‘Day after day, until to-day, Imaged the others gone before, The same dull task, the weary way, The weakness pardon’d o’er and o’er, ‘The thwarted thirst, too faintly felt, For joy’s well-nigh forgotten life, The restless heart, which, when I knelt, Made of my worship barren strife. ‘Ah, whence to-day’s so sweet release, This clearance light of all my care, This conscience free, this fertile peace, These softly folded wings of prayer, ‘This calm and more than conquering love, With which nought evil dares to cope, This joy that lifts no glance above, For faith too sure, too sweet for hope? ‘O, happy time, too happy change, It will not live, though fondly nurst! Full soon the sun will seem as strange As now the cloud which seems dispersed.’ 3 She from a rose-tree shook the blight; And well she knew that I knew well Her grace with silence to requite; And, answering now the luncheon bell, I laugh’d at Mildred’s laugh, which made All melancholy wrong, its mood Such sweet self-confidence display’d, So glad a sense of present good. 4 I laugh’d and sigh’d: for I confess I never went to Ball, or Fête, Or Show, but in pursuit express Of my predestinated mate; And thus to me, who had in sight The happy chance upon the cards, Each beauty blossom’d in the light Of tender personal regards; And, in the records of my breast, Red-letter’d, eminently fair, Stood sixteen, who, beyond the rest, By turns till then had been my care: At Berlin three, one at St. Cloud, At Chatteris, near Cambridge, one, At Ely four, in London two, Two at Bowness, in Paris none, And, last and best, in Sarum three; But dearest of the whole fair troop, In judgment of the moment, she Whose daisy eyes had learn’d to droop. Her very faults my fancy fired; My loving will, so thwarted, grew; And, bent on worship, I admired Whate’er she was, with partial view. And yet when, as to-day, her smile Was prettiest, I could not but note Honoria, less admired the while, Was lovelier, though from love remote. CANTO III. Honoria PRELUDES. I. _The Lover_.