Coventry Patmore Quotes

To one who waits, all things reveal themselves so long as you have the courage not to deny in the darkness what you have seen in the light.

To him that waits all things reveal themselves,' provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light.

He meets, by heavenly chance express, The destined maid; some hidden hand Unveils to him that loveliness Which others cannot understand. His merits in her presence grow, To match the promise in her eyes, And round her happy footsteps blow The authentic airs of paradise.… —COVENTRY PATMORE, The Angel in the House, 1854.

Life is not life at all without delight.

The Toys My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, —His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.

Here, in this little Bay, Full of tumultuous life and great repose, Where, twice a day, The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, I sit me down. For want of me the world’s course will not fail: When all its work is done, the lie shall rot; The truth is great, and shall prevail, When none cares whether it prevail or not.

I, singularly moved To love the lovely that are not beloved, Of all the seasons, most Love winter

To one who waits, all things reveal themselves,” the nineteenth-century English poet Coventry Patmore reassures us, “so long as you have the courage not to deny in the darkness what you have seen in the light.

You may see the disc of Divinity quite clearly through the smoked glass of humanity, but no otherwise.

of sameness. This is as true of Zion as it is of marriage. The poet Coventry Patmore wrote that the bonds that unite us in community consist “not in similarity, but in dissimilarity; the happiness of love, in which alone happiness resid[es] . . . not in unison, but conjunction, which can only be between spiritual dissimilars.”30 This is why the body of Christ needs its full complement of members—the devout, the wayward, the uncomfortable, the struggling. “It does not mean that a man is not good because he errs in doctrine,” Joseph said of a Mormon rebuked by others for his preaching. “It feels so good not to be trammeled.”31 This is the spirit in which one Church leader recently noted that not only unique backgrounds but “unique talents and perspectives” and “diversity of persons and peoples” are “a strength of this Church.”32

The Angel in the House" Man must be pleased; but him to please Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf Of his condoled necessities She casts her best, she flings herself. How often flings for nought, and yokes Her heart to an icicle or whim, Whose each impatient word provokes Another, not from her, but him; While she, too gentle even to force His penitence by kind replies, Waits by, expecting his remorse, With pardon in her pitying eyes; And if he once, by shame oppress'd, A comfortable word confers, She leans and weeps against his breast, And seems to think the sin was hers; Or any eye to see her charms, At any time, she's still his wife, Dearly devoted to his arms; She loves with love that cannot tire; And when, ah woe, she loves alone, Through passionate duty love springs higher, As grass grows taller round a stone.

Nations die of softening of the brain, which, for a long time, passes for softening of the heart.