Poems. Volume 1. George Meredith

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 flushing cheek

      The language only known to dreams,

      Rich eloquence of rosy themes!

      While on the Beauty’s folded mouth

      Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;

      While Poverty dispenses alms

      To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;

      While old Mammon knows himself

      The greatest beggar for his pelf;

      While noble things in darkness grope,

      The Statesman’s aim, the Poet’s hope;

      The Patriot’s impulse gathers fire,

      And germs of future fruits aspire;—

      Now while dumb nature owns its links,

      And from one common fountain drinks,

      Methinks in all around I see

      This Picture in Eternity;—

      A marbled City planted there

      With all its pageants and despair;

      A peopled hush, a Death not dead,

      But stricken with Medusa’s head;—

      And in the Gorgon’s glance for aye

      The lifeless immortality

      Reveals in sculptured calmness all

      Its latest life beyond recall.

      THE POETRY OF CHAUCER

         Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy

         As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere.

         Tender to tearfulness—childlike, and manly, and motherly;

      Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground.

      THE POETRY OF SPENSER

         Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and softness;

         Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance:

         Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright palaces;

      Here in our May-blood we wander, careering ’mongst ladies and knights.

      THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE

         Picture some Isle smiling green ’mid the white-foaming ocean;—

         Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays;

         Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it;

      Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm’d by one great human heart.

      THE POETRY OF MILTON

         Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration,

         Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm,

         Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen

      The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the bright spheres.

      THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY

         Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyréan

         Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends!

         Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing Orient

      Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth.

      THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE

         A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, exulting,

         And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed—

         Renewed thro’ all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sunlight,

      Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the holier orb.

      THE POETRY OF SHELLEY

         See’st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending

         Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn?

         Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters—

      Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve.

      THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH

         A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions majestic,

         That look with their eye-daring summits deep into the sky.

         The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty conceptions,

      Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly vale.

      THE POETRY OF KEATS

         The song of a nightingale sent thro’ a slumbrous valley,

         Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound,

         Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passion

      That wins immortality even while panting delirious with death.

      VIOLETS

      Violets, shy violets!

         How many hearts with you compare!

            Who hide themselves in thickest green,

                  And thence, unseen,

         Ravish the enraptured air

         With sweetness, dewy fresh and rare!

      Violets, shy violets!

         Human hearts to me shall be

            Viewless violets in the grass,

                  And as I pass,

         Odours and sweet imagery

         Will wait on mine and gladden me!

      ANGELIC LOVE

      Angelic love that stoops with heavenly lips

         To meet its earthly mate;

      Heroic love