117. THE PRAISE OF BEAUTY
(FROM "AN HYMN IN HONOUR OF BEAUTIE")
WHAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast
To make all things such as we now behold.
It seems that He before His eyes had plast1
A goodly Pattern, to whose perfect mould
He fashioned them as comely as He could,
That now so fair and seemly they appear
As nought may be amended anywhere.
That wondrous Pattern, wheresoe'er it be,
Whether in Earth laid up in secret store,
Or else in Heaven, that no man may it see
With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore,2
Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore:
Whose face and feature doth so much excel
All mortal sense, that none the same may tell.
How vainly then do idle wits invent
That beauty is nought else but mixture made
Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament
Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade
And pass away, like to a summer's shade;
Or that it is but comely composition
Of parts well measured with meet disposition!
But ah! believe me, there is more than so
That works such wonders in the minds of men :
I, that have often proved, too well it know,
And whoso list the like assayes to ken
Shall find by trial and confess it then
That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,
An outward show of things that only seem.
For that same goodly hue of white and red,
With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay;
That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,
Shall turn to dust, and lose their goodly light.
But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray
That light proceeds which kindleth lovers' fire,
Shall never be extinguished nor decay;
But when the vital spirits do expire
Unto her native planet shall retire :
For it is heavenly born and cannot die,
Being a parcel of the purest sky.
For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts, composed of stars' consent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy
To work each others' joy and true content,
Which they have harboured since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here beloved to be.
Then Io,1 triumph! O great Beauty's Queen!
Advance the banner of thy conquest high;
That all this world, the which thy vassals been,
1 Gk. and Lat. for ho! huzza!
May draw to thee, and with due fealty
Adore the power of thy great Majesty,
Singing this hymn in honour of thy name,
Compiled by me, which thy poor liegeman am.
OUT of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow,
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
H. W. LONGFELLOW
119. TO THE LADY MARGARET
COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND
HE that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolvèd powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same :
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wealds of man survey!
And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil,
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood; where honour, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where Greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As Frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds, who do it so esteem !
He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best-faced enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails ;
Justice he sees (as if seducèd) still
Conspires with Power, whose cause must not be ill.
He sees the face of Right to appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man ;
Who puts it in all colours, all attires,
To serve his ends and make his courses hold.
He sees that, let Deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit.
Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes,
Charged with more crying sins than those he
checks.
The storms of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him, that hath no side at all
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.
Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexèd state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility :
Yet, seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.
And whilst distraught Ambition compasses
And is encompassed; whilst as Craft deceives
And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And the inheritance of desolation leaves
To great expecting hopes: he looks thereon,
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety.
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