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George Meredith
Poems. Volume 1

VII

 
She issues radiant from her dressing-room,
Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere:
—By stirring up a lower, much I fear!
How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom!
That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls
Can make known women torturingly fair;
The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair
Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls.
His art can take the eyes from out my head,
Until I see with eyes of other men;
While deeper knowledge crouches in its den,
And sends a spark up:—is it true we are wed?
Yea! filthiness of body is most vile,
But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse.
The former, it were not so great a curse
To read on the steel-mirror of her smile.
 

VIII

 
Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt
Of righteous feeling made her pitiful.
Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!
Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?
My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped
As balm for any bitter wound of mine:
My breast will open for thee at a sign!
But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped:
The God once filled them with his mellow breath;
And they were music till he flung them down,
Used! used!  Hear now the discord-loving clown
Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death!
I do not know myself without thee more:
In this unholy battle I grow base:
If the same soul be under the same face,
Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!
 

IX

 
He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles
So masterfully rude, that he would grieve
To see the helpless delicate thing receive
His guardianship through certain dark defiles.
Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?
But still he spared her.  Once: ‘Have you no fear?’
He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near.
She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’
And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned
Her gentle body near him, looking up;
And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup,
He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.
Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam
Of heaven’s circle-glory!  Here thy shape
To squeeze like an intoxicating grape—
I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.
 

X

 
But where began the change; and what’s my crime?
The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned,
Chafes at his sentence.  Shall I, unsustained,
Drag on Love’s nerveless body thro’ all time?
I must have slept, since now I wake.  Prepare,
You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods:
Not, like hard life, of laws.  In Love’s deep woods,
I dreamt of loyal Life:—the offence is there!
Love’s jealous woods about the sun are curled;
At least, the sun far brighter there did beam.—
My crime is, that the puppet of a dream,
I plotted to be worthy of the world.
Oh, had I with my darling helped to mince
The facts of life, you still had seen me go
With hindward feather and with forward toe,
Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince!
 

XI

 
Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring,
And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing
Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we.
Or is it now? or was it then? for now,
As then, the larks from running rings pour showers:
The golden foot of May is on the flowers,
And friendly shadows dance upon her brow.
What’s this, when Nature swears there is no change
To challenge eyesight?  Now, as then, the grace
Of heaven seems holding earth in its embrace.
Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange?
Look, woman, in the West.  There wilt thou see
An amber cradle near the sun’s decline:
Within it, featured even in death divine,
Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.
 

XII

 
Not solely that the Future she destroys,
And the fair life which in the distance lies
For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies:
Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joys
Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat
Distinction in old times, and still should breed
Sweet Memory, and Hope,—earth’s modest seed,
And heaven’s high-prompting: not that the world is flat
Since that soft-luring creature I embraced
Among the children of Illusion went:
Methinks with all this loss I were content,
If the mad Past, on which my foot is based,
Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole
Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay:
And if I drink oblivion of a day,
So shorten I the stature of my soul.
 

XIII

 
‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’
Says Nature, laughing on her way.  ‘So must
All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’
And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies
She is full sure!  Upon her dying rose
She drops a look of fondness, and goes by,
Scarce any retrospection in her eye;
For she the laws of growth most deeply knows,
Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag—there, an urn.
Pledged she herself to aught, ’twould mark her end!
This lesson of our only visible friend
Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn?
Yes! yes!—but, oh, our human rose is fair
Surpassingly!  Lose calmly Love’s great bliss,
When the renewed for ever of a kiss
Whirls life within the shower of loosened hair!
 

XIV

 
What soul would bargain for a cure that brings
Contempt the nobler agony to kill?
Rather let me bear on the bitter ill,
And strike this rusty bosom with new stings!
It seems there is another veering fit,
Since on a gold-haired lady’s eyeballs pure
I looked with little prospect of a cure,
The while her mouth’s red bow loosed shafts of wit.
Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy
Has decked the woman thus? and does her head
Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited?
Madam, you teach me many things that be.
I open an old book, and there I find
That ‘Women still may love whom they deceive.’
Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave,
The game you play at is not to my mind.
 

XV

 
I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when low
Hangs that abandoned arm toward the floor;
The face turned with it.  Now make fast the door.
Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe.
The Poet’s black stage-lion of wronged love
Frights not our modern dames:—well if he did!
Now will I pour new light upon that lid,
Full-sloping like the breasts beneath.  ‘Sweet dove,
Your sleep is pure.  Nay, pardon: I disturb.
I do not? good!’  Her waking infant-stare
Grows woman to the burden my hands bear:
Her own handwriting to me when no curb
Was left on Passion’s tongue.  She trembles through;
A woman’s tremble—the whole instrument:—
I show another letter lately sent.
The words are very like: the name is new.
 

XVI

 
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,
When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow
Among the clicking coals.  Our library-bower
That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:
The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life’s greatest treasure lay
With us, and of it was our talk.  ‘Ah, yes!
Love dies!’ I said: I never thought it less.
She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.
Then when the fire domed blackening, I found
Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift
Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:—
Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!
 

XVII

 
At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller?  She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat.  They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game:
Hiding the Skeleton, shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we,
Enamoured of an acting nought can tire,
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemerioe,
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.
 

XVIII

 
Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg.
Curved open to the river-reach is seen
A country merry-making on the green.
Fair space for signal shakings of the leg.
That little screwy fiddler from his booth,
Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints
Of all who caper here at various points.
I have known rustic revels in my youth:
The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease.
An early goddess was a country lass:
A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass.
What life was that I lived?  The life of these?
Heaven keep them happy!  Nature they seem near.
They must, I think, be wiser than I am;
They have the secret of the bull and lamb.
’Tis true that when we trace its source, ’tis beer.
 

XIX

 
No state is enviable.  To the luck alone
Of some few favoured men I would put claim.
I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame.
Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own
Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell!
But I could hurt her cruelly!  Can I let
My Love’s old time-piece to another set,
Swear it can’t stop, and must for ever swell?
Sure, that’s one way Love drifts into the mart
Where goat-legged buyers throng.  I see not plain:—
My meaning is, it must not be again.
Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart.
If any state be enviable on earth,
’Tis yon born idiot’s, who, as days go by,
Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly,
In a queer sort of meditative mirth.
 

XX

 
I am not of those miserable males
Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap,
Do therefore hope for heaven.  I take the hap
Of all my deeds.  The wind that fills my sails
Propels; but I am helmsman.  Am I wrecked,
I know the devil has sufficient weight
To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate.
Besides, he’s damned.  That man I do suspect
A coward, who would burden the poor deuce
With what ensues from his own slipperiness.
I have just found a wanton-scented tress
In an old desk, dusty for lack of use.
Of days and nights it is demonstrative,
That, like some aged star, gleam luridly.
If for those times I must ask charity,
Have I not any charity to give?
 

XXI

 
We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third.  He who at love once laughed
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn
And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she.
Our eyes grow white, encountering: that we are three,
Forgetful; then together we look down.
But he demands our blessing; is convinced
That words of wedded lovers must bring good.
We question; if we dare! or if we should!
And pat him, with light laugh.  We have not winced.
Next, she has fallen.  Fainting points the sign
To happy things in wedlock.  When she wakes,
She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes:
Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.
 

XXII

 
What may the woman labour to confess?
There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.
’Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which?
I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.
She has desires of touch, as if to feel
That all the household things are things she knew.
She stops before the glass.  What sight in view?
A face that seems the latest to reveal!
For she turns from it hastily, and tossed
Irresolute steals shadow-like to where
I stand; and wavering pale before me there,
Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.
She will not speak.  I will not ask.  We are
League-sundered by the silent gulf between.
You burly lovers on the village green,
Yours is a lower, and a happier star!
 

XXIII

 
’Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib.  Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said.  The great carouse
Knocks hard upon the midnight’s hollow door,
But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.
Why did I come here in that dullard fit?
I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.
Passing, I caught the coverlet’s quick beat:—
Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain—
Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!
Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.
The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.
I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,
I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:
My feet were nourished on her breasts all night.
 

XXIV

 
The misery is greater, as I live!
To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense,
That she does penance now for no offence,
Save against Love.  The less can I forgive!
The less can I forgive, though I adore
That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds
Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds
That come on me, as from a magic shore.
Low are they, but most subtle to find out
The shrinking soul.  Madam, ’tis understood
When women play upon their womanhood,
It means, a Season gone.  And yet I doubt
But I am duped.  That nun-like look waylays
My fancy.  Oh!  I do but wait a sign!
Pluck out the eyes of pride! thy mouth to mine!
Never! though I die thirsting.  Go thy ways!
 

XXV

 
You like not that French novel?  Tell me why.
You think it quite unnatural.  Let us see.
The actors are, it seems, the usual three:
Husband, and wife, and lover.  She—but fie!
In England we’ll not hear of it.  Edmond,
The lover, her devout chagrin doth share;
Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare,
Till his pale aspect makes her over-fond:
So, to preclude fresh sin, he tries rosbif.
Meantime the husband is no more abused:
Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used.
Then hangeth all on one tremendous If:—
If she will choose between them.  She does choose;
And takes her husband, like a proper wife.
Unnatural?  My dear, these things are life:
And life, some think, is worthy of the Muse.
 

XXVI

 
Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,
Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve
He views the rosy dawn.  In vain they weave
The fatal web below while far he flies.
But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change.
He moves but in the track of his spent pain,
Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,
Binding him to the ground, with narrow range.
A subtle serpent then has Love become.
I had the eagle in my bosom erst:
Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed.
I can interpret where the mouth is dumb.
Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth.
Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed:
But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed,
You must bear all the venom of his tooth!
 

XXVII

 
Distraction is the panacea, Sir!
I hear my oracle of Medicine say.
Doctor! that same specific yesterday
I tried, and the result will not deter
A second trial.  Is the devil’s line
Of golden hair, or raven black, composed?
And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed,
Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine?
No matter, so I taste forgetfulness.
And if the devil snare me, body and mind,
Here gratefully I score:—he seemëd kind,
When not a soul would comfort my distress!
O sweet new world, in which I rise new made!
O Lady, once I gave love: now I take!
Lady, I must be flattered.  Shouldst thou wake
The passion of a demon, be not afraid.
 

XXVIII

 
I must be flattered.  The imperious
Desire speaks out.  Lady, I am content
To play with you the game of Sentiment,
And with you enter on paths perilous;
But if across your beauty I throw light,
To make it threefold, it must be all mine.
First secret; then avowed.  For I must shine
Envied,—I, lessened in my proper sight!
Be watchful of your beauty, Lady dear!
How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell.
Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well:
And men shall see me as a burning sphere;
And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groan
To be the God of such a grand sunflower!
I feel the promptings of Satanic power,
While you do homage unto me alone.
 

XXIX

 
Am I failing?  For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Is my soul beggared?  Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly,
And eat our pot of honey on the grave.
 

XXX

 
What are we first?  First, animals; and next
Intelligences at a leap; on whom
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,
And all that draweth on the tomb for text.
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.
We are the lords of life, and life is warm.
Intelligence and instinct now are one.
But nature says: ‘My children most they seem
When they least know me: therefore I decree
That they shall suffer.’  Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.
Then if we study Nature we are wise.
Thus do the few who live but with the day:
The scientific animals are they.—
Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes.
 

XXXI

 
This golden head has wit in it.  I live
Again, and a far higher life, near her.
Some women like a young philosopher;
Perchance because he is diminutive.
For woman’s manly god must not exceed
Proportions of the natural nursing size.
Great poets and great sages draw no prize
With women: but the little lap-dog breed,
Who can be hugged, or on a mantel-piece
Perched up for adoration, these obtain
Her homage.  And of this we men are vain?
Of this!  ’Tis ordered for the world’s increase!
Small flattery!  Yet she has that rare gift
To beauty, Common Sense.  I am approved.
It is not half so nice as being loved,
And yet I do prefer it.  What’s my drift?
 

XXXII

 
Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift
To beauty, Common Sense.  To see her lie
With her fair visage an inverted sky
Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,
Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth
(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address
The inner me that thirsts for her no less,
And has so long been languishing in drouth,
I feel that I am matched; that I am man!
One restless corner of my heart or head,
That holds a dying something never dead,
Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can.
It means, that woman is not, I opine,
Her sex’s antidote.  Who seeks the asp
For serpent’s bites?  ’Twould calm me could I clasp
Shrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine!
 

XXXIII

 
‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce
Prone Lucifer, descending.  Looked he fierce,
Showing the fight a fair one?  Too serene!
The young Pharsalians did not disarray
Less willingly their locks of floating silk:
That suckling mouth of his upon the milk
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray.
Oh, Raphael! when men the Fiend do fight,
They conquer not upon such easy terms.
Half serpent in the struggle grow these worms.
And does he grow half human, all is right.’
This to my Lady in a distant spot,
Upon the theme: While mind is mastering clay,
Gross clay invades it.  If the spy you play,
My wife, read this!  Strange love talk, is it not?
 

XXXIV

 
Madam would speak with me.  So, now it comes:
The Deluge or else Fire!  She’s well; she thanks
My husbandship.  Our chain on silence clanks.
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Am I quite well?  Most excellent in health!
The journals, too, I diligently peruse.
Vesuvius is expected to give news:
Niagara is no noisier.  By stealth
Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes.  She’s glad
I’m happy, says her quivering under-lip.
‘And are not you?’  ‘How can I be?’  ‘Take ship!
For happiness is somewhere to be had.’
‘Nowhere for me!’  Her voice is barely heard.
I am not melted, and make no pretence.
With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense.
Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred.
 

XXXV

 
It is no vulgar nature I have wived.
Secretive, sensitive, she takes a wound
Deep to her soul, as if the sense had swooned,
And not a thought of vengeance had survived.
No confidences has she: but relief
Must come to one whose suffering is acute.
O have a care of natures that are mute!
They punish you in acts: their steps are brief.
What is she doing?  What does she demand
From Providence or me?  She is not one
Long to endure this torpidly, and shun
The drugs that crowd about a woman’s hand.
At Forfeits during snow we played, and I
Must kiss her.  ‘Well performed!’ I said: then she:
‘’Tis hardly worth the money, you agree?’
Save her?  What for?  To act this wedded lie!
 

XXXVI

 
My Lady unto Madam makes her bow.
The charm of women is, that even while
You’re probed by them for tears, you yet may smile,
Nay, laugh outright, as I have done just now.
The interview was gracious: they anoint
(To me aside) each other with fine praise:
Discriminating compliments they raise,
That hit with wondrous aim on the weak point:
My Lady’s nose of Nature might complain.
It is not fashioned aptly to express
Her character of large-browed steadfastness.
But Madam says: Thereof she may be vain!
Now, Madam’s faulty feature is a glazed
And inaccessible eye, that has soft fires,
Wide gates, at love-time, only.  This admires
My Lady.  At the two I stand amazed.