Poems by George Meredith Volume Iii Part 15

O she that made the brave appeal For manhood when our time was dark, And from our fetters drove the spark Which was as lightning to reveal New seasons, with the swifter play Of pulses, and benigner day; She that divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight, And marched toward the gloomy gate Of earth's Untried, gave note, and in The good name of Humanity Called forth the daring vision! she, She likewise half corrupt of sin, Angel and Wanton! can it be?

Her star has foundered in eclipse, The shriek of madness on her lips; Shreds of her, and no more, we see.

There is horrible convulsion, smothered din, As of one that in a grave-cloth struggles to be free.

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Look not for spreading boughs On the riven forest tree.

Look down where deep in blood and mire Black thunder plants his feet and ploughs The soil for ruin: that is France: Still thrilling like a lyre, Amazed to s.h.i.+vering discord from a fall Sudden as that the lurid hosts recall Who met in heaven the irreparable mischance.

O that is France!

The brilliant eyes to kindle bliss, The shrewd quick lips to laugh and kiss, b.r.e.a.s.t.s that a sighing world inspire, And laughter-dimpled countenance Where soul and senses caught desire!

IV

Ever invoking fire from heaven, the fire Has grasped her, unconsumable, but framed For all the ecstasies of suffering dire.

Mother of Pride, her sanctuary shamed: Mother of Delicacy, and made a mark For outrage: Mother of Luxury, stripped stark: Mother of Heroes, bondsmen: thro' the rains, Across her boundaries, lo the league-long chains!

Fond Mother of her martial youth; they pa.s.s, Are spectres in her sight, are mown as gra.s.s!

Mother of Honour, and dishonoured: Mother Of Glory, she condemned to crown with bays Her victor, and be fountain of his praise.

Is there another curse? There is another: Compa.s.sionate her madness: is she not Mother of Reason? she that sees them mown Like gra.s.s, her young ones! Yea, in the low groan And under the fixed thunder of this hour Which holds the animate world in one foul blot Tranced circ.u.mambient while relentless Power Beaks at her heart and claws her limbs down-thrown, She, with the plungeing lightnings overshot, With madness for an armour against pain, With milkless b.r.e.a.s.t.s for little ones athirst, And round her all her n.o.blest dying in vain, Mother of Reason is she, trebly cursed, To feel, to see, to justify the blow; Chamber to chamber of her sequent brain Gives answer of the cause of her great woe, Inexorably echoing thro' the vaults, ''Tis thus they reap in blood, in blood who sow: 'This is the sum of self-absolved faults.'

Doubt not that thro' her grief, with sight supreme, Thro' her delirium and despair's last dream, Thro' pride, thro' bright illusion and the brood Bewildering of her various Motherhood, The high strong light within her, tho' she bleeds, Traces the letters of returned misdeeds.

She sees what seed long sown, ripened of late, Bears this fierce crop; and she discerns her fate From origin to agony, and on As far as the wave washes long and wan Off one disastrous impulse: for of waves Our life is, and our deeds are pregnant graves Blown rolling to the sunset from the dawn.

V

Ah, what a dawn of splendour, when her sowers Went forth and bent the necks of populations And of their terrors and humiliations Wove her the starry wreath that earthward lowers Now in the figure of a burning yoke!

Her legions traversed North and South and East, Of triumph they enjoyed the glutton's feast: They grafted the green sprig, they lopped the oak.

They caught by the beard the tempests, by the scalp The icy precipices, and clove sheer through The heart of horror of the pinnacled Alp, Emerging not as men whom mortals knew.

They were the earthquake and the hurricane, The lightnings and the locusts, plagues of blight, Plagues of the revel: they were Deluge rain, And dreaded Conflagration; lawless Might.

Death writes a reeling line along the snows, Where under frozen mists they may be tracked, Who men and elements provoked to foes, And G.o.ds: they were of G.o.d and beast compact: Abhorred of all. Yet, how they sucked the teats Of Carnage, thirsty issue of their dam, Whose eagles, angrier than their oriflamme, Flushed the vext earth with blood, green earth forgets.

The gay young generations mask her grief; Where bled her children hangs the loaded sheaf.

Forgetful is green earth; the G.o.ds alone Remember everlastingly: they strike Remorselessly, and ever like for like.

By their great memories the G.o.ds are known.

VI

They are with her now, and in her ears, and known.

'Tis they that cast her to the dust for Strength, Their slave, to feed on her fair body's length, That once the sweetest and the proudest shone; Scoring for hideous dismemberment Her limbs, as were the anguish-taking breath Gone out of her in the insufferable descent From her high chieftains.h.i.+p; as were she death, Who hears a voice of justice, feels the knife Of torture, drinks all ignominy of life.

They are with her, and the painful G.o.ds might weep, If ever rain of tears came out of heaven To flatter Weakness and bid conscience sleep, Viewing the woe of this Immortal, driven For the soul's life to drain the maddening cup Of her own children's blood implacably: Unsparing even as they to furrow up The yellow land to likeness of a sea: The bountiful fair land of vine and grain, Of wit and grace and ardour, and strong roots, Fruits perishable, imperishable fruits; Furrowed to likeness of the dim grey main Behind the black obliterating cyclone.

VII

Behold, the G.o.ds are with her, and are known.

Whom they abandon misery persecutes No more: them half-eyed apathy may loan The happiness of pitiable brutes.

Whom the just G.o.ds abandon have no light, No ruthless light of introspective eyes That in the midst of misery scrutinize The heart and its iniquities outright.

They rest, they smile and rest; have earned perchance Of ancient service quiet for a term; Quiet of old men dropping to the worm; And so goes out the soul. But not of France.

She cries for grief, and to the G.o.ds she cries, For fearfully their loosened hands chastize, And icily they watch the rod's caress Ravage her flesh from scourges merciless, But she, inveterate of brain, discerns That Pity has as little place as Joy Among their roll of gifts; for Strength she yearns.

For Strength, her idol once, too long her toy.

Lo, Strength is of the plain root-Virtues born: Strength shall ye gain by service, prove in scorn, Train by endurance, by devotion shape.

Strength is not won by miracle or rape.

It is the offspring of the modest years, The gift of sire to son, thro' those firm laws Which we name G.o.ds; which are the righteous cause, The cause of man, and manhood's ministers.

Could France accept the fables of her priests, Who blest her banners in this game of beasts, And now bid hope that heaven will intercede To violate its laws in her sore need, She would find comfort in their opiates: Mother of Reason! can she cheat the Fates?

Would she, the champion of the open mind, The Omnipotent's prime gift--the gift of growth - Consent even for a night-time to be blind, And sink her soul on the delusive sloth, For fruits ethereal and material, both, In peril of her place among mankind?

The Mother of the many Laughters might Call one poor shade of laughter in the light Of her unwavering lamp to mark what things The world puts faith in, careless of the truth: What silly puppet-bodies danced on strings, Attached by credence, we appear in sooth, Demanding intercession, direct aid, When the whole tragic tale hangs on a broken blade!

She swung the sword for centuries; in a day It slipped her, like a stream cut off from source.

She struck a feeble hand, and tried to pray, Clamoured of treachery, and had recourse To drunken outcries in her dream that Force Needed but hear her shouting to obey.

Was she not formed to conquer? The bright plumes Of crested vanity shed graceful nods: Transcendent in her foundries, Arts and looms, Had France to fear the vengeance of the G.o.ds?

Her faith was on her battle-roll of names Sheathed in the records of old war; with dance And song she thrilled her warriors and her dames, Embracing her Dishonour: gave him France From head to foot, France present and to come, So she might hear the trumpet and the drum - Bellona and Bacchante! rus.h.i.+ng forth On yon stout marching Schoolmen of the North.

Inveterate of brain, well knows she why Strength failed her, faithful to himself the first: Her dream is done, and she can read the sky, And she can take into her heart the worst Calamity to drug the shameful thought Of days that made her as the man she served A name of terror, but a thing unnerved: Buying the trickster, by the trickster bought, She for dominion, he to patch a throne.

VIII

Henceforth of her the G.o.ds are known, Open to them her breast is laid.

Inveterate of brain, heart-valiant, Never did fairer creature pant Before the altar and the blade!

IX

Swift fall the blows, and men upbraid, And friends give echo blunt and cold, The echo of the forest to the axe.

Within her are the fires that wax For resurrection from the mould.

X

She s.n.a.t.c.hed at heaven's flame of old, And kindled nations: she was weak: Frail sister of her heroic prototype, The Man; for sacrifice unripe, She too must fill a Vulture's beak.

Deride the vanquished, and acclaim The conqueror, who stains her fame, Still the G.o.ds love her, for that of high aim Is this good France, the bleeding thing they stripe.

XI

She shall rise worthier of her prototype Thro' her abas.e.m.e.nt deep; the pain that runs From nerve to nerve some victory achieves.

They lie like circle-strewn soaked Autumn-leaves Which stain the forest scarlet, her fair sons!

And of their death her life is: of their blood From many streams now urging to a flood, No more divided, France shall rise afresh.

Of them she learns the lesson of the flesh:- The lesson writ in red since first Time ran, A hunter hunting down the beast in man: That till the chasing out of its last vice, The flesh was fas.h.i.+oned but for sacrifice.

Immortal Mother of a mortal host!

Thou suffering of the wounds that will not slay, Wounds that bring death but take not life away! - Stand fast and hearken while thy victors boast: Hearken, and loathe that music evermore.

Slip loose thy garments woven of pride and shame: The torture lurks in them, with them the blame Shall pa.s.s to leave thee purer than before.

Undo thy jewels, thinking whence they came, For what, and of the abominable name Of her who in imperial beauty wore.

O Mother of a fated fleeting host Conceived in the past days of sin, and born Heirs of disease and arrogance and scorn, Surrender, yield the weight of thy great ghost, Like wings on air, to what the heavens proclaim With trumpets from the mult.i.tudinous mounds Where peace has filled the hearing of thy sons: Albeit a pang of dissolution rounds Each new discernment of the undying ones, Do thou stoop to these graves here scattered wide Along thy fields, as sunless billows roll; These ashes have the lesson for the soul.

'Die to thy Vanity, and strain thy Pride, Strip off thy Luxury: that thou may'st live, Die to thyself,' they say, 'as we have died From dear existence and the foe forgive, Nor pray for aught save in our little s.p.a.ce To warn good seed to greet the fair earth's face.'

O Mother! take their counsel, and so shall The broader world breathe in on this thy home, Light clear for thee the counter-changing dome, Strength give thee, like an ocean's vast expanse Off mountain cliffs, the generations all, Not whirling in their narrow rings of foam, But as a river forward. Soaring France!

Now is Humanity on trial in thee: Now may'st thou gather humankind in fee: Now prove that Reason is a quenchless scroll; Make of calamity thine aureole, And bleeding head us thro' the troubles of the sea.

ALSACE-LORRAINE

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