Poems of George Meredith, vol 1 | Page 7

frozen face?Beheld the record of its race,?And in each chiselled feature knew?The stormy life that once blushed thro'; -
The ever-present of the past?There written; all that lightened last,?Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair,?Beauty and rage, all written there; -
Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom?Is never flushed by blight or bloom,?But sentinelled by silent orbs,?Whose light the pallid scene absorbs. -
Like such a one I pace along?This City with its sleeping throng;?Like her with dread and awe, that turns?To rapture, and sublimely yearns; -
For now the quiet stars look down?On lights as quiet as their own;?The streets that groaned with traffic show?As if with silence paved below;
The latest revellers are at peace,?The signs of in-door tumult cease,?From gay saloon and low resort,?Comes not one murmur or report:
The clattering chariot rolls not by,?The windows show no waking eye,?The houses smoke not, and the air?Is clear, and all the midnight fair.
The centre of the striving world,?Round which the human fate is curled,?To which the future crieth wild, -?Is pillowed like a cradled child.
The palace roof that guards a crown,?The mansion swathed in dreamy down,?Hovel, court, and alley-shed,?Sleep in the calmness of the dead.
Now while the many-motived heart?Lies hushed--fireside and busy mart,?And mortal pulses beat the tune?That charms the calm cold ear o' the moon
Whose yellowing crescent down the West?Leans listening, now when every breast?Its basest or its purest heaves,?The soul that joys, the soul that grieves; -
While Fame is crowning happy brows?That day will blindly scorn, while vows?Of anguished love, long hidden, speak?From faltering tongue and flushing cheek
The language only known to dreams,?Rich eloquence of rosy themes!?While on the Beauty's folded mouth?Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;
While Poverty dispenses alms?To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;?While old Mammon knows himself?The greatest beggar for his pelf;
While noble things in darkness grope,?The Statesman's aim, the Poet's hope;?The Patriot's impulse gathers fire,?And germs of future fruits aspire; -
Now while dumb nature owns its links,?And from one common fountain drinks,?Methinks in all around I see?This Picture in Eternity; -
A marbled City planted there?With all its pageants and despair;?A peopled hush, a Death not dead,?But stricken with Medusa's head; -
And in the Gorgon's glance for aye?The lifeless immortality?Reveals in sculptured calmness all?Its latest life beyond recall.
THE POETRY OF CHAUCER
Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy?As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere. Tender to tearfulness--childlike, and manly, and motherly;?Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground.
THE POETRY OF SPENSER
Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and softness; Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance:?Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright palaces; Here in our May-blood we wander, careering 'mongst ladies and knights.
THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE
Picture some Isle smiling green 'mid the white-foaming ocean; - Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays;?Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it; Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm'd by one great human heart.
THE POETRY OF MILTON
Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration,?Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm,?Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen?The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the bright spheres.
THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY
Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyrean?Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends!?Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing Orient Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth.
THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE
A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, exulting, And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed -?Renewed thro' all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sunlight, Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the holier orb.
THE POETRY OF SHELLEY
See'st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending?Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn??Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters - Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve.
THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH
A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions majestic, That look with their eye-daring summits deep into the sky.?The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty conceptions, Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly vale.
THE POETRY OF KEATS
The song of a nightingale sent thro' a slumbrous valley,?Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound, Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passion?That wins immortality even while panting delirious with death.
VIOLETS
Violets, shy violets!?How many hearts with you compare!?Who hide themselves in thickest green,?And thence, unseen,?Ravish the enraptured air?With sweetness, dewy fresh and rare!
Violets, shy violets!?Human hearts to me shall be?Viewless violets in the grass,?And as I pass,?Odours and sweet imagery?Will wait on mine and gladden me!
ANGELIC LOVE
Angelic love that stoops with heavenly lips?To meet its earthly mate;?Heroic love that to its sphere's eclipse?Can dare to join its fate?With one beloved devoted human heart,?And share with it the passion and the smart,?The undying bliss?Of its most fleeting kiss;?The