Poems. Volume 2. George Meredith

the pear-blossom thickens the spray

      In a night, like the snow-packed storm:

      Pear, apple, almond, plum:

      Not wintry now: pushing, warm!

      And she touched them with finger and thumb,

      As the vine-hook closes: she smiled,

      Recounting again and again,

      Corn, wine, fruit, oil! like a child,

      With the meaning known to men.

      For hours in the track of the plough

      And the pruning-knife she stepped,

      And of how the seed works, and of how

      Yields the soil, she seemed adept.

      Then she murmured that name of the dearth,

      The Beneficent, Hers, who bade

      Our husbandmen sow for the birth

      Of the grain making earth full glad.

      She murmured that Other’s: the dirge

      Of life-light: for whose dark lap

      Our locks are clipped on the verge

      Of the realm where runs no sap.

      She said: We have looked on both!

      And her eyes had a wavering beam

      Of various lights, like the froth

      Of the storm-swollen ravine stream

      In flame of the bolt.  What links

      Were these which had made him her friend?

      He eyed her, as one who drinks,

         And would drink to the end.

VII

      Now the meadows with crocus besprent,

      And the asphodel woodsides she left,

      And the lake-slopes, the ravishing scent

      Of narcissus, dark-sweet, for the cleft

      That tutors the torrent-brook,

      Delaying its forceful spleen

      With many a wind and crook

      Through rock to the broad ravine.

      By the hyacinth-bells in the brakes,

      And the shade-loved white windflower, half hid,

      And the sun-loving lizards and snakes

      On the cleft’s barren ledges, that slid

      Out of sight, smooth as waterdrops, all,

      At a snap of twig or bark

      In the track of the foreign foot-fall,

      She climbed to the pineforest dark,

      Overbrowing an emerald chine

      Of the grass-billows.  Thence, as a wreath,

      Running poplar and cypress to pine,

      The lake-banks are seen, and beneath,

      Vineyard, village, groves, rivers, towers, farms,

      The citadel watching the bay,

      The bay with the town in its arms,

      The town shining white as the spray

      Of the sapphire sea-wave on the rock,

      Where the rock stars the girdle of sea,

      White-ringed, as the midday flock,

      Clipped by heat, rings the round of the tree.

      That hour of the piercing shaft

      Transfixes bough-shadows, confused

      In veins of fire, and she laughed,

      With her quiet mouth amused

      To see the whole flock, adroop,

      Asleep, hug the tree-stem as one,

      Imperceptibly filling the loop

      Of its shade at a slant of sun.

      The pipes under pent of the crag,

      Where the goatherds in piping recline,

      Have whimsical stops, burst and flag

      Uncorrected as outstretched swine:

      For the fingers are slack and unsure,

      And the wind issues querulous:—thorns

      And snakes!—but she listened demure,

      Comparing day’s music with morn’s.

      Of the gentle spirit that slips

      From the bark of the tree she discoursed,

      And of her of the wells, whose lips

      Are coolness enchanting, rock-sourced.

      And much of the sacred loon,

      The frolic, the Goatfoot God,

      For stories of indolent noon

      In the pineforest’s odorous nod,

      She questioned, not knowing: he can

      Be waspish, irascible, rude,

      He is oftener friendly to man,

      And ever to beasts and their brood.

      For the which did she love him well,

      She said, and his pipes of the reed,

      His twitched lips puffing to tell

      In music his tears and his need,

      Against the sharp catch of his hurt.

      Not as shepherds of Pan did she speak,

      Nor spake as the schools, to divert,

      But fondly, perceiving him weak

      Before Gods, and to shepherds a fear,

      A holiness, horn and heel.

      All this she had learnt in her ear

      From Callistes, and taught him to feel.

      Yea, the solemn divinity flushed

      Through the shaggy brown skin of the beast,

      And the steeps where the cataract rushed,

      And the wilds where the forest is priest,

      Were his temple to clothe him in awe,

      While she spake: ’twas a wonder: she read

      The haunts of the beak and the claw

      As plain as the land of bread,

      But Cities and martial States,

      Whither soon the youth veered his theme,

      Were impervious barrier-gates

      To her: and that ship, a trireme,

      Nearing harbour, scarce wakened her glance,

      Though he dwelt on the message it bore

      Of sceptre and sword and lance

      To the bee-swarms black on the shore,

      Which were audible almost,

      So black they were.  It befel

      That he called up the warrior host

      Of the Song pouring hydromel

      In thunder, the wide-winged Song.

      And he named with his boyish pride

      The heroes, the noble throng

      Past Acheron now, foul tide!

      With his joy of the godlike band

      And the verse divine, he named

      The chiefs pressing hot on the strand,

      Seen of Gods, of Gods aided, and maimed.

      The fleetfoot and ireful; the King;

      Him, the prompter in stratagem,

      Many-shifted and masterful: Sing,

      O