GENTEEL in personage,
Conduct and equipage;
Noble by heritage,
Generous and free;
Brave, not romantic;
Learned, not pedantic;
Frolic, not frantic:
This must he be.
Honor maintaining,
Meanness disdaining,
Still entertaining,
Engaging and new;
Neat, but not finical;
Sage, but not cynical;
Never tyrannical,
But ever true.
HOME they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said
"She must weep, or she will die!"
Then they praised him, soft and low;
Called him worthy to be loved :
Truest friend and noblest foe!
Yet she neither spake nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took a face-cloth from the face:
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee.
Like summer tempest came her tears: "Sweet my child, I live for thee!"
SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.
And the startled little waves, that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach ;
Three fields to cross, till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spirt of a lighted match;
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts, beating each to each!
Round the cape, of a sudden, came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me!
SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.
SHE was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight,
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament:
SHE WAS PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her, upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food:
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine ;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill:
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
|