delay,
To fit the little lilac glove,
Gave me her arm; and I and they
(They true to this and every hour,
As if attended on by Time),
Enter’d the Church while yet the tower
Was noisy with the finish’d chime.
6
Her soft voice, singularly heard
Beside me, in her chant, withstood
The roar of voices, like a bird
Sole warbling in a windy wood;
And, when we knelt, she seem’d to be
An angel teaching me to pray;
And all through the high Liturgy
My spirit rejoiced without allay,
Being, for once, borne clearly above
All banks and bars of ignorance,
By this bright spring-tide of pure love,
And floated in a free expanse,
Whence it could see from side to side,
The obscurity from every part
Winnow’d away and purified
By the vibrations of my heart.
CANTO XI.
The Dance.
PRELUDES.
I.
The Daughter of Eve.
The woman’s gentle mood o’erstept
Withers my love, that lightly scans
The rest, and does in her accept
All her own faults, but none of man’s.
As man I cannot judge her ill,
Or honour her fair station less,
Who, with a woman’s errors, still
Preserves a woman’s gentleness;
For thus I think, if one I see
Who disappoints my high desire,
‘How admirable would she be,
Could she but know how I admire!’
Or fail she, though from blemish clear,
To charm, I call it my defect;
And so my thought, with reverent fear
To err by doltish disrespect,
Imputes love’s great regard, and says,
‘Though unapparent ’tis to me,
Be sure this Queen some other sways
With well-perceiv’d supremacy.’
Behold the worst! Light from above
On the blank ruin writes ‘Forbear!
Her first crime was unguarded love,
And all the rest, perhaps, despair.’
Discrown’d, dejected, but not lost,
O, sad one, with no more a name
Or place in all the honour’d host
Of maiden and of matron fame,
Grieve on; but, if thou grievest right,
’Tis not that these abhor thy state,
Nor would’st thou lower the least the height
Which makes thy casting down so great.
Good is thy lot in its degree;
For hearts that verily repent
Are burden’d with impunity
And comforted by chastisement.
Sweet patience sanctify thy woes!
And doubt not but our God is just,
Albeit unscathed thy traitor goes,
And thou art stricken to the dust.
That penalty’s the best to bear
Which follows soonest on the sin;
And guilt’s a game where losers fare
Better than those who seem to win.
II.
Aurea Dicta.
’Tis truth (although this truth’s a star
Too deep-enskied for all to see),
As poets of grammar, lovers are
The fountains of morality.
Child, would you shun the vulgar doom,
In love disgust, in death despair?
Know, death must come and love must come,
And so for each your soul prepare.