Poems of George Meredith, vol 2 | Page 8

tug.
VIII
He pulled till his master jumped
For fury of wrath, and laid on
With

the length of a tough knotted staff,
Fit to drive the life flying like
chaff,
And leave a sheer carcase anon.
IX
That done, he sat, panted, and cursed
The vile cross of this brute:
nevermore
Would he house it to rear such a cur!
The dog dragged
his legs, pained to stir,
Eyed his master, dropped, barked at the door.
X
Then his master raised head too, and sniffed:
It struck him the dog
had a sense
That honoured both dam and sire.
You have guessed
how the tower was afire.
The Shannon retriever dates thence.
XI
I mused: saw the pup ease his heart
Of his instinct for chasing, and
sink
Overwrought by excitement so new:
A scene that for Koby to
view
Was the seizure of nerves in a link.
XII
And part sympathetic, and part
Imitatively, raged my poor brute;

And I, not thinking of ill,
Doing eviller: nerves are still
Our savage
too quick at the root.
XIII
They spring us: I proved it, albeit
I played executioner then
For
discipline, justice, the like.
Yon stick I had handy to strike
Should
have warned of the tyrant in men.
XIV
You read in your History books,
How the Prince in his youth had a

mind
For governing gently his land.
Ah, the use of that weapon at
hand,
When the temper is other than kind!
XV
At home all was well; Koby's ribs
Not so sore as my thoughts: if,
beguiled,
He forgives me, his criminal air
Throws a shade of
Llewellyn's despair
For the hound slain for saving his child.
THE WOODS OF WESTERMAIN
I
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Nothing harms
beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves.
Toss your
heart up with the lark,
Foot at peace with mouse and worm,
Fair
you fare.
Only at a dread of dark
Quaver, and they quit their form:

Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.
Enter these
enchanted woods,
You who dare.
II
Here the snake across your path
Stretches in his golden bath:

Mossy-footed squirrels leap
Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep:

Yaffles on a chuckle skim
Low to laugh from branches dim:
Up the
pine, where sits the star,
Rattles deep the moth-winged jar.
Each has
business of his own;
But should you distrust a tone,
Then beware.

Shudder all the haunted roods,
All the eyeballs under hoods

Shroud you in their glare.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who
dare.
III
Open hither, open hence,
Scarce a bramble weaves a fence,
Where
the strawberry runs red,
With white star-flower overhead;

Cumbered by dry twig and cone,
Shredded husks of seedlings flown,


Mine of mole and spotted flint:
Of dire wizardry no hint,
Save
mayhap the print that shows
Hasty outward-tripping toes,
Heels to
terror on the mould.
These, the woods of Westermain,
Are as others
to behold,
Rich of wreathing sun and rain;
Foliage lustreful around

Shadowed leagues of slumbering sound.
Wavy tree-tops, yellow
whins,
Shelter eager minikins,
Myriads, free to peck and pipe:

Would you better? would you worse?
You with them may gather ripe

Pleasures flowing not from purse.
Quick and far as Colour flies

Taking the delighted eyes,
You of any well that springs
May unfold
the heaven of things;
Have it homely and within,
And thereof its
likeness win,
Will you so in soul's desire:
This do sages grant t' the
lyre.
This is being bird and more,
More than glad musician this;

Granaries you will have a store
Past the world of woe and bliss;

Sharing still its bliss and woe;
Harnessed to its hungers, no.
On the
throne Success usurps,
You shall seat the joy you feel
Where a race
of water chirps,
Twisting hues of flourished steel:
Or where light is
caught in hoop
Up a clearing's leafy rise,
Where the crossing
deerherds troop
Classic splendours, knightly dyes.
Or, where
old-eyed oxen chew
Speculation with the cud,
Read their pool of
vision through,
Back to hours when mind was mud;
Nigh the knot,
which did untwine

Timelessly to drowsy suns;
Seeing Earth a slimy
spine,
Heaven a space for winging tons.
Farther, deeper, may you
read,
Have you sight for things afield,
Where peeps she, the Nurse
of seed,
Cloaked, but in the peep revealed;
Showing a kind face and
sweet:
Look you with the soul you see't.
Glory narrowing to grace,

Grace to glory magnified,
Following that will you embrace
Close
in arms or aery wide.
Banished is the white Foam-born
Not from
here, nor under ban
Phoebus lyrist, Phoebe's horn,
Pipings of the
reedy Pan.
Loved of Earth of old they were,
Loving did interpret
her;
And the sterner worship bars
None whom Song has made her
stars.
You have seen the huntress moon
Radiantly facing dawn,

Dusky meads between them strewn
Glimmering like downy awn:

Argent Westward glows the hunt,
East the blush about to climb;


One another fair they front,
Transient, yet outshine the time;
Even
as dewlight off the rose
In the mind a jewel sows.
Thus opposing
grandeurs live
Here if Beauty be their dower:
Doth she of her spirit
give,
Fleetingness will spare her flower.
This is in the tune we play,

Which no spring of strength would quell;
In subduing does not slay;

Guides the channel, guards the well:
Tempered holds the young
blood-heat,
Yet through measured grave accord,
Hears the heart of
wildness beat
Like a centaur's hoof on sward.
Drink the sense the
notes infuse,
You a larger self will find:
Sweetest fellowship ensues

With the creatures of your kind.
Ay, and Love, if Love it be

Flaming over I and