HIBRARYflr 
 
 . .vlOS ANGELA
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE.
 
 THE 
 
 VICTORIES OF LOVE 
 
 COVENTRY PATUOEE. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AXGEL OF THE HOVSE," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 T. O. H. P. BURNHAM. 
 
 1862.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 5" 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I, -JANE TO HER MOTHER 9 
 
 II. JANE TO FREDERICK 19 
 
 III. -JANE TO FREDERICK 27 
 
 IV. -JANE TO FREDERICK 35 
 
 V.-MARY CHURCHILL TO THE DEAN . 43 
 
 VI. -FELIX VAUGHAN TO BONORIA VAUGHAN 51 
 
 VII. -LADY CL1THEROE TO MRS. GRAHAM 65 
 
 VIIL LADY CL1THEROE TO EMILY GRAHAM 71 
 
 IX.-THE WEDDING SERMON . 79 
 
 2055998
 
 JANE TO HER MOTHER. 
 
 to
 
 THE VICTOBIES OE LOVE 
 
 I. JANE TO HER MOTHER. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, I can surely tell, 
 Now, that I never shall get well. 
 Besides the warning in my mind, 
 All suddenly are grown so kind ! 
 Fred stops the doctor, too, each day 
 Down stairs, and, when he goes away, 
 Comes smiling back, and sits with me, 
 Pale, and conversing cheerfully 
 "*About the spring, and how my cough, 
 In finer weather, will leave off. 
 But yesterday I told him plain 
 I felt no hope of spring again. 
 Then he, after a word of jest, 
 Burst into tears upon my breast, 
 And owned, when he could speak, he knew 
 There was a little danger, too. 
 This made me very weak and ill, 
 And while, last night, I lay quite still, 
 And, as he fancied, in the deep 
 Exhausted rest of my short sleep,
 
 10 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 I saw him kneel, and heard him pray, 
 " Father, take her not away ! 
 Let not life's dear assurance lapse 
 Into death's agonized ' Perhaps ; ' 
 A hope without thy sanction, where 
 Less than assurance is despair ! 
 Give me some sign, if go she must, 
 That death's not worse than dust to dust ; 
 Not heaven, on whose oblivious shore, 
 Joy I may have, but her no more ! 
 The bitterest cross, it seems to me, 
 Of all, is infidelity ; 
 And so, if I may choose, I'll miss 
 The kind of heaven which comes to this ! 
 If doomed, indeed, this fever ceased, 
 To die out wholly, like a beast, 
 Forgetting all life's ill success 
 In dark and peaceful nothingness, 
 I could but say, Thy will be done ; 
 For, being thus, I am but one 
 Of seed innumerable, which ne'er 
 In all the worlds shall bloom or bear. 
 I've put life past to so poor use 
 Well mayst Thou life to come refuse, 
 And justice, which the spirit contents, 
 Shall still in me all vain laments ; 
 Nay, pleased, I'll think, while yet I live, 
 That Thou my forfeit joy mayst give
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 11 
 
 To some fresh life, else uuelect, 
 And heaven not feel my poor defect ! 
 Only let not Thy method be 
 To make that life, and call it me ; 
 Still less to sever mine in twain, 
 And tell each half to live again, 
 And count itself the whole ! To die, 
 Is it love's disintegrity ? 
 Answer me, ' No,' and I, with grace, 
 Will life's brief desolation face ; 
 My ways, as native to the clime, 
 Adjusting to the wintry time, 
 Even with a patient cheer thereof." 
 
 He started up, hearing me cough. 
 O mother, now my last doubt's gone ! 
 He likes me more than Mrs. Vaughan ; 
 And death, which takes me from his side, 
 Shows me, in very deed, his bride ! 
 
 Thank God, the burdens on the heart 
 Are not half known till they depart ! 
 Although I prayed, for many a year, 
 To love with love that casts out fear, 
 His very kindness frightened me, 
 And heaven seemed less far off than he. 
 For what could such a man discern 
 In such a wife ? 'Tis hard to learn 
 How little God requires of us ; 
 And with my Frederick erred I thus.
 
 12 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And woman's love to man burns dim, 
 Unless she thinks she's loved by him. 
 
 Yet greater love, we read, has none 
 Than he who for his friend lays down 
 His life, as Fred did, nursing me 
 Through many an illness ; nay, as he 
 Did daily, working all the day 
 That I and mine might eat and play. 
 Yet could I see no love in this, 
 Nor feel the kindness of his kiss ; 
 And in the darkness would I trace 
 His cousin, Mrs. Vaughan's sweet face, 
 And laugh, that made all love mere debt, 
 Till sick with envy and regret. 
 That Fred might love the more for nought 
 Was far beyond my selfish thought, 
 And how my feebleness might be, 
 To him, what Baby's was to me. 
 
 I prayed and prayed ; but God's wise way, 
 I find, is still to let me pray 
 For a better heart, until I'm tired ; 
 And when, indeed, the change desired 
 Comes, lest I give myself the praise, 
 It comes by Providence, not Grace ; 
 And still my thanks for granted prayers 
 Are groans at unexpected cares. 
 First, Baby went to heaven, you know, 
 And, five weeks after, Grace went too.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 13 
 
 To hide the gap left by the dead, 
 I strove to get more near to Fred ; 
 And he became more talkative, 
 And, stooping to my heart, would give 
 Signs of his love which touched me more 
 Than all the proofs he gave before ; 
 And in that time of our great grief 
 We talked religion for relief ; 
 And thenceforth many a Scripture text 
 Helped me, which had till then perplexed. 
 0, what a wondrous word seemed this : 
 He is my head, as Christ is his ! 
 None surely could have dared to see 
 In marriage such a dignity 
 . For man, and for his wife still less 
 Such happy, happy lowliness, 
 Had God himself not made it plain ! 
 This revelation lays the rein, 
 If I may speak so, on the neck 
 Of a wife's love, takes thence the check 
 Of conscience, and forbids to doubt 
 Its measure is to be without 
 All measure, and a right excess 
 Is here her rule of godliness ! 
 
 To think of how this doctrine meets 
 My lot, is still the sweet of sweets. 
 I took him not for love, but fright ; 
 He did but ask a dreadful right.
 
 14 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 In this was love, that he loved me 
 
 The first, who was mere poverty. 
 
 All that I know of love he taught ; 
 
 And love is all I know of aught. 
 
 My merit is so small by his 
 
 That my demerit is my bliss ; 
 
 Yet, for the sake of only love, 
 
 And that his gift, does he approve 
 
 His wife entirely, as the Lord 
 
 The Church his Bride, whom thus the "Word 
 
 Calls Black but Comely, Precious, Sweet, 
 
 Fair, Pleasant, Holy, yea, Complete, 
 
 When really she was no such thing ! 
 
 But God knew well what he could bring 
 
 From nought, and he, her Beauty's cause 
 
 Saw it, and praised it, ere it was. 
 
 So did, so does my lord, my friend, 
 
 On whom for all things I depend ; 
 
 Whose I am wholly, rather who 
 
 I am, so am in all things new ; 
 
 My Love, my Life, My Reverence, yes, 
 
 And, in some sort, my Righteousness^! 
 
 For wisdom does in him so shine, 
 
 My conscience seems more his than mine. 
 
 My life is hid with him in Christ, 
 
 Never thencefrom to be enticed ; 
 
 And in his strength have I such rest 
 
 As when the baby on my breast
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 15 
 
 Finds what it knows not how to seek, 
 And, very happy, very weak, 
 Lies, only knowing all is well, 
 Pillowed on kindness palpable. 
 
 0, this unspeakable delight 
 Of owing a debt that's infinite ! 
 And yet, if possible, more sweet 
 The folly, vanity, conceit, 
 Astonishment, and mystery 
 That he delights no less in me ! 
 
 Till now, I saw no hope above 
 This sweet contentment. Yet my love 
 Dared never ask, " In the other life, 
 Dear, would you choose me for your wife ? " 
 But death now comes indeed to brino- 
 
 O ! 
 
 The bondage of the wedding-ring. 
 And who can tell what's yet in store 
 In heaven, where narrow bonds are more 
 Narrow, if that's their present bliss, 
 And life's an image still of this, 
 But such a strange and glorious one 
 As is the rainbow of the sun !
 
 JANE TO FREDERICK.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 19 
 
 H. JANE TO FREDERICK. 
 
 I HEARD you praying once, my Love, 
 That I might be your wife above ; 
 And this I've written to be read 
 To comfort you when I am dead. 
 I cry so I can scarcely write 
 To fancy you alone at night, 
 When darkness seems so full of death 
 That you can hardly get your breath, 
 Imploring God, perhaps in vain, 
 For proof that you shall have me again. 
 When Grace died I was too perplexed 
 To call to mind a single text ; 
 And when, a little while before, 
 I found her sobbing on the floor, 
 Because I told her that in heaven 
 She would be as the angels even, 
 And would not want her doll, 'tis true 
 A horrible fear within me grew 
 That, since the preciousness of love 
 Went thus for nothing, mine might prove 
 To be no more, and heaven's bliss 
 Some dreadful good which is not this. 
 
 But being about to die makes clear 
 Many dark things, and I've no fear,
 
 20 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Now, that my love, my grief, my joy 
 Is but a passion for a toy. 
 
 I cannot speak at all, I find, 
 The shining something in my mind 
 That shows so much that, if I took 
 My thoughts all down, 'twould be a book. 
 God's "Word, which lately seemed above 
 The simpleness of human love, 
 To my death-sharpened hearing tells 
 Of little or of nothing else, 
 And many thoughts I wished were true, 
 When first they came like songs from you, 
 Now rise with power beyond the reach 
 Of doubt, and I to you can teach, 
 As if with felt authority 
 And as things seen, what you taught me. 
 
 Yet how ? I have no words but those 
 Which every one already knows : 
 As, " No man hath at any time 
 Seen God, but 'tis the love of Him 
 Made perfect, and He dwells in us, 
 If we each other love." Or thus : 
 " My goodness misseth in extent 
 Of Thee, Lord ! In the excellent 
 I know Thee ; and the Saints on Earth 
 Are all my love and holy mirth." 
 And further : " Inasmuch as ye 
 Did it to one of these, to Me
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 21 
 
 Ye did it, though ye nothing thought 
 Nor knew of Me, in that ye wrought." 
 
 Thus, dear, the love of you and me 
 Is love to God and charity 
 To all men. O, I love you so, 
 I love all other, friend and foe, 
 And will, perforce, all kinds of good 
 To all in need and neighborhood ! 
 What shall I dread ? Will God undo 
 This bond, which is all others too ! 
 And when I meet you will you say, 
 To my reclaiming looks, " Away ! 
 A dearer love is in my arms, 
 With higher rights and holier charms ; 
 The children whom thou here mayst see, 
 * Neighbors ' that mingle thee and me, 
 And gayly on impartial lyres 
 Renounce the foolish filial fires 
 They felt, with ' Praise to God on High, 
 Good-will to all else equally ; ' 
 The trials, duties, service, tears ; 
 The many fond, confiding years 
 Of nearness sweet with thee apart ; 
 The joy of body, mind, and heart ; 
 The love that grew a reckless growth, 
 Unmindful that the marriage-oath 
 To love in an eternal style 
 Meant, only for a little while ;
 
 22 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Severed are now these bonds earth-wrought ; 
 All love, not new, stands here for nought ! " 
 
 Why, it seems almost wicked, dear, 
 Even to fancy such a fear ! 
 Are we not " heirs," as man and wife, 
 " Together of eternal life ? " 
 Was Paradise e'er meant to fade, 
 To make which marriage first was made ? 
 Neither beneath him nor above 
 Could man in Eden find his Love ; 
 Yet with him in the garden walked 
 His God, and with him mildly talked ! 
 Shall the humble preference offend, 
 In heaven, which God did there commend ? 
 Are " honorable and undefiled " 
 The names of things from heaven exiled ? 
 And are we not forbid to grieve 
 As without hope ? Does God deceive, 
 And call that hope which is despair, 
 Namely, the life we should not share ? 
 Image and glory of the man, 
 As he of God, is woman. Can 
 This holy, sweet proportion die 
 Into a dull equality ? 
 And shall I, feeble, have to face 
 The heaven's unsufferable blaze, 
 Without your arms to hide me and hold, 
 Whilst you declare it, gazing bold ?
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 23 
 
 Are we not one flesh, yea, so far 
 More than the babe and mother are, 
 That sons are bid mothers to leave, 
 And to their wives alone to cleave, 
 " For they two are one flesh " ? But 'tis 
 In the flesh we rise ! Our union is, 
 The Bible says, " great mystery." 
 Great mockery, it appears to me, 
 Poor image of the spousal bond 
 Of Christ and Church, if loosed beyond 
 This life ! 'Gainst which, and much more yet, 
 There's not a single text to set. 
 The speech to the scoffing Sadducee 
 Is not in point to you and me. 
 For " "Who," you know, " could teach such clods 
 That Caesar's things were also God's " ? 
 The sort of wife the Law could make 
 Might well be " hated " for Love's sake, 
 And left, like money, land, or house ; 
 For out of Christ is no true spouse. 
 I used to think it strange of Him 
 To make love's after-life so dim, 
 Or only clear by inference ! 
 But God trusts much to common-sense, 
 And only tells us what, without 
 His Word, we could not have found out. 
 On fleshly tables of the heart 
 He penned truth's feeling counterpart
 
 24 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 In hopes that come to all ; so, dear, 
 Trust these, and be of happy cheer, 
 Nor think that he who has loved well 
 Is of all men most miserable. 
 
 There's much more yet I want to say, 
 But cannot now. You know my way 
 Of feeling strong from twelve till two, 
 After my wine. I'll write to you 
 Daily some words, which you shall have 
 To break the silence of the grave. 
 Good-by ! Be sure, dear, heaven's King 
 From prayer " withholdeth no good thing."
 
 JANE TO FREDERICK.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 27 
 
 III. JANE TO FREDERICK. 
 
 I'VE been for days distressed in mind 
 With thoughts of all that you may find, 
 When I am gone, to grieve about : 
 But if you have it written out 
 That this, my own death's burden, too, 
 Was one I sharply felt with you, 
 The anguish of the loneliness 
 Of unshared sorrow will be less. 
 
 You'll think, perhaps, " She did not know 
 How much I loved her ! " Dear, I do ! 
 And so you'll say, " Of this new awe 
 Of heart which makes her fancies law, 
 This sensitive advertency 
 To the least that memory can descry, 
 These watchful duties of despair, 
 She does not dream, she cannot care ! " 
 Now, Fred, you see how false that is, 
 Or how could I have written this ? 
 And, should it come into your mind 
 That, now and then, you were unkind, 
 You never, never were at all ! 
 Remember that ! It's natural 
 For such as Mr. Vaughan to come, 
 From a morning's useful pastime, home,
 
 28 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And, having had his lounge at ease, 
 
 To gp down stairs, disposed to please, 
 
 And greet, with such a courteous zest, 
 
 His handsome wife, still newly dressed, 
 
 As if the Bird of Paradise 
 
 Should daily change her plumage thrice ! 
 
 He's always well, she's always gay. 
 
 Of course ! But he who toils all day, 
 
 And comes home hungry, tired, or cold, 
 
 And feels 'twould do him good to scold 
 
 His wife a little, let him trust 
 
 Her love, and boldly be unjust, 
 
 And not care till she cries ! How prove 
 
 In any other way his love, 
 
 Till soothed in mind by meat and rest ? 
 
 If, after that, she's well caressed, 
 
 And told how good she is, to bear 
 
 His humor, fortune makes it fair. 
 
 Women like men to be like men, 
 
 That is, at least, just now and then ! 
 
 And, so, I've nothing to forgive 
 
 But those first years, (how could I live I) 
 
 When, though I really did behave 
 
 So stupidly, you never gave 
 
 One unkind word or look at all. 
 
 As if I was some animal 
 
 You pitied ! Now, in later life, 
 
 You've used me like a proper wife,
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 29 
 
 And dropped, at last, all vain pretence 
 Of what's impossible to sense, 
 Which is, to feel, in every mood, 
 That if a woman's kind and good, 
 A child of God, a living soul, 
 She's not so different, on the whole, 
 From her who has a little more 
 Of God's best gifts. And, 0, be sure, 
 My dear, dear Love, to take no blame 
 Because you could not feel the same 
 Towards me, living, as when dead. 
 A starving man must needs think bread 
 So sweet ! and, only at their rise 
 And setting, blessings, to the eyes, 
 Like the sun's course, grow visible. 
 And, if you're dull, remember well, 
 Against delusions of despair, 
 That memory sees things as they were, 
 And not as they were misenjoyed, 
 And would be, still, if aught destroyed 
 The glory of their hopelessness ; 
 So that, in fact, you had me less 
 In days, when necessary zeal 
 For my perfection made you feel 
 My faults the most, than now your love 
 Forgets but where it can approve. 
 You gain by loss, if that seemed small, 
 Possessed, which, being gone, turns all
 
 30 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Surviving good to vanity. 
 
 Fred, this makes it sweet to die ! 
 Say to yourself, " 'Tis comfort yet 
 
 1 made her that which I regret ; 
 And parting might have come to pass 
 In a worse season. As it was, 
 Love an eternal. temper took, 
 
 Dipped, glowing, in Death's icy brook ! " 
 
 Or else, " On her poor, feeble head 
 
 This might have fallen. 'Tis mine instead ! 
 
 And so great evil sets me free, 
 
 Henceforward, from calamity ! 
 
 And, in her little children, too, 
 
 How much for her I still can do ! " 
 
 And grieve not for these orphans even, 
 
 For central to the love of Heaven 
 
 Is each child, as each star to space. 
 
 This truth my dying love has grace 
 
 To trust with a so sure content, 
 
 I fear I seem indifferent ! 
 
 You must not think a child's small heart 
 Cold, because it and grief soon part. 
 Fanny will keep them all away, 
 And you'll not hear them laugh and play 
 Until the funeral's over. Then, 
 I hope, you'll be yourself again, 
 And glad with all your soul to find 
 How God thus to the sharpest wind
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 31 
 
 Suits the shorn lambs. Instruct them, dear, 
 For my sake, in His love and fear. 
 Show how, until their journey's done, , 
 Not to be weary they must run ; 
 And warn them 'gainst the blasphemy 
 That Heaven makes sin necessity. 
 No fig-leaves hide that shame from God 
 Which kills love's root within the sod ! 
 
 Don't try to dissipate your grief 
 By any lightness. True relief 
 Of sorrow is by sorrow brought. 
 And yet, for sorrow's sake, you ought 
 To grieve with measure. Do not spend 
 So good a power to no good end ! 
 Would you, indeed, have memory stay 
 In the heart, lock up and put away 
 Relics and likenesses and all 
 Musings, which waste what they recall. 
 True comfort, and the only thing 
 To soothe without diminishing 
 A prized regret, is to match here, 
 By a strict life, God's love evere. 
 Yet, after all, by nature's course, 
 Feeling must lose its edge and force. 
 Again you'll reach the desert tracts 
 Where only sin or duty acts. 
 But, if love always lit our path, 
 Where were the trial of our faith ?
 
 32 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And, should the mournful honeymoon 
 Of death be over strangely soon, 
 And life-long resolutions made 
 In grievous haste, as quickly fade, 
 Seeming the truth of grief to mock, 
 O, think, Fred, 'tis not by the clock 
 That sorrow goes ! A month of tears 
 Is more than many, many years 
 Of common time. Shun, if you can, 
 However, any passionate plan. 
 Grieve with the heart. Let not the head 
 Grieve on, when grief of heart is dead ; 
 For all the powers of life defy 
 A superstitious constancy. 
 The only bond I hold you to 
 Is that which nothing can undo. 
 A man is not a young man twice ; 
 And if, of his young years, he lies 
 A faithful score in one wife's breast, 
 She need not mind who has the rest. 
 Yet, ah, love seems too sacred ! But 
 Life has some knots which life must cut ; 
 And courses, having reason strong, 
 And not by any known law wrong, 
 May trust themselves that they are right, 
 At last, in Heaven's most tender light. 
 In this do what you will, dear Love, 
 And feel quite sure that I approve.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 33 
 
 And, should it chance as it may be, 
 Give her my wedding-ring from me ; 
 And never dream that you can err 
 Towards me by being good to her ; 
 Nor let remorseful love destroy 
 In you the kindly, flowei'ing joy 
 And pleasure of the natural life 
 'Tis right to feel towards a wife. 
 But, dearest, should you ever be 
 Inclined to think your love of me 
 All fancy, since it drew its breath 
 So much more sweetly after death, 
 Remember that I never did 
 A single thing you once forbid ; 
 All poor folks loved me, and, at the end, 
 Even Mrs. Vaughan wrote " Dearest Friend ! " 
 3
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 35 
 
 IV. JANE TO FREDERICK. 
 
 FREDERICK, from many signs, I've drawn 
 That John is thinking of Miss Vaughan. 
 I'm sure, too, that her parents know, 
 And are content to have it so, 
 Seeing how rich our Boy will be 
 By uncle's "Will ; and Emily 
 (Sweet baby !) will of course approve 
 The first fine youth they let make love. 
 
 I never could get courage, dear, 
 To tell you this ; it was too near 
 My heart. My own, own Frederick, 
 I know you used, when young, to like 
 Her mother so ! I love her too, 
 For having been beloved by you. 
 Now, in your children, you will wed. 
 And John seems so much comforted 
 By his new hope, for losing me ! 
 And all this happiness, you see, 
 Somehow or other, if I try 
 To talk about it, makes me cry. 
 I hope you'll tell sweet Mrs. Vaughan 
 How much you loved me, when I'm gone ! 
 
 And this reminds me that, last night, 
 I went to sleep in strange delight,
 
 36 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And dreamed I was in heaven mere dreams, 
 
 Yet, to my sickly thought, it seems 
 
 To have been true vision ! Things not true, 
 
 As once you showed me, often do 
 
 To make true things conceivable : 
 
 So what I saw I'll try to tell. 
 
 Imaged in heaven's crystal floor, 
 I saw myself, myself no more. 
 In such a shape henceforth I dwelt 
 That love me most of all I felt 
 You must ! Though others, to my view, 
 Were lovelier, yet the love of you, 
 I found, was all the loveliness 
 Which there 'twas given you to possess 
 Or wish for. So, besides the glow 
 Of God, the same on every brow, 
 Like me the angelic women were 
 Each with a private beauty fair, 
 Which was a lovely mystery 
 To all, but one who had the key. 
 Our marriage-robes, that round us shook, 
 Were love on which the eyes could look, 
 On which, too, from seven bows in heaven, 
 Whereof the hues were seven ^imes seven, 
 And always shifting, fell such light 
 As made the expressions infinite 
 In those bright veils ; for brief above, 
 As here, was every joy of love.
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 37 
 
 A lady carne and gazed on me, 
 And laughed, and sang, " Glad will he be ! " 
 And one, " Love, here at last achieved, 
 Not only is, but is perceived ! " 
 And one, who beckoned me apart, 
 Pressed me against her angel's heart, 
 And said, " 'Tis mine to guard his wife 
 From strangeness till he comes to life." 
 
 Most like to earth's was heaven's good ; 
 Most different was the gratitude ! 
 I saw the rose, and felt the breeze, 
 And laughed, and sang for bliss of these ; 
 And every thing on every part 
 Was, 0, such pleasure in the heart ! 
 The nearness of the Lord I knew 
 By mild recurrent glows that grew 
 Within the breast and died away, 
 And marked the change of night and day. 
 But this was wonderful, that, when 
 The day was fullest, all the men 
 Seemed women, and the women were 
 Beautiful babies, whom with care 
 They kept from noon's o'erwhelming might 
 Singing them stories of the Light, 
 The burden of the lullaby 
 Being, " All praise to God on high, 
 Who makes the babes so soft and sweet ! " 
 Sequestered from the heavenly heat
 
 38 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And splendors of the fields of love, 
 The lady showed me then a grove. 
 Breathlessly still was part, and part 
 Was breathing with an easy heart ; 
 And there below, in lamb-like game, 
 Were virgins, all so much the same 
 That each was all. A youth drew nigh, 
 And gazed on them with dreaming eye, 
 And would have passed, but that a maid, 
 Clapping her hands above her, said, 
 " My turn is now ! " and laughing ran 
 After the dull and strange young man, 
 And bade him stop and look at her. 
 And so he called her lovelier 
 Than any else, only because 
 She only then before him was. 
 And, while they stood and gazed, a change 
 Was seen in both, diversely strange. 
 The youth was ever more and more 
 That good which he had been before ; 
 But the glad maiden grew and grew 
 Such, that the rest no longer knew 
 Their sister, who was now to sight 
 The young man's self, yet opposite, 
 As the outer rainbow is the first, 
 But weaker, and the hues reversed. 
 And whereas, in the abandoned grove, 
 The virgin round the central Love
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 39 
 
 Had blindly circled in her play, 
 
 Now danced she round her partner's way ; 
 
 And, as the earth the moon's, so he 
 
 Had the responsibility 
 
 Of her diviner motion. " Lo," 
 
 He sang, and the heavens began to glow, 
 
 " The pride of personality, 
 
 Seeking its highest, aspires to die, 
 
 And in unspeakably profound 
 
 Humiliation Love is crowned ! 
 
 And from his exaltation still 
 
 Into his ocean of good will 
 
 He curiously casts the lead 
 
 To find strange depths of lowlihead." 
 
 To one same tune, but higher, " Bold," 
 The maiden sang, " is Love ! For cold 
 On earth are blushes, and for shame 
 Of such an ineffectual flame 
 As ill consumes the sacrifice ! " 
 
 By the angel led, in such sweet wise, 
 There did my happy hearing greet 
 That which she bade me not repeat. 
 " Truth levelled to the world's low eye, 
 In heaven," said she, " appears a lie, 
 And tales of the seraphic sphere 
 Were scandals in the earth's false ear." 
 And, following thus the lady, she 
 Turned oft to gaze and smile on me,
 
 40 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Saying how like I Avas to one 
 She knew on earth, more heavenly none. 
 " And, when you laugh, I see," she sighed, 
 " How much he loved her ! Many a bride 
 In heaven such countersemblance bears, 
 Through what love deemed rejected prayers." 
 
 Suffering a momentary lapse 
 Earthwards, I thus inquired : " Perhaps 
 The open glory of the Lord 
 Will show, as promised in His Word ? " 
 And she replied, " What may you mean ? 
 Nought else in heaven was ever seen ! " 
 
 She would have shown me more, but then 
 One of a troop of glorious men, 
 From some high work, towards her came ; 
 And she so smiled 'twas such a flame 
 Aaron's twelve jewels seemed to mix 
 With the lights of the Seven Candlesticks.
 
 MARY CHURCHILL 
 
 TO 
 
 THE DEAN.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 43 
 
 V r . MARY CHURCHILL TO THE DEAN. 
 
 FATHER, you bid me once more weigh 
 This Offer, ere I answer, nay. 
 Charles does me honor ; but 'twere vain 
 To reconsider now again, 
 And so to doubt the clear-shown truth 
 I sought for, and received, when youth, 
 A.nd vanity, and one whose love 
 Was lovely, woo'd me to remove 
 From Heav'n my heart's infixed root. 
 
 'Tis easiest to be absolute ; 
 And I reject the name of Bride 
 From no conceit of saintly pride, 
 But dreading my infirmity, 
 And ignorance of how to be 
 Faithful, at once, to the heavenly life, 
 And the fond duties of a wife. 
 I narrow am, and want the art 
 To love two things with all my heart. 
 Occupied wholly in His search 
 Who, in the mysteries of the Church, 
 Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven, 
 I tread a road straight, hard, and even ; 
 But fear to wander all confused, 
 By two-fold fealty abused. 
 I either should the one forget,
 
 44 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Or scantly pay the other's debt ; 
 For still it seems to me I make 
 Love vain by adding " for His sake ; " 
 Nay, at the very thought my breast 
 Is fill'd with anguish of unrest ! 
 
 Yon bade me, Father, count the cost. 
 I have ! and all that must be lost 
 I feel as only women can. 
 To live the Idol of some man, 
 And through the untender world to move 
 Wrapt safe in his superior love, 
 How sweet ! And children, too : ah, there 
 Lies, if I dared to look, despair ! 
 And the wife's happy, daily round 
 Of duties, and their narrow bound, 
 So plain that to transgress were hard, 
 Yet full of tangible reward ; 
 Her charities, not marr'd like mine 
 With fears of thwarting laws divine ; 
 The world's regards and just delight 
 In one so clearly, kindly right ; 
 I've thought of all, and I endure, 
 Not without sharp regret be sure, 
 To give up life's glad certainty, 
 For what, perchance, may never be. 
 For nothing of my state I know 
 But that t'ward heaven I seem to go 
 As one who fondly landward hies 
 Along a deck that faster flies !
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 45 
 
 With every year, meantime, some grace 
 Of earthly happiness gives place 
 To humbling ills ; the very charms 
 Of youth being counted henceforth harms ; 
 To blush already seems absurd ; 
 Nor know I whether I should herd 
 With girls or wives, or sadliest balk 
 Maids' merriment, or matrons' talk ; 
 Nor are men's courtesies her dues 
 Who is not good for show nor use ! 
 
 // 
 To crown these evils, I confess 
 
 That faith's terrestrial fruit is less 
 
 In joy and honor sensible 
 
 Than teachers of religion tell. 
 
 The bridal memories of the heart 
 
 Grow weaker, rising far apart. 
 
 My pray'rs will sudden pleasures move, 
 
 And heavenly heights of human love ; 
 
 But, for the genera"!, none the less, 
 
 Sordid and stifling narroAvness, 
 
 Or worse vacuity, afflicts 
 
 The soul that much itself addicts 
 
 To sanctity in solitude, 
 
 Or serving the ingratitude 
 
 Of Christ's complete disguise, His Poor. 
 
 Straight is the way, narrow the door, 
 
 Howbeit, that leads to life ! O'er late, 
 
 Besides, 'twere now to change my fate ; 
 
 The world's delight my soul dejects,
 
 46 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Revenging all my disrespects, 
 
 Of old, with incapacity 
 
 To chime with even its harmless glee, 
 
 Which sounds, from fields beyond my range, 
 
 Like fairies' music, thin and strange. 
 
 With something like remorse, I grant 
 
 The world has beauty which I want, 
 
 And if, instead of judging it, 
 
 I at its Council chance to sit, 
 
 Or at its gay and order'd Feast, 
 
 My place is lower than the least, 
 
 The conscience of the life to be 
 
 Smites me with inefficiency, 
 
 And makes me all unfit to bless 
 
 With comfortable earthliness 
 
 The rest-desiring brain of man. 
 
 Finally, then, I fix my plan 
 
 To dwell with Him that dwells apart 
 
 In the highest heaven and lowliest heart. 
 
 Nor will I, to my utter loss, 
 
 Look to pluck roses from the Cross. 
 
 As for the good of human love, 
 'Twere countercheck almost enough 
 To think that one must die before 
 The other ! and perhaps 'tis more 
 In love's last interest to do 
 Nought the least contrary thereto, 
 Than to be blest, and be unjust, 
 Or suffer injustice ; as they must, 
 Without a miracle, whose pact
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 47 
 
 Compels to intercourse and act 
 
 In mutual aim when darkness sleeps 
 
 Cold on the spirit's changeful deeps. 
 
 Enough if, to my lonely share, 
 Fall gleams that keep me from despair. 
 Happy the things I here discern ; 
 More happy those for which I yearn, 
 But measurelessly happy above 
 All else are those we know not of!
 
 FELIX VAUGHAN" 
 
 TO 
 
 </ A. 
 
 HONORIA VAUGHAN.
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 51 
 
 FELIX VAUGHAN TO HONORIA VAUGHAN. 
 
 DEAREST my Love and Wife, 'tis long 
 Ago I closed the unfinish'd Song 
 Which never could be finish' d ; nor 
 Will ever Poet utter more 
 Of love than I did, watching well 
 To lure to speech the unspeakable ! 
 " Why, having won her, do I woo ?" 
 That final strain to the last height flew 
 Of written joy, which wants the smile 
 And voice that are, indeed, the while 
 They last, the very things you speak, 
 Dear Honor, who mak'st music weak 
 With ways that say,' " Shall I not be 
 As kind to all as Heaven to me ! " 
 And yet, ah, twenty times my Bride 
 Rising, this twentieth festal-tide, 
 From you soft sleeping, on this day 
 Of days, some words I long to say, 
 Some words superfluously sweet 
 Of fresh assurance, thus to greet 
 Your waking eyes, which never grow 
 Weary of telling what I know 
 So well, yet only well enough 
 To wish for further news, my Love ! 
 
 Here, in this latest August dawn, 
 By windows opening on the lawn,
 
 52 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Where shadows yet are sharp with night, 
 
 And sunshine seems asleep, though bright ; 
 
 And, further on, the wealthy wheat 
 
 Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet 
 
 To sit, and cast my careless looks 
 
 Around my walls of well-read books, 
 
 Wherein is all that stands redeem'd 
 
 From Time's huge wreck, all men have dream'd 
 
 Of truth, and all by poets known 
 
 Of feeling, and in weak sort shown, 
 
 And, turning to my heart again, 
 
 To find therein what makes them vain, 
 
 The thanksgiving mind, which wisdom sums, 
 
 And you, whereby it freshly comes, 
 
 As on that morning, (can there be 
 
 Twenty-two years 'twixt it and me?) 
 
 When, thrill'd with hopeful love, I rose 
 
 And came in haste to Sarum Close, 
 
 Past many a homestead slumbering white 
 
 In lonely and pathetic light, 
 
 Merely to fancy which drawn-blind 
 
 Of thirteen had my Love behind, 
 
 And in her sacred neighborhood 
 
 To feel that sweet scorn of all good 
 
 But her, which let the wise forfend 
 
 When wisdom learns to comprehend. 
 
 Dearest, as each returning May 
 I see the season new and gay, 
 With new joy and astonishment, 
 And Nature's infinite ostent
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 53 
 
 Of lovely flowers in wood and mead 
 That weet not whether any heed, 
 So see I, daily wondering, you, 
 And worship with a passion new 
 The Heaven that visibly allows 
 Its grace to go about my house, 
 The partial Heaven that, though I err, 
 And mortal am, gave all to her 
 Who gave herself to me. Yet I 
 Boldly thank Heaven, (and so defy 
 The sackcloth sort of humbleness 
 Which fears God's bounty to confess,) 
 That I was fashion'd with a mind 
 Seeming for this great gift design'd, 
 So naturally it moved above 
 All sordid contraries of love, 
 Strengthen'd in youth with discipline 
 Of light, to follow the divine 
 Vision, (which ever to the dark 
 Is such a plague as was the ark 
 In Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron,) still 
 Discerning, with the docile will 
 Which comes of full-persuaded thought, 
 That intimacy in love is nought 
 Without pure reverence, whereas this, 
 In tearfullest banishment, is bliss. 
 
 For which cause, dear Honoria, I 
 Have never learn'd the weary sigh 
 Of those that to their love-feasts went, 
 Fed, and forgot the Sacrament,
 
 54 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 And not a trifle now occurs, 
 But sweet initiation stirs 
 Of new-discover'd joy, and lends 
 To feeling change that never ends ; 
 And duties, which the many irk, 
 Are made all wages and no work. 
 
 How sing of such things save to her, 
 Love's self, so love's interpreter ! 
 How the supreme rewards confess 
 Which crown the austere voluptuousness 
 Of heart, that earns, in midst of wealth, 
 The appetite of want and health ; 
 Relinquishes the pomp of life 
 And beauty to the pleasant wife 
 At home, and does all joy despise 
 As out of place but in her eyes ? 
 And, ah, how tell of love that glows 
 The lovelier for the fading rose ? 
 Of weakness which can weight the arm 
 To lean with thrice its girlish charm ? 
 Of grace which, like this autumn day, 
 Is not the sad oue of decay, 
 Yet one whose pale brow pondereth 
 The far-off majesty of death ? 
 How tell the crowd, whom passion rends, 
 That love grows mild as it ascends ? 
 That joy's most high and distant mood 
 Is lost, not found, in dancing blood ? 
 Yet that embraces, kisses, sighs, 
 And all those fond realities
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 55 
 
 Which are love's words, in us mean more 
 Delight than twenty years before ? 
 
 Fancy how men would make their mirth 
 Over an Epic of the Hearth, 
 Its high, eventful passages 
 Consisting, say, of scenes like these : 
 
 One morning, contrary to law, 
 Which, for the most, we held in awe, 
 Commanding either not to intrude 
 On the other's place of solitude, 
 Or solitary mind, for fear 
 Of coming there when God was near, 
 And finding so what should be known 
 To Him who is merciful alone, i 
 And views the working ferment base 
 Of sleeping flesh and waking grace, 
 Not as we view, our kindness check'd 
 By likeness of our own defect, 
 I, rashly entering her room, 
 Beauty's at once and Virtue's loom, 
 Mark'd here, across a careless chair, 
 A ball-dress flung, as light as air, 
 And here, beside a silken couch, 
 Pillows which did the pressure vouch 
 Of pious knees, (sweet piety ! 
 Of goodness made and charity, 
 If gay looks told the heart's glad sense, 
 Much rather than of penitence,) 
 And, on the couch, an open book, 
 And written list I did not look,
 
 56 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Yet just in her clear writing caught : 
 
 " Habitual faults of life and thought 
 
 " AVhich most I need deliverance from." 
 
 I turn'd aside, and saw her come 
 
 Along the filbert-shaded way, 
 
 Illustrious with her usual gay 
 
 Hypocrisy of perfectness, 
 
 Which made her heart, and mine no less, 
 
 So happy ! And she cried to me, 
 
 " You lose by breaking rules, you see ! 
 
 " Your treat to-night is now half gone 
 
 " Of seeing my new ball-dress on." 
 
 And meeting so my lovely wife, 
 
 A passing pang to think that life 
 
 Was mortal, when I saw her laugh, 
 
 Shaped in my mind this epitaph : 
 
 " Faults had she, child of Adam's stem, 
 
 " But only Heaven knew of them." 
 
 Or thus : 
 
 Through female fraud intense, 
 Or the good luck of innocence, 
 Or both, my wife, with whom I plan 
 To spend calm evenings when I can, 
 After the chattering girls and boys 
 Are gone, or the less grateful noise 
 Is over, of grown tongues that chime 
 Untruly, once upon a time 
 Prevail'd with me to change my mind 
 Of reading out how Rosalind
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 57 
 
 In Arden jested, and to go 
 
 Where people, whom I ought to know, 
 
 She said, would meet that night. And I 
 
 Who thought in secret, " I will try 
 
 " Some dish more sharply sauced than this 
 
 " Milk-soup men call domestic bliss," 
 
 Took, as she, laughing, bade me take 
 
 Our eldest boy's brown Wide-awake 
 
 And straw box of cigars, and went 
 
 Where, like a careless parliament 
 
 Of gods Olympic, six or eight, 
 
 Authors and else, reputed great, 
 
 Were met in council jocular 
 
 On many things, pursuing far 
 
 Truth, only for the chace's glow, 
 
 Quick as they caught her letting go, 
 
 Or, when at fault the view-halloo, 
 
 Playing about the missing clue. 
 
 And coarse jests came, "But gods are coarse," 
 
 Thought I, yet not without remorse. 
 
 AVhile memory of the gentle words, 
 
 Wife, mother, sister, flash' d like swords, 
 
 And so, after two hours of wit, 
 
 That left a hole where'er it hit, 
 
 I said I would not stay to sup, 
 
 Because my wife was sitting up, 
 
 And Avalk'd home with a sense that I 
 
 Was no match for that company. 
 
 Smelling of smoke, which, always kind, 
 
 Honoria said she did not mind ;
 
 58 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 I sipp'd her tea, saw baby scold, 
 
 And finger at the muslin fold, 
 
 Through which he push'd his nose at last, 
 
 And choked and chuckled, feeding fast ; 
 
 And, he asleep and sent upstairs, 
 
 I rang the servants in to prayers, 
 
 And after told what men of fame 
 
 Had urged 'gainst this and that. " For shame ! " 
 
 She said, but argument show'd not. 
 
 " If I had answered thus," I thought, 
 
 " 'Twould not have pass'd for very wise. 
 
 "But I have not her voice and eyes! 
 
 "Howe'er it be, I'm glad of home, 
 
 " Yea, very glad at heart to come 
 
 " From clatter of those clever daws, 
 
 " Profaning love, confusing laws, 
 
 "To lean a happy head upon 
 
 " The bosom of my simple swan." 
 
 Or thus: 
 
 For many a dreadful day, 
 In sea-side lodgings sick she lay, 
 Noteless of Love, nor seem'd to hear 
 The sea, on one side, tumbling near ; 
 Nor, on the other, the loud ball 
 Held nightly in the public hall ; 
 Nor, vex'd they my short slumbers, though 
 I woke up if she breathed too low. 
 Thus, for three mouths, with terrors rife, 
 The pending of her precious life
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 53 
 
 I watch'd o'er ; and the danger, at last, 
 
 The kind physician said, was past. 
 
 Howbeit, for seven harsh weeks, the East 
 
 Breathed witheringly, and Spring's growth ceased. 
 
 And so she only did not die ; 
 
 Until the bright and blighting sky 
 
 Changed into cloud, and the sick flowers 
 
 Remember'd their perfumes, and showers 
 
 Of warm, small rain refreshing flew 
 
 Before the South, and the Park grew, 
 
 In three nights, thick with green. Then she 
 
 Revived no less than flower and tree, 
 
 In the mild air, and the fourth day 
 
 Look'd supernaturally gay 
 
 With large thanksgiving eyes, that shone, 
 
 The while I tied her bonnet on, 
 
 So that I led her to the glass 
 
 And bade her see how fair she was, 
 
 And how love visibly could shine. 
 
 Profuse of her's, desiring mine, 
 
 And mindful I had loved her most 
 
 When beauty seem'd a vanish'd boast, 
 
 She laugh'd. I press'd her then to me, 
 
 Nothing but soft humility ; 
 
 Nor e'er enhanced she with such charms 
 
 Her acquiescence in my arms. 
 
 And by her sweet love-weakness made 
 
 Courageous, powerful, and glad, 
 
 In the superiority 
 
 Of heavenly affection I
 
 60 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Perceived that perfect love was all 
 The same as to be rational, 
 And that the mind and heart thereof, 
 Which think they cannot do enough, 
 Are truly the everlasting doors 
 Wherethrough, all unpetition'd, pours 
 The eternal pleasaunce. Wherefore we 
 Had innermost tranquillity, 
 And breathed one life with such a sense 
 Of friendship and of confidence 
 That, recollecting the sure word, 
 " If two of you are in accord, 
 " On earth, as touching any boon 
 "Which ye shall ask, it shall be done 
 " In heaven," we asked that heaven's bliss 
 Might ne'er be any less than this ; 
 And, for that hour, we seem'd to hare 
 The secret of the joy we gave. 
 
 How sing of such things save to her, 
 Love's self, so love's interpreter! 
 How read from such a homely page 
 In the ear of this unhomely age! 
 'Tis now as when the Prophet cried, 
 " The Nation hast Thou multiplied, 
 "But Thou hast not increased the joy!" 
 And yet, ere wrath or rot destroy 
 Of England's state the ruin fair, 
 O, might I so its charms declare 
 That, in new Lands in far-off years, 
 Delighted he should crv that hears :
 
 THE VICTORIES OP LOVE. 61 
 
 "Great is the Land that somewhat best 
 
 "Works to the wonder of the rest! 
 
 "We, in our day, have better done 
 
 " This thing or that than any one ; 
 
 "And who but, still admiring, sees 
 
 "How excellent for images 
 
 "Was Greece, for laws how wise was Rome: 
 
 "But read this Poet, and say if home 
 
 "And private love did e'er so smile 
 
 " As in that ancient British Isle ! "
 
 TO
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 65 
 
 LADY CLITHEROE TO MRS. GRAHAM. 
 
 MY DEAKEST AUNT, the Wedding-day, 
 But for Jane's loss, and you away, 
 Was all a Bride from heaven could beg! 
 Skies, bluer than the sparrow's egg, 
 And clearer than the cuckoo's call ; 
 And such a sun, the flowers all 
 With double ardor seeni'd to blow ! 
 The very daisies were a show, 
 Expanded with uncommon pride, 
 Like little pictures of the Bride. 
 
 Your Great-niece and your Grandson were 
 Perfection of a pretty pair. 
 John, as from church they came away, 
 Seem'd finest part of the fine day ; 
 And Emily having signed the bond 
 By her, sweet Inocence, unconn'd, 
 Look'd thenceforth, did she smile or weep, 
 Like Love's self walking in his sleep. 
 
 How well Honoria's girls turn out, 
 Although they never go about ! 
 Dear me, what trouble and expense 
 It took to give mine confidence. 
 Hers greet mankind, as I've heard say 
 That wild things do, where beasts of prey 
 Were never known, nor any men 
 Have met their fearless eyes till then. 
 5
 
 66 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Their grave, inquiring trust to find 
 All creatures of their simple kind 
 Quite disconcerts bold coxcombry, 
 And makes less perfect candor shy. 
 
 Bred to their parents' courtly style, 
 The trick of an admiring smile 
 Is lost ; and flatteries less sincere 
 And authorized than theirs, they hear 
 Unmoved, like solemn little queens, 
 Nor even wonder what it means. 
 
 Our Bride was never once from home ! 
 So, when John carries her to Rome, 
 Thereafter she will have a dim 
 Idea that Rome is part of him ! 
 Of course he knows that ! Folks may scoff, 
 But IIOAV your home-kept girls go off ! 
 Young men, I do find more and more, 
 Are not the fools we take them for ; 
 And Hymen hastens to unband 
 The waist that ne'er felt waltzer's hand. 
 At last I see my Sister's right, 
 And I've told Maude, this very night, 
 (But oh, my daughters have such wills !) 
 To knit, and only dance quadrilles. 
 
 You say Fred never writes to you 
 Frankly, as once he used to do, 
 About himself, and you complain 
 Pie shared with none his grief for Jane. 
 Ah, dear Aunt, that's the way with meu. 
 I've often noticed it ! But then
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 67 
 
 It afl comes of the foolish fright 
 
 They're in at the word, hypocrite. 
 
 Sooner than inconsistent seem, 
 
 Tve heard a young male Saint blaspheme ! 
 
 And though, when first in love, sometimes 
 
 They rave in letters, talk, and rhymes, 
 
 When once they find, as find they must, 
 
 How hard 'tis to be hourly just 
 
 To those they love, they are dumb for shame, 
 
 Where we, you see, rave on the same. 
 
 And his reserve, perhaps, is none 
 
 The less that Jane is dead and gone. 
 
 Honoria, to whose heart alone 
 He seems to open all his own, 
 At times has tears in her kind eyes 
 After their private colloquies. 
 I should have fancied, but for this, 
 That time had heal'd that grief of his. 
 Frederick's was not a lively way 
 Ever, but ne'er more nearly gay. 
 The Vaughans have had his children here 
 The best part of the mourning-year, 
 And he comes with them, when he can. 
 I think I never knew a man 
 So popular ! Howbeit he moves 
 My spleen by his impartial loves. 
 He's happy from some inner spring, 
 Depending not on anything. 
 Petting our Polly, none e're smiled 
 More fondly on his favorite child ;
 
 68 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Yet, playing with his own, it is 
 
 With smiles as if it were not his ! 
 
 He means to go again to sea, 
 
 Ncfw that the wedding's over. " He 
 
 " And his two babies can't be nurst 
 
 "Of course for ever at the Hurst," 
 
 He says to Vaughan, (who, all his life, 
 
 Has loved the lovers of his wife ;) 
 
 And, having been so used to roam, 
 
 He finds that, by himself, at home 
 
 There's scarcely space to breathe. Then, soon 
 
 After the finished honeymoon, 
 
 He'll give to Emily and John 
 
 The little ones to practice on ; 
 
 And major-domo Mrs. Rouse, 
 
 A dear old soul from Ashfield House, 
 
 Will scold the housemaids and the cook, 
 
 Till Emily has learn'd to look 
 
 A little braver than a lamb 
 
 Surprised by dogs without its dam ! 
 
 Do, dear Aunt, use your influence, 
 And try to put -some good plain sense 
 Into my sister Mary, who 
 I hear intends to visit you 
 This Autumn. 'Tis not yet too late 
 To make her change her chosen state 
 Of single foolishness. In truth, 
 I fancy that, with fading youth, 
 Her own will wavers ! Yesterday, 
 Though, till the Bride was gone away,
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 69 
 
 Joy shone from Mary's loving heart, 
 I found her afterwards apart, 
 Hysterically sobbing : I 
 Knew much too well to ask her why. 
 This marrying of Nieces daunts 
 The bravest souls of Maiden Aunts. 
 Though sister's children often blend 
 Sweetly the bonds of Child and Friend, 
 They are but reeds to rest upon. 
 When Emily comes back with John, 
 Her right to go down stairs before 
 Aunt Mary will but be the more 
 Observed if kindly waived, and how 
 Shall these be as they were, when now 
 Niece has her John, and Aunt the sense 
 Of her superior innocence ! 
 Somehow, all loves, however fond, 
 Prove lieges of the nuptial bond ; 
 And she who dares at this to scoff, 
 Finds all the rest, in time, drop off; 
 While marriage, like a mushroom-ring, 
 Spreads its sure circle every Spring. 
 
 She twice refused George Vane, you know ; 
 Yet, when he died three years ago 
 In the Indian war she put on gray, 
 And wears no colors to this day. 
 And she it is \vho charges me, 
 Dear Aunt, with inconsistency ! 
 
 You heard we lost poor Mr. Vere. 
 Mary's pet Parson now is here,
 
 70 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Who preaches, morn and evening too, 
 
 On worldiness, towards my pew. 
 
 I daren't think " Nonsense ! " though I've tried, 
 
 Because the Devil's on his side. 
 
 Now dear Papa goes murmuring on, 
 
 " Love one another ! " like Saint John. 
 
 What happens if we disobey 
 
 He will not positively say ; 
 
 Which leaves, you see, the advantage quite 
 
 With him who puts one in a fright.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 71 
 
 LADY CLITHEROE TO EMILY GRAHAM. 
 
 MY DEAREST NIECE, I'm glad to hear 
 The scenery's fine at Winderinere, 
 And charm'd a six weeks' wife defers 
 In the least to wisdom not yet hers. 
 But, Child, I've no advice to give ! 
 Rules do but make it hard to live. 
 And where's the good of having been 
 Well-taught from seven to seventeen, 
 If, married, you may not leave off 
 At last, and say, " I'm good enough ! " 
 Neglect your mind ! Folly's to that, 
 What, to the figure, is the fat. 
 We know, however wise by rule, 
 Woman is still by nature fool ; 
 And men have sense to like her all 
 The more when she is natural. 
 'Tis true that, if we choose, we can 
 Mock to a miracle the man ; 
 But iron in the fire red-hot, 
 Though 'tis the heat, the fire 'tis not. 
 And who, for a mere sham, would pledge 
 The babe's and woman's privilege : 
 No duties and a thousand rights ? 
 Besides, defect love's flow incites, 
 As water in a well will come 
 Only the while 'tis drawn therefrom.
 
 72 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 " Point de culte sans mystere" you say, 
 "And what if that should die away ?" 
 Child, never fear that either could 
 Pull from Saint Cupid's face the hood ! 
 The follies natural to each 
 Surpass the other's mental reach. 
 Just think how men, with sword and gun, 
 Will really fight and never run ; 
 And all in jest ; for they'd have died, 
 For sixpence more, on the other side ! 
 A woman's heart must ever warm 
 At such odd ways ; and, so, we charm 
 By strangeness which, the more they mark, 
 The more men get into the dark. 
 The marvel, by familiar life, 
 Grows, and attaches to the wife, 
 By whom it grows. Thus, silly Girl, 
 To John you'll always be the pearl 
 In the oyster of the universe ; 
 And though, in time, he'll treat you worse, 
 He'll love you more, you need not doubt, 
 And never, never find you out ! 
 Not that I'd have you e'er let fall 
 A decent ceremonial ; 
 But only don't be cowardly, 
 And half afraid to eat, if he 
 Is looking. As 'tis own'd by men 
 They never were so blest as when 
 They paid us their attentions, 'twill 
 Be wise to make John pay them still.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 73 
 
 The proper study of mankind 
 Is woman ; for an idle mind 
 Calls simple what the studious well 
 Perceives to be inscrutable. 
 
 My Dear, I know that dreadful thought 
 That you've been kinder than you ought ! 
 You almost hate him ! But, my Pet, 
 'Tis wonderful how men forget, 
 And how a merciful Providence 
 Deprives our husbands of all sense 
 Of kindness past, and makes them deem 
 We always were what now we seem ! 
 For their own sakes, we must, you know, 
 However plain the way we go, 
 Still make it strange with stratagem, 
 And instinct tells us that, to them, 
 It's always right to bate their price. 
 Yet I must say they're rather nice, 
 And, oh, so easily taken in, 
 To cheat them almost seems a sin ! 
 If a wife cries, a man thinks this 
 Really shows something is amiss ! 
 And, Dearest, 'twould be most unfair 
 T'ward John, your feelings to compare 
 With his or any man's ; for she 
 Who loves at all loves always, he 
 Who loves far more, loves yet by fits, 
 And when the wayward wind remits 
 To blow, his feelings faint and drop, 
 Like forge-flames when the bellows stop.
 
 74 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Such things don't trouble you at all 
 When once you know they're natural ! 
 And as for getting old, my Dear, 
 If you're but prudent, year by year 
 He'll find some far-fetch'd cause the more 
 To think you sweeter than before ! 
 My birth-day (for an instance take), 
 As I was looking in the Lake, 
 Studious if black would best subdue 
 The red in my nose, or black with blue ; 
 Your Uncle, in his loftiest mode, 
 Assured me that my face ne'er glow'd 
 With such a handsome health ! And yet, 
 As you, I doubt not, know, my Pet, 
 Albeit we never quarrel, we 
 Maltreat each other constantly ! 
 And, by the way, this is a fact 
 On which in season you may act: 
 Where two are all, 'tis hard for half 
 To fight ! He, when I scold, will laugh 
 Till I laugh with him. If 'tis I 
 Am scolded, I have but to cry. 
 Talk breaks no bones, if only one 
 Waits till the other has quite done. 
 
 My love to John ! And pray, my Dear, 
 Don't let me see you for a year ; 
 Unless, indeed, ere then you've learn'd 
 That Beauties, wed, are blossoms turn'd 
 To unripe codlings, meant to dwell 
 In modest shadow hidden well,
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 75 
 
 Till this green stage again permute 
 
 To glow of flowers, with good of fruit. 
 
 I will not have my patience tried 
 
 By your absurd, new-married pride, 
 
 That scorns the world's slow gather'd sense ; 
 
 Ties up the hands of Providence ; 
 
 Rules babes, before there's hope of one, 
 
 Better than mothers e'er have done ; 
 
 And, for your poor particular, 
 
 Neglects delights and graces far 
 
 Beyond your crude and thin conceit. 
 
 Age has romance almost as sweet, 
 
 And much more generous than this 
 
 Of your's and John's ! With all the bliss 
 
 Of the evenings when you coo'd with him, 
 
 And upset home for your sole whim, 
 
 You might have envied, were you wise, 
 
 The tears within your Mother's eyes, 
 
 Which, I dare say, you did not see. 
 
 But let that pass ! Your's ye.t will be, 
 
 I hope, as happy, kind, and true 
 
 As lives which now seem void to you. 
 
 Have you not seen house-painters paste 
 
 Their gold in sheets, then rub to waste 
 
 Full half, and, lo, you read the name ? 
 
 Well, Time, my Dear, does much the same 
 
 With this unmeaning glare of love. 
 
 But, though you yet may much improve, 
 In marriage be it still confess'd 
 There's not much merit at the best.
 
 76 THE TICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Some half-a-dozen lives, indeed, 
 Which else would not have had the need, 
 Get food and nurture, as the price 
 Of ante-dated Paradise ; 
 But what's that to the varied want 
 Succor'd by Mary, your dear Aunt, 
 . Who put the bridal crown thrice by, 
 For that of which virginity, 
 So used, has hope. She sends her love, 
 As usual with a proof thereof 
 Papa's Discourse, which you, no doubt, 
 Heard none of, neatly copied out 
 Whilst we were dancing. All are Avell. 
 Adieu, for there's the Luncheon Bell.
 
 THE WEDDING SERMON.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 79 
 
 IX. THE WEDDING SERMON. 
 
 DEAR children, God is love, and love 
 Is everything. The truths thereof 
 Are as the waters of the sea 
 For clearness and for mystery. 
 
 Of that sweet love which, startling, wakes 
 Senses and soul, and mostly breaks 
 The word of promise to the ear, 
 But keeps it, after many a year, 
 To the true spirit, how shall I speak ? 
 My memory with age is weak, 
 And I for hopes do oft suspect 
 The things I seem to recollect. 
 Yet who but must remember well 
 'Twas this made heaven intelligible 
 As motive, though 'twas small the power 
 The heart might have, for even an hour, 
 To hold possession of its height 
 Of nameless pathos and delight ! 
 
 That good, which does itself not know, 
 Scarce is. Old families are so, 
 Less through their coming of good kind, 
 Than having borne it well in mind, 
 And this does all from honor bar, 
 The ignorance of what they are ! 
 In the heart of the world, alas, for want 
 Of knowing that which li^ht souls taunt
 
 80 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 As lightness, and which God has made 
 Such that, for even its feeble shade, 
 Evoked by falsely fair ostents 
 And soiling of its sacraments, 
 Great Statesmen, Poets, "Warriors, Kings, 
 (The World's Beloved,) all other things 
 Gladly having counted nothing, what 
 Fell fires of Tophet burn forgot ! 
 
 In Godhead rise, thither flow back 
 All loves, which, as they keep or lack 
 The appointed course and bound assigned, 
 Are virtue or sin. Love's every kind, 
 Lofty or low, of spirit or sense, 
 Desire is or Benevolence. 
 He who is fairer, better, higher 
 Than all His works, claims all Desire, 
 And, in His Poor, His Proxies, asks 
 Our whole Benevolence. He tasks, 
 Howbeit, His People by their powers ; 
 And if, my children, you, for hours 
 Daily, untortured in the heart, 
 Can worship, and time's other part 
 Give, without rough recoils of sense, 
 To claims ingrate of indigence, 
 Happy are you, and fit to be 
 Wrought to rare heights of sanctity, 
 For the humble to grow humbler at. 
 But if the flying spirit falls flat, 
 After the modest spell of prayer 
 That saves the day from sin and care,
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 81 
 
 And the upward eye a void descries, 
 And praises are hyprocrisies, 
 And, in the soul, o'erstrain'd for grace, 
 A godless anguish grows apace ; 
 Or if impartial charity 
 Seems in the act a sordid lie, 
 Do not infer you cannot please 
 God, or that He his promises 
 Postpones, but be content to love 
 No more than He accounts enough, 
 Leaving Christ's right and left in heaven 
 To be to them, unenvied. given 
 For whom it is prepared. Let us, 
 Who are but babes in Christ, think thus 
 (Admiring them whose skill it suits 
 To adore, unscath'd, God's attributes), 
 That all ambition bears a curse ; 
 And none, if height metes error, worse 
 Than his who sets his hope on more 
 Godliness than God made him for. 
 At least, leave distant worlds alone 
 Till you are native to your own ! 
 Account them poor enough who want 
 Any good thing which you can grant, 
 And fathom first the depths of life 
 In dues of Husband and of Wife, 
 Child, Mother, Father : simple keys 
 To many Bible mysteries ! 
 
 The love of marriage claims, above 
 All special kinds, the name of Love, 
 6
 
 82 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 As being, though not so saintly high 
 
 As what seeks Heaven with single eye, 
 
 Sole perfect. Equal and entire, 
 
 Therein, Benevolence, Desire, 
 
 Elsewhere ill-joined, or found apart, 
 
 Become the pulses of one heart, 
 
 Which now contracts and now dilates, 
 
 And, each to the height exalting, mates 
 
 Self-seeking to self-sacrifice. 
 
 Nay, in its subtle paradise 
 
 (When purest), this one love unites 
 
 All modes of these two opposites, 
 
 All balanced in accord so rich 
 
 Who may determine which is which ? 
 
 Chiefly God's love does in it live, 
 
 And nowhere else so sensitive ; 
 
 For each is all the other's eye, 
 
 In the vague vast of Deity, 
 
 Can comprehend and so contain 
 
 As still to touch and ne'er to strain 
 
 The fragile nerves of joy. And, then. 
 
 'Tis such a wise goodwill to men 
 
 And politic economy 
 
 As in d, prosperous state we see, 
 
 Where every plot of common land 
 
 Is yielded to some private hand 
 
 To fence about and cultivate. 
 
 Does narrowness its praise abate ? 
 
 Nay, if a brook its banks o'erpass 
 
 'Tis not a sea, but a morass ;
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 83 
 
 And the infinite of man is found 
 But in the beating of its bound. 
 
 The Word of God alone can lure 
 Belief to the snowy tops obscure 
 Of marriage truth. "What wildest guess 
 Of love's most innocent loftiness 
 Ere dared to dream of its own height, 
 Till that bold sun-gleam quenched the night, 
 Showing Heaven's chosen symbol where 
 The torch of Psyche flash'd despair ; 
 Proclaiming love, in things divine, 
 Still to be male and feminine ; 
 Foretelling, in the Song of Songs, 
 Which time makes clear as it prolongs, 
 Christ's nuptials with the Church, (far more, 
 My children, than a metaphor !) 
 And still, by names of Bride and Wife, 
 Husband and Bridegroom, heav'n's own life 
 Picturing, so proving their's to be 
 The Earth's unearthliest sanctity. 
 
 But, dear my children, heights are heights 
 And hardly scaled. The best delights 
 Of even this homeliest passion are 
 In the most perfect souls so rare, 
 That they who feel them are as men 
 Sailing the Southern Ocean, when, 
 At midnight, they look up and eye 
 The starry Cross and a strange sky 
 Of brighter stars, and sad thoughts come 
 To each how far he is from home.
 
 84 THE VICTOKIES OF LOVE. 
 
 God's Truth, when most it thwarts our wills 
 In show, then most in fact fulfils. 
 Love's nuptial highest, wherefore, see 
 In the doctrine of virginity ! 
 For what's the virgin's special crown 
 But that which Love in faith lays down, 
 Transmuted, without shade of loss, 
 By the mere contact of the Cross, 
 To what love nuptial oft makes vow 
 With sighs to be, but knows not how ! 
 Could lovers, at their dear wish, blend, 
 'Twould kill the bliss which they intend : 
 For joy is love's obedience 
 Against the law of natural sense ; 
 And those perpetual yearnings sweet 
 Of lives which fancy they can meet 
 Are given that lovers never may 
 Be without costly gifts to lay 
 On the high altar of true love 
 In hours of vestal joy. Men move, 
 Frantic, like comets, to their bliss, 
 Forgetting that they always miss ; 
 And this perpetual, fond mistake, 
 Which love will ne'er learn not to make, 
 On earth, to seek and fly the sun 
 By turns, around which love should run, 
 Perverts the ineifable delight 
 Of service guerdon'd with full sight, 
 And pathos of a hopeless want, 
 To an unreal victory's vaunt
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 85 
 
 And plaint of an unreal defeat, 
 Languor and passion. 
 
 Misconceit 
 
 May also be of vestal life. 
 The Virgin's self was Joseph's Wife, 
 And bridal promises are still 
 The goal that glads the virgin will, 
 Whose nature doth indeed subsist 
 There where the outward forms are miss'd, 
 In all who learn and keep the sense 
 Divine of " due benevolence," 
 Seeking for aye, without alloy 
 Of selfishness, another's joy, 
 And finding, in degrees unknown, 
 That which in act they shunned, their own ; 
 For all delights of earthly love 
 Are shadows of the heavens, and move 
 As other shadows do : they flee 
 From him that follows them, and he 
 Who flies, for ever finds his feet 
 Embraced by their pursuings sweet. 
 
 But each must learn that Clmst's Cross is 
 Safety, ere he can find it bliss. ' 
 The powers that nature's powers can stem 
 Must come to us, not we to them. 
 The heavenward soul no measure keeps, 
 But, lark-like, soars by wayward leaps ; 
 And highest achievements here befall, 
 As elswhere, expectations small. 
 Then, even in love humane, do I 
 Not counsel aspirations high,
 
 86 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 So much as sweet and regular 
 Use of the good in which we are. 
 As when a man along the ways 
 "Walks, and a sudden music plays, 
 His step unchanged, he steps in time, 
 So let your grace with Nature chime, 
 Her primal forces burst like straws 
 The bonds of uncongenial laws, 
 And those who conquer her are they 
 Who comprehend her and obey ; 
 Which let your one ambition be ; 
 For pride of soaring sanctity 
 Revolts to hell ; and that which needs 
 The worlds high places, and succeeds, 
 Suffers as if a level shock'd 
 The upstepping foot. Be ye not mock'd : 
 Right life is glad as well as just, 
 And, rooted strong in " This I must," 
 It bears aloft the blossom gay 
 And zephyr-toss'd, of " This I may ; " 
 Whereby the complex heavens rojoice 
 In fruits of uncommauded choice. 
 
 This still observe : seeking delight, 
 Esteem success the test of right ; 
 For 'gainst God's will much may be done 
 But nought enjoy'd, and pleasures none 
 Exist, but, like to springs of steel, 
 Active no longer than they feel 
 The checks that make them serve the soul, 
 They get their vigor from control.
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 87 
 
 Wherefore, dear children, keep but well 
 The Church's indispensable 
 First precepts, and she then allows, 
 Nay, bids a man leave, for his spouse, 
 Even his heavenly Father's awe, 
 At times, and her, his Mother's law, 
 Construed in its extremer sense. 
 Jehovah's mild magnipotence 
 Smiles to behold His children play 
 In their own free and childish way, 
 And can His fullest praise descry 
 In their exuberant liberty. 
 
 Happy who in their lives are seen 
 At all times in the golden mean, 
 Who, having learn'd and understood 
 The glory of the central good, 
 And how souls ne'er may match or merg 
 But as they thitherward converge, 
 Nor loves outlast the thorn's brief flame, 
 Unless God burns within the same, 
 Can yet, with no proud disesteem 
 Of mortal love's prophetic dream, 
 Take, in its innocent pleasures, part, 
 With infantine, untroubled heart, 
 And faith that oft t'ward heav'n's far Spring, 
 Sleeps, like the swallow, on the wing. 
 
 Of wedlock's perils all the worst 
 By ignorance are bred and nurst. 
 Lovers, once married, deem their bond 
 Then perfect, scanning nought beyond
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 For love to do but to sustain 
 The spousal hour's completed gain. 
 But time and a right life alone 
 Fulfil what is that hour foreshown. 
 The Bridegroom and the Bride withal 
 Are but unwrought material 
 Of marriage ; nay, so far is love, 
 Thus crown'd, from being thereto enough, 
 Without the long, compulsive awe 
 Of duty, that the bond of law 
 Does oftener marriage love evoke, 
 Than love, which does not wear the yoke 
 Of Vgal vows, submits to be 
 Self-rein'd from ruinous liberty. 
 Lovely is love ; but age well knows 
 'Twas law which kept the lover's vows 
 Inviolate through the year or years 
 Of worship pieced with panic fears, 
 When she who lay within his breast 
 Seem'd of all women perhaps the best, 
 But not the whole, of womankind, 
 And love, in his yet wayward mind, 
 Had ghastly doubts its precious life 
 Was pledged for aye to the wrong wife. 
 
 Could it be else ? A youth pursues 
 A maid, whom chance, not he, did choose, 
 Till to his strange arms hurries she 
 In a despair of modesty. 
 Then simply, and without pretence 
 Of insight or experience,
 
 THE VICTOKIES OF LOVE. 89 
 
 They plight their VOAVS. The parents say, 
 
 " We cannot speak them yea or nay ; 
 
 " The thing proceedeth from the Lord ! " 
 
 And wisdom still approves their word ; 
 
 For God created so these two 
 
 They match as Avell as others do 
 
 That take more pains, and trust Him less 
 
 Who rarely fails, if ask'd to bless 
 
 His children's hopeless ignorance, 
 
 And blind election of life's chance. 
 
 Verily, choice not matters much, 
 
 It but the woman's truly such, 
 
 And the young man has led the life 
 
 Without Avhich how shall e'er the wife 
 
 Be the one woman in the world ? 
 
 Love's sensitive tendrils sicken, curl'd 
 
 Round Folly's former stay ; for 'tis 
 
 The doom of an unsariction'd bliss 
 
 To mock some good that, gain'd, keeps still 
 
 The taint of the rejected ill. 
 
 Howbeit, tho' both be true, that she 
 Of whom the maid was prophecy 
 As yet lives not, and Love rebels 
 Against the law of any else ; 
 And as a steed takes blind alarm, 
 Disowns the rein, and hunts his harm, 
 So, misdespairing word and act 
 May now perturb the happiest pact. 
 The more, indeed, is love, the more 
 Peril to love is now in store.
 
 90 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Against it, nothing can be done 
 
 But only this : leave ill alone ! 
 
 Who tries to mend his wife succeeds 
 
 As he who knows not what he needs. 
 
 He much affronts a worth as high 
 
 As his, and that equality 
 
 Of spirits in which abide the grace 
 
 And joy of her subjected place ; 
 
 And does the still growth check and blur 
 
 Of contraries, confusing her 
 
 Who better knows what he desires 
 
 Than he, and to that mark aspires 
 
 With perfect? zeal, and a deep wit 
 
 Which nothing helps but faith in it. 
 
 So, handsomely ignoring all 
 In which love's promise short may fall 
 Of full performance, honor that, 
 As won, which aye love worketh at ! 
 It is but as the pedigree 
 Of perfectness which is to be 
 That mortal good can honor claim ; 
 Yet honor here to scant were shame 
 And robbery ; for it is the mould 
 Wherein to beauty runs the gold 
 Of good intention, and the stay 
 That leads aloft the ivy stray 
 Of human sensibilities. 
 
 Such honor, with a conduct wise 
 In common things, as, not to steep 
 The lofty mind of love in sleep
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 91 
 
 Of overmuch familiarness ; 
 
 Not to degrade its kind caress 
 
 As those do that can feel no more, 
 
 So give themselves to pleasures o'er 
 
 Not to let morning-sloth destroy 
 
 The evening-flower, domestic joy ; 
 
 Not by uxoriousuess to chill 
 
 The frank devotion of her will 
 
 Who can but half her love confer 
 
 On him that cares for nought but her : 
 
 These, and like obvious prudencies 
 
 Observed, he's safest that relies, 
 
 For the hope she will not always seem, 
 
 Caught, but a laurel or a stream, 
 
 On time ; on her unsearchable 
 
 Love-wisdom ; on their Avork done well, 
 
 Discreet with mutual aid ; on might 
 
 Of shared affliction and delight ; 
 
 On much whereof hearts keep account, 
 
 Though heads forget ; on babes, chief fount 
 
 Of union, and for which babes are 
 
 No less than this for them, nay far 
 
 More, for the bond of man and wife 
 
 To the very verge of future life 
 
 Strengthens, and yearns for brighter day 
 
 While others, with their nse, decay, 
 
 And, though love-nuptial purpose keeps 
 
 Of offspring, as the centre sleeps 
 
 Within the wheel, transmitting thence 
 
 Fury to the circumference,
 
 92 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Love's self the noblest offspring is 
 And sanction of the nuptial kiss ; 
 Lastly, on either's primal curse, 
 Which health and sympathy reverse 
 To blessings. 
 
 God, who may be well 
 Jealous of His chief miracle, 
 Bids sleep the meddling soul of man, 
 Through the long process of this plan, 
 Whereby, from his unweeting side, 
 The wife's created, and tHe bride, 
 That chance one of her strange, sweet sex, 
 He to His glad life did annex, 
 Grows, more and more, by day and night, 
 The one in the whole world opposite 
 Of him, and in her nature all 
 So suited and reciprocal 
 To his especial form of sense, 
 Affection and intelligence, 
 That, whereas, in its earlier day, 
 The least flaw threaten' d love's decay, 
 No clime could now, on either's part, 
 Do more than make the other start, 
 And, full of pity, say, "It is 
 " I, somehow I, who have done this ; " 
 And, whereas love at first had strange 
 Relapses into taste for change, 
 It now finds (wondrous this, but true !) 
 The long-accustom'd only new,
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 93 
 
 And the untried common ; and, whereas 
 An equal seeming danger was 
 Of likeness lacking joy and force, 
 Or difference reaching to divorce, 
 Now can the finished lover see 
 Marvel of me most far from me, 
 Whom, without pride, he may admire, 
 "Without Narcissus' doom, desire, 
 Serve without selfishness, and love 
 " Even as himself," in sense above 
 Niggard " as much," yea, as she is 
 The only part of him that's his. 
 
 I do not say Love's youth returns ; 
 Love's youth which so divinely yearns ! 
 But just esteem of present good 
 Shows all regret such gratitude 
 As if the sparrow in her nest, 
 Her woolly young beneath her breast, 
 Should these despise, and sorrow for 
 Her five blue eggs that are no more. 
 Nor say, the fruit has quite the scope 
 Of the flower's spiritual hope. 
 Love's best is service, and of this 
 Howe'er devout, use dulls the bliss. 
 Though love is all of earth that's dear. 
 Its home, my children, is not here. 
 The pathos of eternity 
 Does in its fullest pleasure sigh. 
 
 Be grateful and most glad thereof. 
 Parting, as 'tis, is pain enough.
 
 94 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 If love, by joy, has learn'd to give 
 Praise with the nature sensitive, 
 At last, to God, we then possess 
 The end of mortal happiness, 
 And henceforth very well may wait 
 The unbarring of the golden gate 
 Wherethrough, already, faith can see 
 That apter to each wish than we 
 Is God, and curious to bless 
 Better than we devise or guess ; 
 Not without condescending craft 
 To disappoint with joy, and waft 
 Our vessels frail, when worst He mocks 
 The sight with breakers and with rocks, 
 To happiest havens. You have heard 
 Your bond death-sentenced by His Word. 
 What if, in heaven, the name be o'er, 
 Because the thing is so much more ? 
 All are, 'tis writ, as angels there ; 
 Nor male nor female. Each a stair 
 In the hierarchical ascent 
 Of active and recipient 
 Affections ; what if all are both 
 By turn, as they themselves betroth 
 To adoring what is next above, 
 Or serving what's below their love ? 
 Of this we are certified, that we 
 Are shaped here for eternity, 
 So that a careless word will make 
 Its dint upon the form we take
 
 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 95 
 
 Forever. If, then, years have wrought 
 
 Two strangers to become, in thought, 
 
 Will, and affection, but one man 
 
 For likeness, as none others can 
 
 Without like process, shall this tree, 
 
 The king of all the forest, be, 
 
 Alas, the only one of all 
 
 That shall not lie where it doth fall ? 
 
 Shall this most quenchless flame, here nurst 
 
 By everything, yea, when revers'd, 
 
 Blazing, like torch, the brighter, wink, 
 
 Flicker, and into nothing shrink, 
 
 When all else burns baleful or brave 
 
 In the keen air beyond the grave, 
 
 The air love gasps for, sickening here 
 
 Out of its native atmosphere ? 
 
 It cannot be ! The Scriptures tell 
 Only what's inexpressible, 
 And, 'gainst each word, to make it right, 
 Themselves propound the opposite. 
 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 
 Of whomsoever understands 
 To tune it justly here ! Beware 
 The Powers and Princedoms of the Air,
 
 96 THE VICTORIES OF LOVE. 
 
 Which make of none effect man's hope, 
 Bepraising heaven's ethereal cope, 
 But covering with their cloudy cant 
 Its counterpoising adamant, 
 Which strengthens ether for the flight 
 Of angels, makes and measures height, 
 And in materiality 
 Exceeds our Earth's in like degree 
 As all else Earth exceeds. Do I 
 Here utter aught that's dark or high ? 
 Have you not seen a bird's beak slay 
 Proud Psyche, on summer's day ? 
 Down fluttering drop the frail wings four, 
 Wanting the weight that 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 honor and delight 
 Increasing endlessly with height.
 
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 richness, and melody of the other."
 
 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS; 
 
 HISTORICAL, -AJSTJD ROMANTIC. 
 
 Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by J. G. LOCK- 
 HART, Esq. A new edition, revised, with a portrait of 
 Lockhart and a Sketch of his Life. 1 volume, 8vo, 
 beautifully printed on laid paper. Price in cloth, extra 
 bevelled boards, $1.50. Halt' morocco, Beckford style, 
 $2.50. Full morocco, antique, $4.50. 
 
 " Lockhart is only known as a poet by his Spanish Ballads. Those 
 ballads (the unanswerable proof of excellence in ballads) caught at 
 once, and live in the general ear. They have every characteristic 
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 quaintness, simplicity without baldness, energy without effort. They 
 are true to the spirit of the wild, romantic, and chivalrous times, 
 when Moor and Christian met on the borders to right and make love." 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney's Miscellaneous Works, 
 
 With a Life of the Author, and Illustrative Notes, by 
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 Full turkey antique, $5.50. 
 
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 with one another in excellence ; and these united will, we should 
 fancy, satify the taste of the most critical bibliophilist." London 
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 SELF-EDUCATION. 
 
 Translated from the French of Degerando, by Elizabeth P. Peabody. 
 1 volume, 12mo; pp. 45S. . . Price $1 25 
 
 Careful study will abundantly reward the student, or whoever cares 
 to gain that knowledge most difficult of all to attain, self-knowledge. 
 Perhaps no young person could assign to himself or herself a more 
 profitable task for the coming winter evenings than the mastery of 
 this work. 
 
 ' It is an authority ; and one, too, of the very highest, in regard to 
 the all-important subject on which it treats." Boston Traveller. 
 
 APELLES AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 A Novel. 
 
 By the author of Ernest Carroll. 1 volume, 16mo. Ele- 
 gantly printed. ..... Price 88cts. 
 
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 dered much when we read it who held so glowing and true a pen) 
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 long past, and that of treating art forcibly and faithfully in the por- 
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 ligent readers." Conyregationalist. 
 
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