Poems. Volume 2. George Meredith

the fresh young sense of Sweet:

      That song the youth ever pursued

      In the track of her footing fleet.

      For men to be profited much

      By her day upon earth did he sing:

      Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch

      On the blossoms of tender Spring,

      Immortal: and how in her soul

      She is with them, and tearless abides,

      Folding grain of a love for one goal

      In patience, past flowing of tides.

      And if unto him she was tears,

      He wept not: he wasted within:

      Seeming sane in the song, to his peers,

      Only crazed where the cravings begin.

      Our Lady of Gifts prized he less

      Than her issue in darkness: the dim

      Lost Skiágencia’s caress

      Of our earth made it richest for him.

      And for that was a curse on him raised,

      And he withered rathe, dry to his prime,

      Though the bounteous Giver be praised

      Through the island with rites of old time

      Exceedingly fervent, and reaped

      Veneration for teachings devout,

      Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped

      And the wine-presses ruddily spout,

      And the olive and apple are juice

      At a touch light as hers lost below.

      Whatsoever to men is of use

      Sprang his worship of them who bestow,

      In a measure of songs unexcelled:

      But that soul loving earth and the sun

      From her home of the shadows he held

      For his beacon where beam there is none:

      And to join her, or have her brought back,

      In his frenzy the singer would call,

      Till he followed where never was track,

      On the path trod of all.

      THE LARK ASCENDING

      He rises and begins to round,

      He drops the silver chain of sound,

      Of many links without a break,

      In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,

      All intervolved and spreading wide,

      Like water-dimples down a tide

      Where ripple ripple overcurls

      And eddy into eddy whirls;

      A press of hurried notes that run

      So fleet they scarce are more than one,

      Yet changeingly the trills repeat

      And linger ringing while they fleet,

      Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear

      To her beyond the handmaid ear,

      Who sits beside our inner springs,

      Too often dry for this he brings,

      Which seems the very jet of earth

      At sight of sun, her music’s mirth,

      As up he wings the spiral stair,

      A song of light, and pierces air

      With fountain ardour, fountain play,

      To reach the shining tops of day,

      And drink in everything discerned

      An ecstasy to music turned,

      Impelled by what his happy bill

      Disperses; drinking, showering still,

      Unthinking save that he may give

      His voice the outlet, there to live

      Renewed in endless notes of glee,

      So thirsty of his voice is he,

      For all to hear and all to know

      That he is joy, awake, aglow;

      The tumult of the heart to hear

      Through pureness filtered crystal-clear,

      And know the pleasure sprinkled bright

      By simple singing of delight;

      Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained,

      Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained

      Without a break, without a fall,

      Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,

      Perennial, quavering up the chord