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 car 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.

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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

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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 search 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

Dawn of Womanhood

DAWN OF WOMANHOOD

THUS will I have the woman of my dream.
Strong must she be and gentle, like a star
Her soul burn whitely; nor its arrowy beam

May any cloud of superstition mar:

True to the earth she is, patient and calm.
Her tranquil eyes shall penetrate afar

Through centuries, and her maternal arm
Enfold the generations yet unborn;
Nor she, by passing glamor nor alarm,

Will from the steadfast way of life be drawn.
Gray-eyed and fearless, I behold her gaze
Outward into the furnace of the dawn.

Sacred shall be the purport of her days,

Yet human; and the passion of the earth Shall be for her adornment and her praise.

She is most often joyous, with a mirth

That rings true-tempered holy womanhood.
She cannot fear the agonies of birth,

Nor sit in pallid lethargy and brood
Upon the coming seasons of her pain:
By her the mystery is understood

Of harvest, and fulfilment in the grain.

Yea, she is wont to labor in the field,
Delights to heap, at sunset, on the wain

Festoons and coronals of the golden yield.
A triumph is the labor of her soul,
Sublime along eternity revealed.

Lo, everlastingly in her control,

Under the even measure of her breath, Like crested waves the onward centuries roll.

Nor to far heaven her spirit wandereth,

Nor lifteth she her voice in barren prayer, Nor trembleth at appearances of death.

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