Poems by George Meredith Volume I Part 18

IV

You nice little madam! you know you're nice.

I remember hearing a parson say You're a plateful of vanity pepper'd with vice; You chap at the gate thinks t' other way.

On his waistcoat you read both his head and his heart: There's a whole week's wages there figured in gold!

Yes! when you turn round you may well give a start: It's fun to a fellow who's getting old.

V

Now, that's a good craft, weaving waistcoats and flowers, And selling of ribbons, and scenting of lard: It gives you a house to get in from the showers, And food when your appet.i.te jockeys you hard.

You live a respectable man; but I ask If it's worth the trouble? You use your tools, And spend your time, and what's your task?

Why, to make a slide for a couple of fools.

VI

You can't match the colour o' these heath mounds, Nor better that peat-fire's agreeable smell.

I'm clothed-like with natural sights and sounds; To myself I'm in tune: I hope you're as well.

You jolly old cot! though you don't own coal: It's a generous pot that's boiled with peat.

Let the Lord Mayor o' London roast oxen whole: His smoke, at least, don't smell so sweet.

VII

I'm not a low Radical, hating the laws, Who'd the aristocracy rebuke.

I talk o' the Lord Mayor o' London because I once was on intimate terms with his cook.

I served him a turn, and got pensioned on sc.r.a.ps, And, Lord, Sir! didn't I envy his place, Till Death knock'd him down with the softest of taps, And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face!

VIII

On the contrary, I'm Conservative quite; There's beggars in Scripture 'mongst Gentiles and Jews: It's nonsense, trying to set things right, For if people will give, why, who'll refuse?

That stopping old custom wakes my spleen: The poor and the rich both in giving agree: Your tight-fisted shopman's the Radical mean: There's nothing in common 'twixt him and me.

IX

He says I'm no use! but I won't reply.

You're lucky not being of use to him!

On week-days he's playing at Spider and Fly, And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim!

Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: He nods now and then at the name on his door: But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk, I think I'm his match: and I'm honest--that's more.

X

No use! well, I mayn't be. You ring a pig's snout, And then call the animal glutton! Now, he, Mr. Shopman, he's nought but a pipe and a spout Who won't let the goods o' this world pa.s.s free.

This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop, He can't enjoy! all but cash he hates.

He's only a snail that crawls under his shop; Though he has got the ear o' the magistrates.

XI

Now, giving and taking's a proper exchange, Like question and answer: you're both content.

But buying and selling seems always strange; You're hostile, and that's the thing that's meant.

It's man against man--you're almost brutes; There's here no thanks, and there's there no pride.

If Charity's Christian, don't blame my pursuits, I carry a touchstone by which you're tried.

XII

- 'Take it,' says she, 'it's all I've got': I remember a girl in London streets: She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot, My belly was like a lamb that bleats.

Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized, You haven't a character here, my dear!

But for making a rascal like me so pleased, I'll give you one, in a better sphere!

XIII

And that's where it is--she made me feel I was a rascal: but people who scorn, And tell a poor patch-breech he isn't genteel, Why, they make him kick up--and he treads on a corn.

It isn't liking, it's curst ill-luck, Drives half of us into the begging-trade: If for taking to water you praise a duck, For taking to beer why a man upbraid?

XIV

The sermon's over: they're out of the porch, And it's time for me to move a leg; But in general people who come from church, And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg.

I'll wager they'll all of 'em dine to-day!

I was easy half a minute ago.

If that isn't pig that's baking away, May I perish!--we're never contented--heigho!

BY THE ROSANNA--TO F. M. STANZER THAL, TYROL

The old grey Alp has caught the cloud, And the torrent river sings aloud; The glacier-green Rosanna sings An organ song of its upper springs.

Foaming under the tiers of pine, I see it dash down the dark ravine, And it tumbles the rocks in boisterous play, With an earnest will to find its way.

Sharp it throws out an emerald shoulder, And, thundering ever of the mountain, Slaps in sport some giant boulder, And tops it in a silver fountain.

A chain of foam from end to end, And a solitude so deep, my friend, You may forget that man abides Beyond the great mute mountain-sides.

Yet to me, in this high-walled solitude Of river and rock and forest rude, The roaring voice through the long white chain Is the voice of the world of bubble and brain.

PHANTASY

I

Within a Temple of the Toes, Where twirled the pa.s.sionate Wili, I saw full many a market rose, And sighed for my village lily.

II

With cynical Adrian then I took flight To that old dead city whose carol Bursts out like a reveller's loud in the night, As he sits astride his barrel.

III

We two were bound the Alps to scale, Up the rock-reflecting river; Old times blew thro' me like a gale, And kept my thoughts in a quiver.