Poems. Volume 2. George Meredith

branch-leaves, waters clear,

      Bare or veiled they move sincere;

      Not by slavish terrors tripped

      Being anew in nature dipped,

      Growths of what they step on, these;

      With the roots the grace of trees.

      Casket-breasts they give, nor hide,

      For a tyrant’s flattered pride,

      Mind, which nourished not by light,

      Lurks the shuffling trickster sprite:

      Whereof are strange tales to tell;

      Some in blood writ, tombed in bell.

      Here the ancient battle ends,

      Joining two astonished friends,

      Who the kiss can give and take

      With more warmth than in that world

      Where the tiger claws the snake,

      Snake her tiger clasps infurled,

      And the issue of their fight

      People lands in snarling plight.

      Here her splendid beast she leads

      Silken-leashed and decked with weeds

      Wild as he, but breathing faint

      Sweetness of unfelt constraint.

      Love, the great volcano, flings

      Fires of lower Earth to sky;

      Love, the sole permitted, sings

      Sovereignly of ME and I.

      Bowers he has of sacred shade,

      Spaces of superb parade,

      Voiceful . . . But bring you a note

      Wrangling, howsoe’er remote,

      Discords out of discord spin

      Round and round derisive din:

      Sudden will a pallor pant

      Chill at screeches miscreant;

      Owls or spectres, thick they flee;

      Nightmare upon horror broods;

      Hooded laughter, monkish glee,

         Gaps the vital air.

      Enter these enchanted woods

         You who dare.

IV

      You must love the light so well

      That no darkness will seem fell.

      Love it so you could accost

      Fellowly a livid ghost.

      Whish! the phantom wisps away,

      Owns him smoke to cocks of day.

      In your breast the light must burn

      Fed of you, like corn in quern

      Ever plumping while the wheel

      Speeds the mill and drains the meal.

      Light to light sees little strange,

      Only features heavenly new;

      Then you touch the nerve of Change,

      Then of Earth you have the clue;

      Then her two-sexed meanings melt

      Through you, wed the thought and felt.

      Sameness locks no scurfy pond

      Here for Custom, crazy-fond:

      Change is on the wing to bud

      Rose in brain from rose in blood.

      Wisdom throbbing shall you see

      Central in complexity;

      From her pasture ’mid the beasts

      Rise to her ethereal feasts,

      Not, though lightnings track your wit

      Starward, scorning them you quit:

      For be sure the bravest wing

      Preens it in our common spring,

      Thence along the vault to soar,

      You with others, gathering more,

      Glad of more, till you reject

      Your proud title of elect,

      Perilous even here while few

      Roam the arched greenwood with you.

         Heed that snare.

      Muffled by his cavern-cowl

      Squats the scaly Dragon-fowl,

      Who was lord ere light you drank,

      And lest blood of knightly rank

      Stream, let not your fair princess

      Stray: he holds the leagues in stress,

         Watches keenly there.

      Oft has he been riven; slain

      Is no force in Westermain.

      Wait, and we shall forge him curbs,

      Put his fangs to uses, tame,

      Teach him, quick as cunning herbs,

      How to cure him sick and lame.

      Much restricted, much enringed,

      Much he frets, the hooked and winged,

         Never known to spare.

      ’Tis enough: the name of Sage

      Hits no thing in nature, nought;

      Man the least, save when grave Age

      From yon Dragon guards his thought.

      Eye him when you hearken dumb

      To what words from Wisdom come.

      When she says how few are by

      Listening to her, eye his eye.

         Self, his name declare.

      Him shall Change, transforming late,

      Wonderously renovate.

      Hug himself the creature may:

      What he hugs is loathed decay.

      Crying, slip thy scales, and slough!

      Change will strip his armour off;

      Make of him who was all maw,

      Inly only thrilling-shrewd,

      Such a servant as none saw

      Through his days of dragonhood.

      Days when growling o’er his bone,

      Sharpened he for mine and thine;

      Sensitive within alone;

      Scaly as the bark of pine.

      Change, the strongest son of Life,

      Has the Spirit here to wife.

      Lo, their young of vivid breed,

      Bear the lights that onward speed,

      Threading thickets, mounting glades,

      Up the verdurous colonnades,

      Round the fluttered curves, and down,

      Out of sight of Earth’s blue crown,

      Whither, in her central space,

      Spouts the Fount and Lure o’ the chase.

      Fount unresting, Lure divine!

      There meet all: too late look most.

      Fire in water hued as wine,

      Springs amid a shadowy host,

      Circled: one close-headed mob,

      Breathless, scanning divers heaps,

      Where a Heart begins to throb,

      Where it ceases, slow, with leaps.

      And