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.
The 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.

CANTO 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;
A 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;
And 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,
Third-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.