From "The Angel in the House."

His thoughts with reverential care; He meets, by heavenly chance express, His destined wife: some hidden hand Unveils to him that loveliness

Which others cannot understand. No songs of love, no summer dreams Did e'er his longing fancy fire With vision like to this: she seems In all things better than desire.

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 love 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.

To her account does he transfer
His pride, a base and barren root
In him, but, grafted into her,

The bearer of Hesperian fruit.
He dresses, dances well: he knows

A small weight turns a heavy scale: Who'd have her care for him, and shows Himself no care, deserves to fail :

The least is well, yet nothing's light

33

In all the lover does; for he Who pitches hope at such a height Will do all things with dignity. She is so perfect, true, and pure,

Her virtue all virtue so endears, That, often, when he thinks of her, Life's meanness fills his eyes with tears. She's far too lovely to be wrong:

Black, if she pleases, shall be white: Prerogative ties cavil's tongue :

Being a Queen her wrong is right: Defect super-perfection is :

Her great perfections make him grieve, Refusing him the bliss of bliss,

Which is to give, and not receive.

Her

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 labor immense, To stretch the languid bulk and thew Of love's fresh-born magnipotence. Coventry Patmore.

If it be True that any Beauteous Thing. 35

IF IT BE TRUE THAT ANY BEAUTEOUS THING.

IF it be true that any beauteous thing

Raises the pure and just desire of man
From earth to God, the eternal Fount of all,
Such I believe my love; for as in her
So fair, in whom I all besides forget,
I view the gentle work of her Creator,
I have no care for any other thing,
Whilst thus I love. Nor is it marvellous,
Since the effect is not of my own power,
If the soul doth, by nature tempted forth,
Enamored through the eyes,

Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth,
And through them riseth to the Primal Love,
As to its end, and honors in admiring;

For who adores the Maker needs must love his

work.

Translated by J. E. Taylor.

Michael Angelo.

THE MIGHT OF ONE FAIR FACE.

THE

HE might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low de-
sires;

Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above,
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve ;
For oh, how good, how beautiful, must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove!

Forgive me, if I cannot turn away

From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven;
For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Michael Angelo.

Translated by Hartley Coleridge.

"Qual donna attende a Gloriosa Fama."

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"QUAL DONNA ATTENDE A GLORIOSA FAMA."

OTH any maiden seek the glorious fame

DOT

Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy ?

Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy
Whom all the world doth as my lady name!

How honor grows, and pure devotion's flame,
How truth is joined with graceful dignity,
There thou may'st learn, and what the pathway be
To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;

There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill,
And softer silence, and those holy ways
Unutterable, untold by human heart.

But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,
This none can copy! since its lovely rays
Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art.

Translated by T. W. Higginson.

Petrarch