How simple and how circumspect;

How subtle and how fancy-free;
Though sacred to her love, how decked
With unexclusive courtesy;

How quick in talk to see from far
The way to vanquish or evade;
How able her persuasions are

To prove, her reasons to persuade.

How (not to call true instinct's bent
And woman's very nature, harm),
How amiable and innocent

Her pleasure in her power to charm;
How humbly careful to attract,

Though crowned with all the soul desires, Connubial aptitude exact,

Diversity that never tires!

IV

THE TRIBUTE

Boon Nature to the woman bows;
She walks in earth's whole glory clad,
And, chiefest far herself of shows,

All others help her and are glad:
No splendor 'neath the sky's proud dome
But serves her for familiar wear;
The far-fetched diamond finds its home
Flashing and smouldering in her hair;
For her the seas their pearls reveal;
Art and strange lands her pomp supply
With purple, chrome, and cochineal,
Ochre, and lapis lazuli;

The worm its golden woof presents;
Whatever runs, flies, dives, or delves,
All doff for her their ornaments,

Which suit her better than themselves; And all, by this their power to give, Proving her right to take, proclaim

Her beauty's clear prerogative

To profit so by Eden's blame.

A Health

V

NEAREST THE DEAREST

Till Eve was brought to Adam, he
A solitary desert trod,
Though in the great society

Of nature, angels, and of God.
If one slight column counterweighs
The ocean, 'tis the Maker's law,
Who deems obedience better praise
Than sacrifice of erring awe.

VI

THE FOREIGN LAND

A woman is a foreign land,

Of which, though there he settle young,
A man will ne'er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue.
The foolish hie them post-haste through,
See fashions odd and prospects fair,
Learn of the language, "How d'ye do,"
And go and brag they have been there.
The most for leave to trade apply,

For once, at Empire's seat, her heart,
Then get what knowledge ear and eye
Glean chancewise in the life-long mart.

And certain others, few and fit,

Attach them to the Court, and see

The Country's best, its accent hit,

And partly sound its polity.

373

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

A HEALTH

I FILL this cup to one made up

Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air, 'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,-
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,

When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon―

Her health! and would on earth there stood

Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

Edward Coate Pinkney [1802-1828]

Our Sister

375

OUR SISTER

HER face was very fair to see,
So luminous with purity:-

It had no roses, but the hue

Of lilies lustrous with their dew-
Her very soul seemed shining through!

Her quiet nature seemed to be
Tuned to each season's harmony.

The holy sky bent near to her;
She saw a spirit in the stir

Of solemn woods. The rills that beat
Their mosses with voluptuous feet,

Went dripping music through her thought.

Sweet impulse came to her unsought
From graceful things, and beauty took

A sacred meaning in her look.

In the great Master's steps went she
With patience and humility.
The casual gazer could not guess
Half of her veiled loveliness;

Yet ah! what precious things lay hid
Beneath her bosom's snowy lid:—
What tenderness and sympathy,

What beauty of sincerity,

What fancies chaste, and loves, that grew
In heaven's own stainless light and dew!

True woman was she day by day
In suffering, toil, and victory.
Her life, made holy and serene
By faith, was hid with things unseen.
She knew what they alone can know
Who live above but dwell below.

Horatio Nelson Powers [1826-1890]

FROM LIFE

HER thoughts are like a flock of butterflies.

She has a merry love of little things,

And a bright flutter of speech, whereto she brings A threefold eloquence-voice, hands and eyes. Yet under all a subtle silence lies

As a bird's heart is hidden by its wings;

And you shall seek through many wanderings The fairyland of her realities.

She hides herself behind a busy brain

A woman, with a child's laugh in her blood;
A maid, wearing the shadow of motherhood-
Wise with the quiet memory of old pain,
As the soft glamor of remembered rain
Hallows the gladness of a sunlit wood.

Brian Hooker [1880

THE ROSE OF THE WORLD

WHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the laboring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place,
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

William Butler Yeats [1865