Poems. Volume 3 - George Meredith

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the poor shrinking stuff wherewith we are walled;

      And, taking it for Nature, place in ban

      Our Mother, as a Power wanton-willed,

      The shame and baffler of the soul of man,

      The recreant, reptilious.  Do thou build

      Thy mind on her foundations in earth’s bed;

      Behold man’s mind the child of her keen rod,

      For teaching how the wits and passions wed

      To rear that temple of the credible God;

      Sacred the letters of her laws, and plain,

      Will shine, to guide thy feet and hold thee firm:

      Then, as a pathway through a field of grain,

      Man’s laws appear the blind progressive worm,

      That moves by touch, and thrust of linking rings

      The which to endow with vision, lift from mud

      To level of their nature’s aims and springs,

      Must those, the twain beside our vital flood,

      Now on opposing banks, the twain at strife

      (Whom the so rosy ferryman invites

      To junction, and mid-channel over Life,

      Unmasked to the ghostly, much asunder smites)

      Instruct in deeper than Convenience,

      In higher than the harvest of a year.

      Only the rooted knowledge to high sense

      Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur

      For fruitfullest advancement, eye a mark

      Beyond the path with grain on either hand,

      Help to the steering of our social Ark

      Over the barbarous waters unto land.

      For us the double conscience and its war,

      The serving of two masters, false to both,

      Until those twain, who spring the root and are

      The knowledge in division, plight a troth

      Of equal hands: nor longer circulate

      A pious token for their current coin,

      To growl at the exchange; they, mate and mate,

      Fair feminine and masculine shall join

      Upon an upper plane, still common mould,

      Where stamped religion and reflective pace

      A statelier measure, and the hoop of gold

      Rounds to horizon for their soul’s embrace.

      Then shall those noblest of the earth and sun

      Inmix unlike to waves on savage sea.

      But not till Nature’s laws and man’s are one,

      Can marriage of the man and woman be.

V

      He passed her through the sermon’s dull defile.

      Down under billowy vapour-gorges heaved

      The city and the vale and mountain-pile.

      She felt strange push of shuttle-threads that weaved.

      A new land in an old beneath her lay;

      And forth to meet it did her spirit rush,

      As bride who without shame has come to say,

      Husband, in his dear face that caused her blush.

      A natural woman’s heart, not more than clad

      By station and bright raiment, gathers heat

      From nakedness in trusted hands: she had

      The joy of those who feel the world’s heart beat,

      After long doubt of it as fire or ice;

      Because one man had helped her to breathe free;

      Surprised to faith in something of a price

      Past the old charity in chivalry:—

      Our first wild step to right the loaded scales

      Displaying women shamefully outweighed.

      The wisdom of humaneness best avails

      For serving justice till that fraud is brayed.

      Her buried body fed the life she drank.

      And not another stripping of her wound!

      The startled thought on black delirium sank,

      While with her gentle surgeon she communed,

      And woman’s prospect of the yoke repelled.

      Her buried body gave her flowers and food;

      The peace, the homely skies, the springs that welled;

      Love, the large love that folds the multitude.

      Soul’s chastity in honesty, and this

      With beauty, made the dower to men refused.

      And little do they know the prize they miss;

      Which is their happy fortune!  Thus he mused

      For him, the cynic in the Sage had play

      A hazy moment, by a breath dispersed;

      To think, of all alive most wedded they,

      Whom time disjoined!  He needed her quick thirst

      For renovated earth: on earth she gazed,

      With humble aim to foot beside the wise.

      Lo, where the eyelashes of night are raised

      Yet lowly over morning’s pure grey eyes.

      ‘LOVE IS WINGED FOR TWO’

         Love is winged for two,

         In the worst he weathers,

         When their hearts are tied;

         But if they divide,

         O too true!

      Cracks a globe, and feathers, feathers,

      Feathers all the ground bestrew.

      I was breast of morning sea,

      Rosy plume on forest dun,

      I the laugh in rainy fleeces,

         While with me

         She made one.

      Now must we pick up our pieces,

      For that then so winged were we.

      ‘ASK, IS LOVE DIVINE’

      Ask, is Love divine,

      Voices all are, ay.

      Question for the sign,

      There’s a common sigh.

      Would we, through our years,

      Love forego,

      Quit of scars and tears?

      Ah, but no, no, no!

      ‘JOY IS FLEET’

      Joy is fleet,

      Sorrow slow.

      Love, so sweet,

      Sorrow will sow.

      Love, that has flown

      Ere day’s decline,

      Love to have known,

      Sorrow, be mine!

      THE LESSON OF GRIEF

      Not ere the bitter herb we taste,

      Which ages thought

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