Poems by George Meredith Volume Iii Part 27

Once I was part of the music I heard On the boughs or sweet between earth and sky, For joy of the beating of wings on high My heart shot into the breast of the bird.

I hear it now and I see it fly, And a life in wrinkles again is stirred, My heart shoots into the breast of the bird, As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh.

TO A FRIEND LOST (TOM TAYLOR)

When I remember, friend, whom lost I call, Because a man beloved is taken hence, The tender humour and the fire of sense In your good eyes; how full of heart for all, And chiefly for the weaker by the wall, You bore that lamp of sane benevolence; Then see I round you Death his shadows dense Divide, and at your feet his emblems fall.

For surely are you one with the white host, Spirits, whose memory is our vital air, Through the great love of Earth they had: lo, these, Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas, Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost, Partakers of a strife they joyed to share.

M. M.

Who call her Mother and who calls her Wife Look on her grave and see not Death but Life.

THE LADY C. M.

To them that knew her, there is vital flame In these the simple letters of her name.

To them that knew her not, be it but said, So strong a spirit is not of the dead.

ON THE TOMBSTONE OF JAMES CHRISTOPHER WILSON (d. APRIL 11, 1884) IN HEADLEY CHURCHYARD, SURREY

Thou our beloved and light of Earth hast crossed The sea of darkness to the yonder sh.o.r.e.

There dost thou s.h.i.+ne a light transferred, not lost, Through love to kindle in our souls the more.

GORDON OF KHARTOUM

Of men he would have raised to light he fell: In soul he conquered with those nerveless hands.

His country's pride and her abas.e.m.e.nt knell The Man of England circled by the sands.

J. C. M.

A fountain of our sweetest, quick to spring In fellows.h.i.+p abounding, here subsides: And never pa.s.sage of a cloud on wing To gladden blue forgets him; near he hides.

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK OF OUR TIME

With Alfred and St. Louis he doth win Grander than crowned head's mortuary dome: His gentle heroic manhood enters in The ever-flowering common heart for home.

ISLET THE DACHS

Our Islet out of Helgoland, dismissed From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves.

There lived with us a wagging humourist In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves.

ON HEARING THE NEWS FROM VENICE (THE DEATH OF ROBERT BROWNING)

Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak, And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier.

Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear: We are the smitten mortal, we the weak.

We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak s.h.i.+ne, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: See a great Tree of Life that never sere Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak.

Such ending is not Death: such living shows What wide illumination brightness sheds From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes: The coward, and the tyrant, and the force Of all those weedy monsters raising heads When Song is murk from springs of turbid source.

December 13, 1889.

HAWARDEN

When comes the lighted day for men to read Life's meaning, with the work before their hands Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed, Earth will not hear her children's wailful bands Deplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge; Nor they look where is darkness, but on high.

The sun that dropped down our horizon's verge Illumes his labours through the travelled sky, Now seen in sum, most glorious; and 'tis known By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast.

A splendid image built of man has flown; His deeds inspired of G.o.d outstep a Past.

Ours the great privilege to have had one Among us who celestial tasks has done.