Poems of George Meredith, vol 1 | Page 7

tame,
And hunters in the jungle reed,
Thrown out by sombre
glowing brede;
Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold,
And cumbrous
gorgeousness of gold;
White casements o'er embroidered seats,

Looking on solitudes of streets, -
On palaces and column'd towers,
Unconscious of the stony hours;

Harsh gateways startled at a sound,
With burning lamps all burnish'd
round; -
Surveyed in awe this wealth and state,
Touched by the finger of a
Fate,
And drew with slow-awakening fear
The sternness of the
atmosphere; -
And gradually, with stealthier foot,
Became herself a thing as mute,

And listened,--while with swift alarm
Her alien heart shrank from
the charm;
Yet as her thoughts dilating rose,
Took glory in the great repose,

And over every postured form
Spread lava-like and brooded warm, -
And fixed on every 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