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!"
THE gray sea, and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon, large and low;
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.
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