Poems. Volume 2. George Meredith

the lark,

      Foot at peace with mouse and worm,

         Fair you fare.

      Only at a dread of dark

      Quaver, and they quit their form:

      Thousand eyeballs under hoods

         Have you by the hair.

      Enter these enchanted woods,

         You who dare.

II

      Here the snake across your path

      Stretches in his golden bath:

      Mossy-footed squirrels leap

      Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep:

      Yaffles on a chuckle skim

      Low to laugh from branches dim:

      Up the pine, where sits the star,

      Rattles deep the moth-winged jar.

      Each has business of his own;

      But should you distrust a tone,

         Then beware.

      Shudder all the haunted roods,

      All the eyeballs under hoods

         Shroud you in their glare.

      Enter these enchanted woods,

         You who dare.

III

      Open hither, open hence,

      Scarce a bramble weaves a fence,

      Where the strawberry runs red,

      With white star-flower overhead;

      Cumbered by dry twig and cone,

      Shredded husks of seedlings flown,

      Mine of mole and spotted flint:

      Of dire wizardry no hint,

      Save mayhap the print that shows

      Hasty outward-tripping toes,

      Heels to terror on the mould.

      These, the woods of Westermain,

      Are as others to behold,

      Rich of wreathing sun and rain;

      Foliage lustreful around

      Shadowed leagues of slumbering sound.

      Wavy tree-tops, yellow whins,

      Shelter eager minikins,

      Myriads, free to peck and pipe:

      Would you better? would you worse?

      You with them may gather ripe

      Pleasures flowing not from purse.

      Quick and far as Colour flies

      Taking the delighted eyes,

      You of any well that springs

      May unfold the heaven of things;

      Have it homely and within,

      And thereof its likeness win,

      Will you so in soul’s desire:

      This do sages grant t’ the lyre.

      This is being bird and more,

      More than glad musician this;

      Granaries you will have a store

      Past the world of woe and bliss;

      Sharing still its bliss and woe;

      Harnessed to its hungers, no.

      On the throne Success usurps,

      You shall seat the joy you feel

      Where a race of water chirps,

      Twisting hues of flourished steel:

      Or where light is caught in hoop

      Up a clearing’s leafy rise,

      Where the crossing deerherds troop

      Classic splendours, knightly dyes.

      Or, where old-eyed oxen chew

      Speculation with the cud,

      Read their pool of vision through,

      Back to hours when mind was mud;

      Nigh the knot, which did untwine

      Timelessly to drowsy suns;

      Seeing Earth a slimy spine,

      Heaven a space for winging tons.

      Farther, deeper, may you read,

      Have you sight for things afield,

      Where peeps she, the Nurse of seed,

      Cloaked, but in the peep revealed;

      Showing a kind face and sweet:

      Look you with the soul you see’t.

      Glory narrowing to grace,

      Grace to glory magnified,

      Following that will you embrace

      Close in arms or aëry wide.

      Banished is the white Foam-born

      Not from here, nor under ban

      Phoebus lyrist, Phoebe’s horn,

      Pipings of the reedy Pan.

      Loved of Earth of old they were,

      Loving did interpret her;

      And the sterner worship bars

      None whom Song has made her stars.

      You have seen the huntress moon

      Radiantly facing dawn,

      Dusky meads between them strewn

      Glimmering like downy awn:

      Argent Westward glows the hunt,

      East the blush about to climb;

      One another fair they front,

      Transient, yet outshine the time;

      Even as dewlight off the rose

      In the mind a jewel sows.

      Thus opposing grandeurs live

      Here if Beauty be their dower:

      Doth she of her spirit give,

      Fleetingness will spare her flower.

      This is in the tune we play,

      Which no spring of strength would quell;

      In subduing does not slay;

      Guides the channel, guards the well:

      Tempered holds the young blood-heat,

      Yet through measured grave accord,

      Hears the heart of wildness beat

      Like a centaur’s hoof on sward.

      Drink the sense the notes infuse,

      You a larger self will find:

      Sweetest fellowship ensues

      With the creatures of your kind.

      Ay, and Love, if Love it be

      Flaming over I and ME,

      Love meet they who do not shove

      Cravings in the van of Love.

      Courtly dames are here to woo,

      Knowing love if it be true.

      Reverence the blossom-shoot

      Fervently, they are the fruit.

      Mark them stepping, hear them talk,

      Goddess, is no myth inane,

      You will say of those who walk

      In the woods of Westermain.

      Waters that from throat and thigh

      Dart the sun his arrows back;

      Leaves that on a woodland sigh

      Chat of secret