Poems. Volume 1. George Meredith

hunting and fishing is ever her play!

      And, heigh! that her huntsman I might be!

      I’d hunt and fish right merrily!

               Be silent, heart!

      And it chanced that, after this some time,—

         Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut,—

      The boy in the Castle has gained access,

      And a horse he has got and a huntsman’s dress,

      To hunt and to fish with the merry Princess;

      And, O! that a king’s son I might be!

      Beauty Rohtraut I love so tenderly.

               Hush! hush! my heart.

      Under a grey old oak they sat,

         Beauty, Beauty Rohtraut!

      She laughs: ‘Why look you so slyly at me?

      If you have heart enough, come, kiss me.’

      Cried the breathless boy, ‘kiss thee?’

      But he thinks, kind fortune has favoured my youth;

      And thrice he has kissed Beauty Rohtraut’s mouth.

               Down! down! mad heart.

      Then slowly and silently they rode home,—

         Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut!

      The boy was lost in his delight:

      ‘And, wert thou Empress this very night,

      I would not heed or feel the blight;

      Ye thousand leaves of the wild wood wist

      How Beauty Rohtraut’s mouth I kiss’d.

               Hush! hush! wild heart.’

      THE OLIVE BRANCH

      A dove flew with an Olive Branch;

      It crossed the sea and reached the shore,

      And on a ship about to launch

      Dropped down the happy sign it bore.

      ‘An omen’ rang the glad acclaim!

      The Captain stooped and picked it up,

      ‘Be then the Olive Branch her name,’

      Cried she who flung the christening cup.

      The vessel took the laughing tides;

      It was a joyous revelry

      To see her dashing from her sides

      The rough, salt kisses of the sea.

      And forth into the bursting foam

      She spread her sail and sped away,

      The rolling surge her restless home,

      Her incense wreaths the showering spray.

      Far out, and where the riot waves

      Run mingling in tumultuous throngs,

      She danced above a thousand graves,

      And heard a thousand briny songs.

      Her mission with her manly crew,

      Her flag unfurl’d, her title told,

      She took the Old World to the New,

      And brought the New World to the Old.

      Secure of friendliest welcomings,

      She swam the havens sheening fair;

      Secure upon her glad white wings,

      She fluttered on the ocean air.

      To her no more the bastioned fort

      Shot out its swarthy tongue of fire;

      From bay to bay, from port to port,

      Her coming was the world’s desire.

      And tho’ the tempest lashed her oft,

      And tho’ the rocks had hungry teeth,

      And lightnings split the masts aloft,

      And thunders shook the planks beneath,

      And tho’ the storm, self-willed and blind,

      Made tatters of her dauntless sail,

      And all the wildness of the wind

      Was loosed on her, she did not fail;

      But gallantly she ploughed the main,

      And gloriously her welcome pealed,

      And grandly shone to sky and plain

      The goodly bales her decks revealed;

      Brought from the fruitful eastern glebes

      Where blow the gusts of balm and spice,

      Or where the black blockaded ribs

      Are jammed ’mongst ghostly fleets of ice,

      Or where upon the curling hills

      Glow clusters of the bright-eyed grape,

      Or where the hand of labour drills

      The stubbornness of earth to shape;

      Rich harvestings and wealthy germs,

      And handicrafts and shapely wares,

      And spinnings of the hermit worms,

      And fruits that bloom by lions’ lairs.

      Come, read the meaning of the deep!

      The use of winds and waters learn!

      ’Tis not to make the mother weep

      For sons that never will return;

      ’Tis not to make the nations show

      Contempt for all whom seas divide;

      ’Tis not to pamper war and woe,

      Nor feed traditionary pride;

      ’Tis not to make the floating bulk

      Mask death upon its slippery deck,

      Itself in turn a shattered hulk,

      A ghastly raft, a bleeding wreck.

      It is to knit with loving lip

      The interests of land to land;

      To join in far-seen fellowship

      The tropic and the polar strand.

      It is to make that foaming Strength

      Whose rebel forces wrestle still

      Thro’ all his boundaried breadth and length

      Become a vassal to our will.

      It is to make the various skies,

      And all the various fruits they vaunt,

      And all the dowers of earth we prize,

      Subservient to our household want.

      And more, for knowledge crowns the gain

      Of intercourse with other souls,

      And Wisdom travels not in vain

      The plunging spaces of the poles.

      The wild Atlantic’s weltering gloom,

      Earth-clasping seas of North and South,

      The Baltic with its amber spume,

      The Caspian with its frozen mouth;

      The broad Pacific, basking bright,

      And girdling lands of lustrous growth,

      Vast continents and isles of light,

      Dumb