Poems of George Meredith, vol 1 | Page 9

is for streaming tears
To read the
calmness of the spheres;
Coldly they shine;
Sing up to their light;

They have views thou may'st divine -
Gain prophetic sight
From
their light!
On the windy hills
Lo, the little harebell leans
On the spire-grass
that it queens,
With bonnet blue;
Trusting love instils
Love and
subject reverence true;
Learn what love instils
On the hills!
By the bare wayside
Placid snowdrops hang their cheeks,
Softly
touch'd with pale green streaks,
Soon, soon, to die;
On the clothed
hedgeside
Bands of rosy beauties vie,
In their prophesied
Summer
pride.
From the snowdrop learn;
Not in her pale life lives she,
But in her
blushing prophecy.
Thus be thy hopes,
Living but to yearn

Upwards to the hidden scopes; -
Even within the urn

Let them burn!
Heroes of thy race -
Warriors with golden crowns,
Ghostly shapes
with marbled frowns
Stare thee to stone;
Matrons of thy race
Pass
before thee making moan;
Full of solemn grace
Is their pace.
Piteous their despair!
Piteous their looks forlorn!
Terrible their
ghostly scorn!
Still hold thou fast; -
Heed not their despair! -

Thou art thy future, not thy past;
Let them glance and glare
Thro'
the air.

Thou the ruin's bud,
Be not 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
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