Poems by George Meredith Volume I Part 24

MODERN LOVE

I

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With m.u.f.fled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.

Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

II

It ended, and the morrow brought the task.

Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in By shutting all too zealous for their sin: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.

But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!

He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: A languid humour stole among the hours, And if their smiles encountered, he went mad, And raged deep inward, till the light was brown Before his vision, and the world, forgot, Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.

A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown The pit of infamy: and then again He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove To ape the magnanimity of love, And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.

III

This was the woman; what now of the man?

But pa.s.s him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can.

But he is nothing:- nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him!

Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leaving dark All else! Lord G.o.d, who mad'st the thing so fair, See that I am drawn to her even now!

It cannot be such harm on her cool brow To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there!

But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well I claim a star whose light is overcast: I claim a phantom-woman in the Past.

The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!

IV

All other joys of life he strove to warm, And magnify, and catch them to his lip: But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, And gazed upon him sallow from the storm.

Or if Delusion came, 'twas but to show The coming minute mock the one that went.

Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent, Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe: Whom self-caged Pa.s.sion, from its prison-bars, Is always watching with a wondering hate.

Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars.

Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth.

Little avails that coinage to the old!

V

A message from her set his brain aflame.

A world of household matters filled her mind, Wherein he saw hypocrisy designed: She treated him as something that is tame, And but at other provocation bites.

Familiar was her shoulder in the gla.s.s, Through that dark rain: yet it may come to pa.s.s That a changed eye finds such familiar sights More keenly tempting than new loveliness.

The 'What has been' a moment seemed his own: The splendours, mysteries, dearer because known, Nor less divine: Love's inmost sacredness Called to him, 'Come!'--In his restraining start, Eyes nurtured to be looked at scarce could see A wave of the great waves of Destiny Convulsed at a checked impulse of the heart.

VI

It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool.

She had no blush, but slanted down her eye.

Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: And most she punishes the tender fool Who will believe what honours her the most!

Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know, For whom the midnight sobs around Love's ghost, Since then I heard her, and so will sob on.

The love is here; it has but changed its aim.

O bitter barren woman! what's the name?

The name, the name, the new name thou hast won?

Behold me striking the world's coward stroke!

That will I not do, though the sting is dire.

- Beneath the surface this, while by the fire They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke.

VII

She issues radiant from her dressing-room, Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere: - By stirring up a lower, much I fear!

How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom!

That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls Can make known women torturingly fair; The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls.

His art can take the eyes from out my head, Until I see with eyes of other men; While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, And sends a spark up:- is it true we are wed?

Yea! filthiness of body is most vile, But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse.

The former, it were not so great a curse To read on the steel-mirror of her smile.

VIII

Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt Of righteous feeling made her pitiful.

Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!

Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?

My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped As balm for any bitter wound of mine: My breast will open for thee at a sign!

But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coa.r.s.ely stopped: The G.o.d once filled them with his mellow breath; And they were music till he flung them down, Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clown Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death!

I do not know myself without thee more: In this unholy battle I grow base: If the same soul be under the same face, Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!

IX

He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles.

Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?

But still he spared her. Once: 'Have you no fear?'

He said: 'twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near.

She laughed: 'No, surely; am I not with you?'

And uttering that soft starry 'you,' she leaned Her gentle body near him, looking up; And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup, He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.

Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam Of heaven's circle-glory! Here thy shape To squeeze like an intoxicating grape - I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.

X

But where began the change; and what's my crime?

The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time?

I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love's deep woods, I dreamt of loyal Life:- the offence is there!

Love's jealous woods about the sun are curled; At least, the sun far brighter there did beam. - My crime is, that the puppet of a dream, I plotted to be worthy of the world.

Oh, had I with my darling helped to mince The facts of life, you still had seen me go With hindward feather and with forward toe, Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince!

XI

Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we.

Or is it now? or was it then? for now, As then, the larks from running rings pour showers: The golden foot of May is on the flowers, And friendly shadows dance upon her brow.

What's this, when Nature swears there is no change To challenge eyesight? Now, as then, the grace Of heaven seems holding earth in its embrace.

Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange?

Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou see An amber cradle near the sun's decline: Within it, featured even in death divine, Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.