Poems by George Meredith Volume Iii Part 8

Despite our feeble hold on this green home, And the vast outer strangeness void of dome, Shall we be with them, of them, taught to feel, Up to the moment of our prostrate fall, The life they deem voluptuously real Is more than empty echo of a call, Or shadow of a shade, or swing of tides; As brooding upon age, when veins congeal, Grey palsy nods to think. With us for guides, Another step above the animal, To views in Alpine thought are they helped on.

Good if so far we live in them when gone!

And there the arrowy eagle of the height Becomes the little bird that hops to feed, Glad of a crumb, for tempered appet.i.te To make it wholesome blood and fruitful seed.

Then Memory strikes on no slack string, Nor sectional will varied Life appear: Perforce of soul discerned in mind, we hear Earth with her Onward chime, with Winter Spring.

And ours the mellow note, while sharing joys No more subjecting mortals who have learnt To build for happiness on equipoise, The Pleasures read in sparks of substance burnt; Know in our seasons an integral wheel, That rolls us to a mark may yet be willed.

This, the truistic rubbish under heel Of all the world, we peck at and are filled.

PENETRATION AND TRUST

I

Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone, The look of her heart slipped out and in.

Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone, As innocents clear of a shade of sin.

II

He laid a finger under her chin, His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown: Now, what will happen and who will win, With me in the fight and my lady lone?

III

He clasped her, clasping a shape of stone; Was fire on her eyes till they let him in.

Her breast to a G.o.d of the daybeams shone, And never a corner for serpent sin.

IV

Tranced she stood, with a chattering chin; Her shrunken form at his feet was thrown: At home to the death my lord shall win, When it is no tyrant who leaves me lone!

NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY

With splendour of a silver day, A frosted night had opened May: And on that plumed and armoured night, As one close temple hove our wood, Its border leaf.a.ge virgin white.

Remote down air an owl hallooed.

The black twig dropped without a twirl; The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped; The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl; A crystal off the green leaf slipped.

Across the tracks of rimy tan, Some busy thread at whiles would shoot; A limping minnow-rillet ran, To hang upon an icy foot.

In this shrill hush of quietude, The ear conceived a severing cry.

Almost it let the sound elude, When chuckles three, a warble shy, From hazels of the garden came, Near by the crimson-windowed farm.

They laid the trance on breath and frame, A prelude of the pa.s.sion-charm.

Then soon was heard, not sooner heard Than answered, doubled, trebled, more, Voice of an Eden in the bird Renewing with his pipe of four The sob: a troubled Eden, rich In throb of heart: unnumbered throats Flung upward at a fountain's pitch, The fervour of the four long notes, That on the fountain's pool subside, Exult and ruffle and upspring: Endless the crossing multiplied Of silver and of golden string.

There chimed a bubbled underbrew With witch-wild spray of vocal dew.

It seemed a single harper swept Our wild wood's inner chords and waked A spirit that for yearning ached Ere men desired and joyed or wept.

Or now a legion ravis.h.i.+ng Musician rivals did unite In love of sweetness high to sing The subtle song that rivals light; From breast of earth to breast of sky: And they were secret, they were nigh: A hand the magic might disperse; The magic swung my universe.

Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream, Where all was visionary gleam; Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed; And feelings, pa.s.sing joy and woe, Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed, Nor either was the one we know: Nor pregnant of the heart contained In us were they, that griefless plained, That plaining soared; and through the heart Struck to one note the wide apart:- A pa.s.sion surgent from despair; A paining bliss in fervid cold; Off the last vital edge of air, Leap heavenward of the lofty-souled, For rapture of a wine of tears; As had a star among the spheres Caught up our earth to some mid-height Of double life to ear and sight, She giving voice to thought that s.h.i.+nes Keen-brilliant of her deepest mines; While steely drips the rillet clinked, And h.o.a.r with crust the cowslip swelled.

Then was the lyre of earth beheld, Then heard by me: it holds me linked; Across the years to dead-ebb sh.o.r.es I stand on, my blood-thrill restores.

But would I conjure into me Those issue notes, I must review What serious breath the woodland drew; The low throb of expectancy; How the white mother-muteness pressed On leaf and meadow-herb; how shook, Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest Seen spinning on the bracken-crook.

THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE

I

A satyr spied a G.o.ddess in her bath, Unseen of her attendant nymphs; none knew.

Forthwith the creature to his fellows drew, And looking backward on the curtained path, He strove to tell; he could but heave a breast Too full, and point to mouth, with failing leers: Vainly he danced for speech, he giggled tears, Made as if torn in two, as if tight pressed, As if cast p.r.o.ne; then fetching whimpered tunes For words, flung heel and set his hairy flight Through forest-hollows, over rocky height.

The green leaves buried him three rounds of moons.

A senatorial Satyr named what herb Had hurried him outrunning reason's curb.

II

'Tis told how when that hieaway unchecked To dell returned, he seemed of tempered mood: Even as the valley of the torrent rude, The torrent now a brook, the valley wrecked.

In him, to hale him high or hurl aheap, G.o.ddess and Goatfoot hourly wrestled sore; Hourly the immortal prevailing more: Till one hot noon saw Meliboeus peep From thicket-sprays to where his full-blown dame, In circle by the l.u.s.ty friskers gripped, Laughed the showered rose-leaves while her limbs were stripped.

She beckoned to our Satyr, and he came.

Then twirled she mounds of ripeness, wreath of arms.

His hoof kicked up the clothing for such charms.

BREATH OF THE BRIAR

I

O briar-scents, on yon wet wing Of warm South-west wind brus.h.i.+ng by, You mind me of the sweetest thing That ever mingled frank and shy: When she and I, by love enticed, Beneath the orchard-apples met, In equal halves a ripe one sliced, And smelt the juices ere we ate.

II

That apple of the briar-scent, Among our lost in Britain now, Was green of rind, and redolent Of sweetness as a milking cow.

The briar gives it back, well nigh The damsel with her teeth on it; Her twinkle between frank and shy, My thirst to bite where she had bit.

EMPEDOCLES