Poems By Richard Chenevix Trench: New ed |
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ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES |
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70
ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
MARCH 10, 1863.
O merchantman who, seeking some fair pearl,
Whose orient splendours should enrich thy life,
And having found one fairest, hast been wise
To win, and make for ever thine and ours,
Henceforth a cynosure of all our eyes,
Set in thine own and England's coronet;
Oh fortunate!—yet not that round thee throng
A people happy in thy happiness,
Nor that boon nature empties in thy lap
Her golden tributes of a golden time,
Nor that the rod of empire may be thine,
The sceptre of the islands of the sea;
Oh happy, not in aught that would divide,
But most in that which links thee with thy kind—
Most happy, that, Heaven favouring, thou hast found
Of thy life's orb the absent hemisphere,
The fulness, and mysterious complement;
Which they who miss, earth's wealthiest, wisest, greatest
Wander disconsolate, and reap no joy
From life defeated and half unfulfilled,
While they who find, though poorest, are most rich.
Oh well is thee, that in two commonest names,
Yet holiest, names first heard in Paradise,
That in the names of husband and of wife
The sum of thy pure happiness, and hers
Who has fulfilled thy life, is all contained.
| Poems | |