Poems by George Meredith Volume Ii Part 39

I

I stood at the gate of the cot Where my darling, with side-glance demure, Would spy, on her trim garden-plot, The busy wild things chase and lure.

For these with their ways were her feast; They had surety no enemy lurked.

Their deftest of tricks to their least She gathered in watch as she worked.

II

When berries were red on her ash, The blackbird would rifle them rough, Till the ground underneath looked a gash, And her rogue grew the round of a chough.

The squirrel c.o.c.ked ear o'er his hoop, Up the spruce, quick as eye, trailing brush.

She knew any t.i.t of the troop All as well as the snail-tapping thrush.

III

I gazed: 'twas the scene of the frame, With the face, the dear life for me, fled.

No window a lute to my name, No watcher there plying the thread.

But the blackbird hung peeking at will; The squirrel from cone hopped to cone; The thrush had a snail in his bill, And tap-tapped the sh.e.l.l hard on a stone.

HYMN TO COLOUR

I

With Life and Death I walked when Love appeared, And made them on each side a shadow seem.

Through wooded vales the land of dawn we neared, Where down smooth rapids whirls the helmless dream To fall on daylight; and night puts away Her darker veil for grey.

II

In that grey veil green gra.s.sblades brushed we by; We came where woods breathed sharp, and overhead Rocks raised clear horns on a transforming sky: Around, save for those shapes, with him who led And linked them, desert varied by no sign Of other life than mine.

III

By this the dark-winged planet, raying wide, From the mild pearl-glow to the rose upborne, Drew in his fires, less faint than far descried, Pure-fronted on a stronger wave of morn: And those two shapes the splendour interweaved, Hung web-like, sank and heaved.

IV

Love took my hand when hidden stood the sun To fling his robe on shoulder-heights of snow.

Then said: There lie they, Life and Death in one.

Whichever is, the other is: but know, It is thy craving self that thou dost see, Not in them seeing me.

V

Shall man into the mystery of breath, From his quick beating pulse a pathway spy?

Or learn the secret of the shrouded death, By lifting up the lid of a white eye?

Cleave thou thy way with fathering desire Of fire to reach to fire.

VI

Look now where Colour, the soul's bridegroom, makes The house of heaven splendid for the bride.

To him as leaps a fountain she awakes, In knotting arms, yet boundless: him beside, She holds the flower to heaven, and by his power Brings heaven to the flower.

VII

He gives her homeliness in desert air, And sovereignty in s.p.a.ciousness; he leads Through widening chambers of surprise to where Throbs rapture near an end that aye recedes, Because his touch is infinite and lends A yonder to all ends.

VIII

Death begs of Life his blush; Life Death persuades To keep long day with his caresses graced.

He is the heart of light, the wing of shades, The crown of beauty: never soul embraced Of him can harbour unfaith; soul of him Possessed walks never dim.

IX

Love eyed his rosy memories: he sang: O bloom of dawn, breathed up from the gold sheaf Held springing beneath Orient! that dost hang The s.p.a.ce of dewdrops running over leaf; Thy fleetingness is bigger in the ghost Than Time with all his host!

X

Of thee to say behold, has said adieu: But love remembers how the sky was green, And how the gra.s.ses glimmered lightest blue; How saint-like grey took fervour: how the screen Of cloud grew violet; how thy moment came Between a blush and flame.

XI

Love saw the emissary eglantine Break wave round thy white feet above the gloom; Lay finger on thy star; thy raiment line With cherub wing and limb; wed thy soft bloom, Gold-quivering like sunrays in thistle-down, Earth under rolling brown.

XII

They do not look through love to look on thee, Grave heavenliness! nor know they joy of sight, Who deem the wave of rapt desire must be Its wrecking and last issue of delight.

Dead seasons quicken in one petal-spot Of colour unforgot.

XIII

This way have men come out of brutishness To spell the letters of the sky and read A reflex upon earth else meaningless.

With thee, O fount of the Untimed! to lead, Drink they of thee, thee eyeing, they unaged Shall on through brave wars waged.

XIV

More gardens will they win than any lost; The vile plucked out of them, the unlovely slain.

Not forfeiting the beast with which they are crossed, To stature of the G.o.ds will they attain.

They shall uplift their Earth to meet her Lord, Themselves the attuning chord!

XV

The song had ceased; my vision with the song.

Then of those Shadows, which one made descent Beside me I knew not: but Life ere long Came on me in the public ways and bent Eyes deeper than of old: Death met I too, And saw the dawn glow through.