Poems by George Meredith Volume Ii Part 24

VII

Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady?

She shrank as at p.r.i.c.k of steel.

Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed.

Her eyes were like the grave that is wide For the corpse from head to heel.

VIII

My lady, my love, that little hand Has mine ringed fast in plight: I bear for your lips a lawful thirst, And as justly the second should follow the first, I come to your door this night.

IX

If a ghost should come a ghost will go: No more the lady said, Save that ever when he in wrath began To swear by the faith of a living man, She answered him, You are dead.

4--I

The soft night-wind went laden to death With smell of the orange in flower; The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears; The bird of the pa.s.sion sang over his tears; The night named hour by hour.

II

Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird Till the yellow hour was nigh, Behind the folds of a darker cloud: He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud; The voice between earth and sky.

III

O will you, will you, women are weak; The proudest are yielding mates For a forward foot and a tongue of fire: So thought Lord Dusiote's trusty squire, At watch by the palace-gates.

IV

The song of the bird was wine in his blood, And woman the odorous bloom: His master's great adventure stirred Within him to mingle the bloom and bird, And morn ere its coming illume.

V

Beside him strangely a piece of the dark Had moved, and the undertones Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave, He heard, as were there a soul to save For urgency now in the groans.

VI

No priest was hired for the play this night: And the squire tossed head like a deer At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised, Belike on a pa.s.sing bier.

VII

All cloaked and masked, with naked blades, That flashed of a judgement done, The lords of the Court, from the palace-door, Came issuing silently, bearers four, And flat on their shoulders one.

VIII

They marched the body to squire and priest, They lowered it sad to earth: The priest they gave the burial dole, Bade wrestle hourly for his soul, Who was a lord of worth.

IX

One said, farewell to a gallant knight!

And one, but a restless ghost!

'Tis a year and a day since in this place He died, sped high by a lady of grace To join the blissful host.

X

Not vainly on us she charged her cause, The lady whom we revere For faith in the mask of a love untrue To the Love we honour, the Love her due, The Love we have vowed to rear.

XI

A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light, For the fortress defiant a mine: Right well! But not in the South, princess, Shall the lady snared of her n.o.bleness Ever shamed or a captive pine.

XII

When the South had voice of a nightingale Above a Maying bower, On the heights of Love walked radiant peers; The bird of the pa.s.sion sang over his tears To the breeze and the orange-flower.

KING HARALD'S TRANCE

I

Sword in length a reaping-hook amain Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank: 'Mid the swathes of slain, First at moonrise drank.

II

Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife, p.r.i.c.ked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach Home and his young wife, Nigh the sea-ford beach.

III

After battle keen to feed was he: Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast, Like an angry sea s.h.i.+ps from keel to mast.

IV

Name us glory, singer, name us pride Matching Harald's in his deeds of strength; Chiefs, wife, sword by side, Foemen stretched their length!

V

Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed, Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high, Till awink he bade Wife to chamber fly.

VI

Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk, Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead; Mountain on his trunk, Ocean on his head.

VII

Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked Whispers that at heart made iron-clang: Here fool-women clucked, There men held harangue.

VIII