A Reading of Life, and Other Poems

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Title: A Reading of Life, and Other Poems
Author: George Meredith
Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1042]?[This file was first posted on September 25, 1997]?[Most recently updated: June 24, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A READING OF LIFE, AND OTHER POEMS ***
Scanned and proofed by David Price, email [email protected]
A Reading Of Life
Contents:
A Reading of Life--The Vital Choice?A Reading of Life--With The Huntress?A Reading of Life--With The Persuader?A Reading of Life--The Test of Manhood?The Cageing of Ares?The Night-Walk?The Hueless Love?Song In The Songless?Union In Disseverance?The Burden of Strength?The Main Regret?Alternation?Hawarden?At the Close?Forest History?A Garden Idyl?Foresight And Patience?The Invective of Achilles?The Invective of Achilles--V. 225?Marshalling of the Achaians?Agamemnon in the Fight?Paris and Diomedes?Hypnos on Ida?Clash in Arms of the Achaians And Trojans?The Horses of Achilles?The Mares of the Camargue
Poem: A Reading of Life--The Vital Choice
I.
Or shall we run with Artemis?Or yield the breast to Aphrodite??Both are mighty;?Both give bliss;?Each can torture if divided;?Each claims worship undivided,?In her wake would have us wallow.
II.
Youth must offer on bent knees?Homage unto one or other;?Earth, the mother,?This decrees;?And unto the pallid Scyther?Either points us shun we either?Shun or too devoutly follow.
Poem: A Reading of Life--With The Huntress
Through the water-eye of night,?Midway between eve and dawn,?See the chase, the rout, the flight?In deep forest; oread, faun,?Goat-foot, antlers laid on neck;?Ravenous all the line for speed.?See yon wavy sparkle beck?Sign of the Virgin Lady's lead.?Down her course a serpent star?Coils and shatters at her heels;?Peals the horn exulting, peals?Plaintive, is it near or far.?Huntress, arrowy to pursue,?In and out of woody glen,?Under cliffs that tear the blue,?Over torrent, over fen,?She and forest, where she skims?Feathery, darken and relume:?Those are her white-lightning limbs?Cleaving loads of leafy gloom.?Mountains hear her and call back,?Shrewd with night: a frosty wail?Distant: her the emerald vale?Folds, and wonders in her track.?Now her retinue is lean,?Many rearward; streams the chase?Eager forth of covert; seen?One hot tide the rapturous race.?Quiver-charged and crescent-crowned,?Up on a flash the lighted mound?Leaps she, bow to shoulder, shaft?Strung to barb with archer's craft,?Legs like plaited lyre-chords, feet?Songs to see, past pitch of sweet.?Fearful swiftness they outrun,?Shaggy wildness, grey or dun,?Challenge, charge of tusks elude:?Theirs the dance to tame the rude;?Beast, and beast in manhood tame,?Follow we their silver flame.?Pride of flesh from bondage free,?Reaping vigour of its waste,?Marks her servitors, and she?Sanctifies the unembraced.?Nought of perilous she reeks;?Valour clothes her open breast;?Sweet beyond the thrill of sex;?Hallowed by the sex confessed.?Huntress arrowy to pursue,?Colder she than sunless dew,?She, that breath of upper air;?Ay, but never lyrist sang,?Draught of Bacchus never sprang?Blood the bliss of Gods to share,?High o'er sweep of eagle wings,?Like the run with her, when rings?Clear her rally, and her dart,?In the forest's cavern heart,?Tells of her victorious aim.?Then is pause and chatter, cheer,?Laughter at some satyr lame,?Looks upon the fallen deer,?Measuring his noble crest;?Here a favourite in her train,?Foremost mid her nymphs, caressed;?All applauded. Shall she reign?Worshipped? O to be with her there!?She, that breath of nimble air,?Lifts the breast to giant power.?Maid and man, and man and maid,?Who each other would devour?Elsewhere, by the chase betrayed,?There are comrades, led by her,?Maid-preserver, man-maker.
Poem: A Reading of Life--With The Persuader
Who murmurs, hither, hither: who?Where nought is audible so fills the ear??Where nought is visible can make appear?A veil with eyes that waver through,?Like twilight's pledge of blessed night to come,?Or day most golden? All unseen and dumb,?She breathes, she moves, inviting flees,?Is lost, and leaves the thrilled desire?To clasp and strike a slackened lyre,?Till over smiles of hyacinth seas,?Flame in a crystal vessel sails?Beneath a dome of jewelled spray,?For land that drops the rosy day?On nights of throbbing nightingales.
Landward did the wonder flit,?Or heart's desire of her, all earth in it.?We saw the heavens fling down their rose;?On rapturous waves we saw her glide;?The pearly sea-shell half enclose;?The shoal of sea-nymphs flush the tide;?And we, afire to kiss her feet, no more?Behold than