---

Coventry Patmore - The Victories Of Love. Book II
Work rating: Low

1 2 3 
                 Alas, the only one of all
                 That shall not lie where it doth fall?
                 Shall this unflagging flame, here nurs`d
                 By everything, yea, when reversed,
                 Blazing, in fury, brighter, wink,
                 Flicker, and into darkness shrink,
                 When all else glows, baleful or brave,
                 In the keen air beyond the grave?

                 Beware; for fiends in triumph laugh
                 O`er him who learns the truth by half!
                 Beware; for God will not endure
                 For men to make their hope more pure
                 Than His good promise, or require
                 Another than the five-string`d lyre
                 Which He has vow`d again to the hands
                 Devout of him who understands
                 To tune it justly here! Beware
                 The Powers of Darkness and the Air,
                 Which lure to empty heights man`s hope,
                 Bepraising heaven`s ethereal cope,
                 But covering with their cloudy cant
                 Its ground of solid adamant,
                 That strengthens ether for the flight
                 Of angels, makes and measures height,
                 And in materiality
                 Exceeds our Earth`s in such degree     
                 As all else Earth exceeds! Do I
                 Here utter aught too dark or high?
                 Have you not seen a bird`s beak slay
                 Proud Psyche, on a summer`s day?
                 Down fluttering drop the frail wings four,
                 Missing the weight which made them soar.
                 Spirit is heavy nature`s wing,
                 And is not rightly anything
                 Without its burthen, whereas this,
                 Wingless, at least a maggot is,
                 And, wing`d, is honour and delight
                 Increasing endlessly with height.

  XI
                 If unto any here that chance
                 Fell not, which makes a month`s romance,
                 Remember, few wed whom they would.
                 And this, like all God`s laws, is good;
                 For nought`s so sad, the whole world o`er,
                 As much love which has once been more.
                 Glorious for light is the earliest love;
                 But worldly things, in the rays thereof,
                 Extend their shadows, every one
                 False as the image which the sun
                 At noon or eve dwarfs or protracts.
                 A perilous lamp to light men`s acts!
                 By Heaven`s kind, impartial plan,
                 Well-wived is he that`s truly man
                 If but the woman`s womanly,
                 As such a man`s is sure to be.
                 Joy of all eyes and pride of life
                 Perhaps she is not; the likelier wife!
                 If it be thus; if you have known,
                 (As who has not?) some heavenly one,
                 Whom the dull background of despair
                 Help`d to show forth supremely fair;     
                 If memory, still remorseful, shapes
                 Young Passion bringing Eshcol grapes
                 To travellers in the Wilderness,
                 This truth will make regret the less:
                 Mighty in love as graces are,
                 God`s ordinance is mightier far;
                 And he who is but just and kind
                 And patient, shall for guerdon find,
                 Before long, that the body`s bond
                 Is all else utterly beyond
                 In power of love to actualise
                 The soul`s bond which it signifies,
                 And even to deck a wife with grace
                 External in the form and face.
                 A five years` wife, and not yet fair?
                 Blame let the man, not Nature, bear!
                 For, as the sun, warming a bank
                 Where last year`s grass droops gray and dank,
                 Evokes the violet, bids disclose
                 In yellow crowds the fresh primrose,
                 And foxglove hang her flushing head,
                 So vernal love, where all seems dead,
                 Makes beauty abound.

                 Then was that nought,
                 That trance of joy beyond all thought,
                 The vision, in one, of womanhood?
                 Nay, for all women holding good,
                 Should marriage such a prologue want,
                 `Twere sordid and most ignorant
                 Profanity; but, having this,
                 `Tis honour now, and future bliss;
                 For where is he that, knowing the height
                 And depth of ascertain`d delight,
                 Inhumanly henceforward lies
                 Content with mediocrities!
Source
The script ran 0.003 seconds.