Poems of George Meredith, vol 1 | Page 9

that moist rich-smelling weed?With its arras-sembled brede,?And ruin-haunting stalk;?Thou the ruin's bud,?Be still the rose that lights the walk,?Mix thy fragrant blood?With the flood!
THE RAPE OF AURORA
Never, O never,?Since dewy sweet Flora?Was ravished by Zephyr,?Was such a thing heard?In the valleys so hollow!?Till rosy Aurora,?Uprising as ever,?Bright Phosphor to follow,?Pale Phoebe to sever,?Was caught like a bird?To the breast of Apollo!
Wildly she flutters,?And flushes all over?With passionate mutters?Of shame to the hush?Of his amorous whispers:?But O such a lover?Must win when he utters,?Thro' rosy red lispers,?The pains that discover?The wishes that gush?From the torches of Hesperus.
One finger just touching?The Orient chamber,?Unflooded the gushing?Of light that illumed?All her lustrous unveiling.?On clouds of glow amber,?Her limbs richly blushing,?She lay sweetly wailing,?In odours that gloomed?On the God as he bloomed?O'er her loveliness paling.
Great Pan in his covert?Beheld the rare glistening,?The cry of the love-hurt,?The sigh and the kiss?Of the latest close mingling;?But love, thought he, listening,?Will not do a dove hurt,?I know,--and a tingling,?Latent with bliss,?Prickt thro' him, I wis,?For the Nymph he was singling.
SOUTH-WEST WIND IN THE WOODLAND
The silence of preluded song -?AEolian silence charms the woods;?Each tree a harp, whose foliaged strings?Are waiting for the master's touch?To sweep them into storms of joy,?Stands mute and whispers not; the birds?Brood dumb in their foreboding nests,?Save here and there a chirp or tweet,?That utters fear or anxious love,?Or when the ouzel sends a swift?Half warble, shrinking back again?His golden bill, or when aloud?The storm-cock warns the dusking hills?And villages and valleys round:?For lo, beneath those ragged clouds?That skirt the opening west, a stream?Of yellow light and windy flame?Spreads lengthening southward, and the sky?Begins to gloom, and o'er the ground?A moan of coming blasts creeps low?And rustles in the crisping grass;?Till suddenly with mighty arms?Outspread, that reach the horizon round,?The great South-West drives o'er the earth,?And loosens all his roaring robes?Behind him, over heath and moor.?He comes upon the neck of night,?Like one that leaps a fiery steed?Whose keen black haunches quivering shine?With eagerness and haste, that needs?No spur to make the dark leagues fly!?Whose eyes are meteors of speed;?Whose mane is as a flashing foam;?Whose hoofs are travelling thunder-shocks; -?He comes, and while his growing gusts,?Wild couriers of his reckless course,?Are whistling from the daggered gorse,?And hurrying over fern and broom,?Midway, far off, he feigns to halt?And gather in his streaming train.
Now, whirring like an eagle's wing?Preparing for a wide blue flight;?Now, flapping like a sail that tacks?And chides the wet bewildered mast;?Now, screaming like an anguish'd thing?Chased close by some down-breathing beak;?Now, wailing like a breaking heart,?That will not wholly break, but hopes?With hope that knows itself in vain;?Now, threatening like a storm-charged cloud;?Now, cooing like a woodland dove;?Now, up again in roar and wrath?High soaring and wide sweeping; now,?With sudden fury dashing down?Full-force on the awaiting woods.
Long waited there, for aspens frail?That tinkle with a silver bell,?To warn the Zephyr of their love,?When danger is at hand, and wake?The neighbouring boughs, surrendering all?Their prophet harmony of leaves,?Had caught his earliest windward thought,?And told it trembling; naked birk?Down showering her dishevelled hair,?And like a beauty yielding up?Her fate to all the elements,?Had swayed in answer; hazels close,?Thick brambles and dark brushwood tufts,?And briared brakes that line the dells?With shaggy beetling brows, had sung?Shrill music, while the tattered flaws?Tore over them, and now the whole?Tumultuous concords, seized at once?With savage inspiration,--pine,?And larch, and beech, and fir, and thorn,?And ash, and oak, and oakling, rave?And shriek, and shout, and whirl, and toss,?And stretch their arms, and split, and crack,?And bend their stems, and bow their heads,?And grind, and groan, and lion-like?Roar to the echo-peopled hills?And ravenous wilds, and crake-like cry?With harsh delight, and cave-like call?With hollow mouth, and harp-like thrill?With mighty melodies, sublime,?From clumps of column'd pines that wave?A lofty anthem to the sky,?Fit music for a prophet's soul -?And like an ocean gathering power,?And murmuring deep, while down below?Reigns calm profound;--not trembling now?The aspens, but like freshening waves?That fall upon a shingly beach; -?And round the oak a solemn roll?Of organ harmony ascends,?And in the upper foliage sounds
A symphony of distant seas.?The voice of nature is abroad?This night; she fills the air with balm;?Her mystery is o'er the land;?And who that hears her now and yields?His being to her yearning tones,?And seats his soul upon her wings,?And broadens o'er the wind-swept world?With her, will gather in the flight?More knowledge of her secret, more?Delight in her beneficence,?Than hours of musing, or the lore?That lives with men could ever give!?Nor will it pass away when morn?Shall look upon the lulling leaves,?And woodland sunshine, Eden-sweet,?Dreams o'er the paths of peaceful shade; -?For every elemental power?Is kindred to our hearts, and once?Acknowledged, wedded, once embraced,?Once taken to the unfettered sense,?Once claspt into the naked life,?The union is eternal.
WILL O' THE WISP
Follow me, follow me,?Over brake and under