Poems by George Meredith Volume I Part 19

IV

Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine Reeled silver-laced under my vision, And into me pa.s.sed, with the green-eyed wine Knocking hard at my head for admission.

V

I held the village lily cheap, And the dream around her idle: Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep, The bells led me off to a bridal.

VI

My bride wore the hood of a Beguine, And mine was the foot to falter; Three cowled monks, rat-eyed, were seen; The Cross was of bones o'er the altar.

VII

The Cross was of bones; the priest that read, A spectacled necromancer: But at the fourth word, the bride I led Changed to an Opera dancer.

VIII

A young ballet-beauty, who perked in her place, A darling of pink and spangles; One fair foot level with her face, And the hearts of men at her ankles.

IX

She whirled, she twirled, the mock-priest grinned, And quickly his mask unriddled; 'Twas Adrian! loud his old laughter dinned; Then he seized a fiddle, and fiddled.

X

He fiddled, he glowed with the bottomless fire, Like Sathanas in feature: All through me he fiddled a wolfish desire To dance with that bright creature.

XI

And gathering courage I said to my soul, Throttle the thing that hinders!

When the three cowled monks, from black as coal, Waxed hot as furnace-cinders.

XII

They caught her up, twirling: they leapt between-whiles: The fiddler flickered with laughter: Profanely they flew down the awful aisles, Where I went sliding after.

XIII

Down the awful aisles, by the fretted walls, Beneath the Gothic arches:- King Skull in the black confessionals Sat rub-a-dub-dubbing his marches.

XIV

Then the silent cold stone warriors frowned, The pictured saints strode forward: A whirlwind swept them from holy ground; A tempest puffed them nor'ward.

XV

They shot through the great cathedral door; Like mallards they traversed ocean: And gazing below, on its boiling floor, I marked a horrid commotion.

XVI

Down a forest's long alleys they spun like tops: It seemed that for ages and ages, Thro' the Book of Life bereft of stops, They waltzed continuous pages.

XVII

And ages after, scarce awake, And my blood with the fever fretting, I stood alone by a forest-lake, Whose shadows the moon were netting.

XVIII

Lilies, golden and white, by the curls Of their broad flat leaves hung swaying.

A wreath of languid twining girls Streamed upward, long locks disarraying.

XIX

Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon; Their eyes the fire of Sirius.

They circled, and droned a monotonous tune, Abandoned to love delirious.

XX

Like lengths of convolvulus torn from the hedge, And trailing the highway over, The dreamy-eyed mistresses circled the sedge, And called for a lover, a lover!

XXI

I sank, I rose through seas of eyes, In odorous swathes delicious: They fanned me with impetuous sighs, They hit me with kisses vicious.

XXII

My ears were spelled, my neck was coiled, And I with their fury was glowing, When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled At a watery noise of crowing.

XXIII

They dragged me low and low to the lake: Their kisses more stormily showered; On the emerald brink, in the white moon's wake, An earthly damsel cowered.

XXIV

Fresh heart-sobs shook her knitted hands Beneath a tiny suckling, As one by one of the doleful bands Dived like a fairy duckling.

XXV

And now my turn had come--O me!

What wisdom was mine that second!

I dropped on the adorer's knee; To that sweet figure I beckoned.

XXVI

Save me! save me! for now I know The powers that Nature gave me, And the value of honest love I know:- My village lily! save me!

XXVII

Come 'twixt me and the sisterhood, While the pa.s.sion-born phantoms are fleeing!