Poems of George Meredith, vol 3 | Page 7

deeming it present, fell.?Her frenzy of abasement hugged the word?They stone with, and so pile their citadel?To launch at outcasts the foul levin bolt.?As had he flung it, in her breast it burned.?Face and reflect it did her hot revolt?From hardness, to the writhing rebel turned;?Because the golden buckler was withheld,?She to herself applies the powder-spark,?For joy of one wild demon burst ere quelled,?Perishing to astound the tyrant Dark.
She had the Scriptural word so scored on brain,?It rang through air to sky, and rocked a world?That danced down shades the scarlet dance profane;?Most women! see! by the man's view dustward hurled,?Impenitent, submissive, torn in two.?They sink upon their nature, the unnamed,?And sops of nourishment may get some few,?In place of understanding, scourged and shamed.
Barely have seasoned women understood?The great Irrational, who thunders power,?Drives Nature to her primitive wild wood,?And courts her in the covert's dewy hour;?Returning to his fortress nigh night's end,?With execration of her daughters' lures.?They help him the proud fortress to defend,?Nor see what front it wears, what life immures,?The murder it commits; nor that its base?Is shifty as a huckster's opening deal?For bargain under smoothest market face,?While Gentleness bids frigid Justice feel,?Justice protests that Reason is her seat;?Elect Convenience, as Reason masked,?Hears calmly cramped Humanity entreat;?Until a sentient world is overtasked,?And rouses Reason's fountain-self: she calls?On Nature; Nature answers: Share your guilt?In common when contention cracks the walls?Of the big house which not on me is built.
The Lady said as much as breath will bear;?To happier sisters inconceivable:?Contemptible to veterans of the fair,?Who show for a convolving pearly shell,?A treasure of the shore, their written book.?As much as woman's breath will bear and live?Shaped she to words beneath a knotted look,?That held as if for grain the summing sieve.?Her judge now brightened without pause, as wakes?Our homely daylight after dread of spells.?Lips sugared to let loose the little snakes?Of slimy lustres ringing elfin bells?About a story of the naked flesh,?Intending but to put some garment on,?Should learn, that in the subject they enmesh,?A traitor lurks and will be known anon.?Delusion heating pricks the torpid doubt,?Stationed for index down an ancient track:?And ware of it was he while she poured out?A broken moon on forest-waters black.
Though past the stage where midway men are skilled?To scan their senses wriggling under plough,?When yet to the charmed seed of speech distilled,?Their hearts are fallow, he, and witless how,?Loathing, had yielded, like bruised limb to leech,?Not handsomely; but now beholding bleed?Soul of the woman in her prostrate speech,?The valour of that rawness he could read.?Thence flashed it, as the crimson currents ran?From senses up to thoughts, how she had read?Maternally the warm remainder man?Beneath his crust, and Nature's pity shed,?In shedding dearer than heart's blood to light?His vision of the path mild Wisdom walks.?Therewith he could espy Confession's fright;?Her need of him: these flowers grow on stalks;?They suck from soil, and have their urgencies?Beside and with the lovely face mid leaves.?Veins of divergencies, convergencies,?Our botanist in womankind perceives;?And if he hugs no wound, the man can prize?That splendid consummation and sure proof?Of more than heart in her, who might despise,?Who drowns herself, for pity up aloof?To soar and be like Nature's pity: she?Instinctive of what virtue in young days?Had served him for his pilot-star on sea,?To trouble him in haven. Thus his gaze?Came out of rust, and more than the schooled tongue?Was gifted to encourage and assure.?He gave her of the deep well she had sprung;?And name it gratitude, the word is poor.?But name it gratitude, is aught as rare?From sex to sex? And let it have survived?Their conflict, comes the peace between the pair,?Unknown to thousands husbanded and wived:?Unknown to Passion, generous for prey:?Unknown to Love, too blissful in a truce.?Their tenderest of self did each one slay;?His cloak of dignity, her fleur de luce;?Her lily flower, and his abolla cloak,?Things living, slew they, and no artery bled.?A moment of some sacrificial smoke?They passed, and were the dearer for their dead.
He learnt how much we gain who make no claims.?A nightcap on his flicker of grey fire?Was thought of her sharp shudder in the flames,?Confessing; and its conjured image dire,?Of love, the torrent on the valley dashed;?The whirlwind swathing tremulous peaks; young force,?Visioned to hold corrected and abashed?Our senile emulous; which rolls its course?Proud to the shattering end; with these few last?Hot quintessential drops of bryony juice,?Squeezed out in anguish: all of that once vast!?And still, though having skin for man's abuse,?Though no more glorying in the beauteous wreath?Shot skyward from a blood at passionate jet,?Repenting but in words, that stand as teeth?Between the vivid lips; a vassal set;?And numb, of formal value. Are we true?In nature, never natural thing repents;?Albeit receiving punishment for due,?Among the group of this world's penitents;?Albeit remorsefully regretting, oft?Cravenly, while the scourge no shudder spares.
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