A Reading of Life, and Other Poems

The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reading of Life, and Other Poems
by George Meredith
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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]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A READING
OF LIFE, AND OTHER POEMS ***
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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