That good, which does itself not know,
Scarce is. Good 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 that they are
In the heart of the world, alas! for want
Of knowing aright what light souls taunt
As lightness, but 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,
Have honour and all other things
Gladly accounted nothing. What
Fell fires of Tophet burn forgot!
The truths of love are like the sea
For clearness and for mystery.
Of that sweet love which, startling, wakes
Maiden and youth, and mostly breaks
The word of promise to the ear,
But keeps it, after many a year,
To the full 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 the height
Of nameless pathos and delight!
In Godhead rise, thither flow back
All loves, which, as they keep or lack,
In their turn, the course 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 in 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,
And the upward eye a void descries,
And praises are hypocrisies,
And in the soul o'erstrained 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.
Every ambition bears a curse,
And none if height meets error, worse
Than his who sets his hope on more
Godliness than God made him for.
Account them poor enough who want
Any good thing which you can grant;
And fathom well the depths of life
In loves of husband and of wife,
Child, mother, father; simple keys
To all the Christian mysteries.
The love of marriage claims, above
Each other kind, the name of love,
As being, though not so saintly high
As what seeks heaven with single eye,
Sole perfect. Equal and entire,
There in 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 that 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 a 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, the infinite of man is found
But in the beating of its bound,
And if a brook its banks o'erpass,
'Tis not sea, but a morass.
Without God's Word, no wildest guess
Of love's most innocent loftiness
Had dared to dream of its own height;
But that bold sunbeam quenched the night,
Showing heaven's happiest symbols, where
The torch of Psyche flashed despair;
Proclaiming love, even in divine
Realms, to be male and feminine
(Christ's marriage with the church is more,
My children, than a metaphor);
And aye by names of bride and wife,
Husband and bridegroom, heaven's own life
Picturing, so proved theirs to be
The earth's unearthliest sanctity.
Herein I speak of heights, and heights Are hardly scaled. The best, delights Of even this homely 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.
When daily tasks are done, and tired hands Lie still and folded on the resting knee, When loving thoughts have leave to ioose their bands,
And wander over past and future free; When visions bright of love and hope fulfilled. Bring weary eyes a spark of olden fire, One castle fairer than the rest we build, One blessing more than others we desire;
A home, our home, wherein ali waiting past,
We two may stand together and alone;
Our patient taskwork finished, and at last
Love's perfect blessedness and peace our
Some little nest of safety and delight, Guarded by God's good angels day and night.
We can not guess if this dear home shall lie In some green spot embowered with arch
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