Poems by George Meredith Volume I Part 2

Twin-born, albeit their seasons are apart, They bloom together in the thoughtful heart; Fair symbols of the marvels of our state, Mute speakers of the oracles of fate!

For each, fulfilling nature's law, fulfils Itself and its own aspirations pure; Living and dying; letting faith ensure New life when deathless Spring shall touch the hills.

Each perfect in its place; and each content With that perfection which its being meant: Divided not by months that intervene, But linked by all the flowers that bud between.

Forever smiling thro' its season brief, The one in glory and the one in grief: Forever painting to our museful sight, How lowlihead and loveliness unite.

Born from the first blind yearning of the earth To be a mother and give happy birth, Ere yet the northern sun such rapture brings, Lo, from her virgin breast the Snowdrop springs; And ere the snows have melted from the gra.s.s, And not a strip of greensward doth appear, Save the faint prophecy its cheeks declare, Alone, unkissed, unloved, behold it pa.s.s!

While in the ripe enthronement of the year, Whispering the breeze, and wedding the rich air With her so sweet, delicious bridal breath, - Odorous and exquisite beyond compare, And starr'd with dews upon her forehead clear, Fresh-hearted as a Maiden Queen should be Who takes the land's devotion as her fee, - The Wild Rose blooms, all summer for her dower, Nature's most beautiful and perfect flower.

THE DEATH OF WINTER

When April with her wild blue eye Comes dancing over the gra.s.s, And all the crimson buds so shy Peep out to see her pa.s.s; As lightly she loosens her showery locks And flutters her rainy wings; Laughingly stoops To the gla.s.s of the stream, And loosens and loops Her hair by the gleam, While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks Go frolicking round in rings; - Then Winter, he who tamed the fly, Turns on his back and prepares to die, For he cannot live longer under the sky.

Down the valleys glittering green, Down from the hills in snowy rills, He melts between the border sheen And leaps the flowery verges!

He cannot choose but brighten their hues, And tho' he would creep, he fain must leap, For the quick Spring spirit urges.

Down the vale and down the dale He leaps and lights, till his moments fail, Buried in blossoms red and pale, While the sweet birds sing his dirges!

O Winter! I'd live that life of thine, With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue, And never a song my whole life long, - Were such delicious burial mine!

To die and be buried, and so remain A wandering brook in April's train, Fixing my dying eyes for aye On the dawning brows of maiden May.

SONG

The moon is alone in the sky As thou in my soul; The sea takes her image to lie Where the white ripples roll All night in a dream, With the light of her beam, Hushedly, mournfully, mistily up to the sh.o.r.e.

The pebbles speak low In the ebb and the flow, As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore: Nought other stirred Save my heart all unheard Beating to bliss that is past evermore.

JOHN LACKLAND

A wicked man is bad enough on earth; But O the baleful l.u.s.tre of a chief Once pledged in tyranny! O star of dearth Darkly illumining a nation's grief!

How many men have worn thee on their brows!

Alas for them and us! G.o.d's precious gift Of gracious dispensation got by theft - The d.a.m.ning form of false unholy vows!

The thief of G.o.d and man must have his fee: And thou, John Lackland, despicable prince - Basest of England's banes before or since!

Thrice traitor, coward, thief! O thou shalt be The historic warning, trampled and abhorr'd Who dared to steal and stain the symbols of the Lord!

THE SLEEPING CITY

A Princess in the eastern tale Paced thro' a marble city pale, And saw in ghastly shapes of stone The sculptured life she breathed alone;

Saw, where'er her eye might range, Herself the only child of change; And heard her echoed footfall chime Between Oblivion and Time;

And in the squares where fountains played, And up the spiral bal.u.s.trade, Along the drowsy corridors, Even to the inmost sleeping floors,

Surveyed in wonder chilled with dread The seemingness of Death, not dead; Life's semblance but without its storm, And silence frosting every form;

Crowned figures, cold and grouping slaves, Like suddenly arrested waves About to sink, about to rise, - Strange meaning in their stricken eyes;

And cloths and couches live with flame Of leopards fierce and lions tame, And hunters in the jungle reed, Thrown out by sombre glowing brede;

Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold, And c.u.mbrous gorgeousness of gold; White cas.e.m.e.nts o'er embroidered seats, Looking on solitudes of streets, -

On palaces and column'd towers, Unconscious of the stony hours; Harsh gateways startled at a sound, With burning lamps all burnish'd round; -

Surveyed in awe this wealth and state, Touched by the finger of a Fate, And drew with slow-awakening fear The sternness of the atmosphere; -

And gradually, with stealthier foot, Became herself a thing as mute, And listened,--while with swift alarm Her alien heart shrank from the charm;

Yet as her thoughts dilating rose, Took glory in the great repose, And over every postured form Spread lava-like and brooded warm, -

And fixed on every frozen face Beheld the record of its race, And in each chiselled feature knew The stormy life that once blushed thro'; -

The ever-present of the past There written; all that lightened last, Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair, Beauty and rage, all written there; -

Enchanted Pa.s.sions! whose pale doom Is never flushed by blight or bloom, But sentinelled by silent orbs, Whose light the pallid scene absorbs. -

Like such a one I pace along This City with its sleeping throng; Like her with dread and awe, that turns To rapture, and sublimely yearns; -

For now the quiet stars look down On lights as quiet as their own; The streets that groaned with traffic show As if with silence paved below;

The latest revellers are at peace, The signs of in-door tumult cease, From gay saloon and low resort, Comes not one murmur or report:

The clattering chariot rolls not by, The windows show no waking eye, The houses smoke not, and the air Is clear, and all the midnight fair.

The centre of the striving world, Round which the human fate is curled, To which the future crieth wild, - Is pillowed like a cradled child.

The palace roof that guards a crown, The mansion swathed in dreamy down, Hovel, court, and alley-shed, Sleep in the calmness of the dead.

Now while the many-motived heart Lies hushed--fireside and busy mart, And mortal pulses beat the tune That charms the calm cold ear o' the moon

Whose yellowing crescent down the West Leans listening, now when every breast Its basest or its purest heaves, The soul that joys, the soul that grieves; -

While Fame is crowning happy brows That day will blindly scorn, while vows Of anguished love, long hidden, speak From faltering tongue and flus.h.i.+ng cheek

The language only known to dreams, Rich eloquence of rosy themes!

While on the Beauty's folded mouth Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;