Poems by George Meredith Volume Ii Part 6

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 eyeb.a.l.l.s 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s 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; c.u.mbered 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 l.u.s.treful 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 Cla.s.sic 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ME, Love meet they who do not shove Cravings in the van of Love.

Courtly dames are here to woo, Knowing love if it be true.

Reverence the blossom-shoot Fervently, they are the fruit.

Mark them stepping, hear them talk, G.o.ddess, is no myth inane, You will say of those who walk In the woods of Westermain.

Waters that from throat and thigh Dart the sun his arrows back; Leaves that on a woodland sigh Chat of secret things no lack; Shadowy branch-leaves, waters clear, Bare or veiled they move sincere; Not by slavish terrors tripped Being anew in nature dipped, Growths of what they step on, these; With the roots the grace of trees.

Casket-b.r.e.a.s.t.s they give, nor hide, For a tyrant's flattered pride, Mind, which nourished not by light, Lurks the shuffling trickster sprite: Whereof are strange tales to tell; Some in blood writ, tombed in bell.

Here the ancient battle ends, Joining two astonished friends, Who the kiss can give and take With more warmth than in that world Where the tiger claws the snake, Snake her tiger clasps infurled, And the issue of their fight People lands in snarling plight.

Here her splendid beast she leads Silken-leashed and decked with weeds Wild as he, but breathing faint Sweetness of unfelt constraint.

Love, the great volcano, flings Fires of lower Earth to sky; Love, the sole permitted, sings Sovereignly of ME and I.

Bowers he has of sacred shade, s.p.a.ces of superb parade, Voiceful . . . But bring you a note Wrangling, howsoe'er remote, Discords out of discord spin Round and round derisive din: Sudden will a pallor pant Chill at screeches miscreant; Owls or spectres, thick they flee; Nightmare upon horror broods; Hooded laughter, monkish glee, Gaps the vital air.

Enter these enchanted woods You who dare.

IV

You must love the light so well That no darkness will seem fell.

Love it so you could accost Fellowly a livid ghost.

Whish! the phantom wisps away, Owns him smoke to c.o.c.ks of day.

In your breast the light must burn Fed of you, like corn in quern Ever plumping while the wheel Speeds the mill and drains the meal.

Light to light sees little strange, Only features heavenly new; Then you touch the nerve of Change, Then of Earth you have the clue; Then her two-s.e.xed meanings melt Through you, wed the thought and felt.

Sameness locks no scurfy pond Here for Custom, crazy-fond: Change is on the wing to bud Rose in brain from rose in blood.

Wisdom throbbing shall you see Central in complexity; From her pasture 'mid the beasts Rise to her ethereal feasts, Not, though lightnings track your wit Starward, scorning them you quit: For be sure the bravest wing Preens it in our common spring, Thence along the vault to soar, You with others, gathering more, Glad of more, till you reject Your proud t.i.tle of elect, Perilous even here while few Roam the arched greenwood with you.

Heed that snare.

m.u.f.fled by his cavern-cowl Squats the scaly Dragon-fowl, Who was lord ere light you drank, And lest blood of knightly rank Stream, let not your fair princess Stray: he holds the leagues in stress, Watches keenly there.

Oft has he been riven; slain Is no force in Westermain.

Wait, and we shall forge him curbs, Put his fangs to uses, tame, Teach him, quick as cunning herbs, How to cure him sick and lame.

Much restricted, much enringed, Much he frets, the hooked and winged, Never known to spare.

'Tis enough: the name of Sage Hits no thing in nature, nought; Man the least, save when grave Age From yon Dragon guards his thought.

Eye him when you hearken dumb To what words from Wisdom come.

When she says how few are by Listening to her, eye his eye.

Self, his name declare.

Him shall Change, transforming late, Wonderously renovate.

Hug himself the creature may: What he hugs is loathed decay.

Crying, slip thy scales, and slough!

Change will strip his armour off; Make of him who was all maw, Inly only thrilling-shrewd, Such a servant as none saw Through his days of dragonhood.

Days when growling o'er his bone, Sharpened he for mine and thine; Sensitive within alone; Scaly as the bark of pine.

Change, the strongest son of Life, Has the Spirit here to wife.

Lo, their young of vivid breed, Bear the lights that onward speed, Threading thickets, mounting glades, Up the verdurous colonnades, Round the fluttered curves, and down, Out of sight of Earth's blue crown, Whither, in her central s.p.a.ce, Spouts the Fount and Lure o' the chase.

Fount unresting, Lure divine!

There meet all: too late look most.

Fire in water hued as wine, Springs amid a shadowy host, Circled: one close-headed mob, Breathless, scanning divers heaps, Where a Heart begins to throb, Where it ceases, slow, with leaps.

And 'tis very strange, 'tis said, How you spy in each of them Semblance of that Dragon red, As the oak in bracken-stem.

And, 'tis said, how each and each: Which commences, which subsides: First my Dragon! doth beseech Her who food for all provides.

And she answers with no sign; Utters neither yea nor nay; Fires the water hued as wine; Kneads another spark in clay.

Terror is about her hid; Silence of the thunders locked; Lightnings lining the shut lid; Fixity on quaking rocked.

Lo, you look at Flow and Drought Interflashed and interwrought: Ended is begun, begun Ended, quick as torrents run.

Young Impulsion spouts to sink; Luridness and l.u.s.tre link; 'Tis your come and go of breath; Mirrored pants the Life, the Death; Each of either reaped and sown: Rosiest rosy wanes to crone.

See you so? your senses drift; 'Tis a shuttle weaving swift.

Look with spirit past the sense, Spirit shines in permanence.

That is She, the view of whom Is the dust within the tomb, Is the inner blush above, Look to loathe, or look to love; Think her Lump, or know her Flame; Dread her scourge, or read her aim; Shoot your hungers from their nerve; Or, in her example, serve.

Some have found her sitting grave; Laughing, some; or, browed with sweat, Hurling dust of fool and knave In a hissing smithy's jet.

More it were not well to speak; Burn to see, you need but seek.

Once beheld she gives the key Airing every doorway, she.

Little can you stop or steer Ere of her you are the seer.

On the surface she will witch, Rendering Beauty yours, but gaze Under, and the soul is rich Past computing, past amaze.

Then is courage that endures Even her awful tremble yours.

Then, the reflex of that Fount Spied below, will Reason mount Lordly and a quenchless force, Lighting Pain to its mad source, Scaring Fear till Fear escapes, Shot through all its phantom shapes.

Then your spirit will perceive Fleshly seed of fleshly sins; Where the pa.s.sions interweave, How the serpent tangle spins Of the sense of Earth misprised, Brainlessly unrecognized; She being Spirit in her clods, Footway to the G.o.d of G.o.ds.

Then for you are pleasures pure, Sureties as the stars are sure: Not the wanton beckoning flags Which, of flattery and delight, Wax to the grim Habit-Hags Riding souls of men to night: Pleasures that through blood run sane, Quickening spirit from the brain.

Each of each in sequent birth, Blood and brain and spirit, three, (Say the deepest gnomes of Earth), Join for true felicity.