Poems by George Meredith Volume Ii Part 8

Now the meadows with crocus besprent, And the asphodel woodsides she left, And the lake-slopes, the ravishing scent Of narcissus, dark-sweet, for the cleft That tutors the torrent-brook, Delaying its forceful spleen With many a wind and crook Through rock to the broad ravine.

By the hyacinth-bells in the brakes, And the shade-loved white windflower, half hid, And the sun-loving lizards and snakes On the cleft's barren ledges, that slid Out of sight, smooth as waterdrops, all, At a snap of twig or bark In the track of the foreign foot-fall, She climbed to the pineforest dark, Overbrowing an emerald chine Of the gra.s.s-billows. Thence, as a wreath, Running poplar and cypress to pine, The lake-banks are seen, and beneath, Vineyard, village, groves, rivers, towers, farms, The citadel watching the bay, The bay with the town in its arms, The town shining white as the spray Of the sapphire sea-wave on the rock, Where the rock stars the girdle of sea, White-ringed, as the midday flock, Clipped by heat, rings the round of the tree.

That hour of the piercing shaft Transfixes bough-shadows, confused In veins of fire, and she laughed, With her quiet mouth amused To see the whole flock, adroop, Asleep, hug the tree-stem as one, Imperceptibly filling the loop Of its shade at a slant of sun.

The pipes under pent of the crag, Where the goatherds in piping recline, Have whimsical stops, burst and flag Uncorrected as outstretched swine: For the fingers are slack and unsure, And the wind issues querulous:- thorns And snakes!--but she listened demure, Comparing day's music with morn's.

Of the gentle spirit that slips From the bark of the tree she discoursed, And of her of the wells, whose lips Are coolness enchanting, rock-sourced.

And much of the sacred loon, The frolic, the Goatfoot G.o.d, For stories of indolent noon In the pineforest's odorous nod, She questioned, not knowing: he can Be waspish, irascible, rude, He is oftener friendly to man, And ever to beasts and their brood.

For the which did she love him well, She said, and his pipes of the reed, His twitched lips puffing to tell In music his tears and his need, Against the sharp catch of his hurt.

Not as shepherds of Pan did she speak, Nor spake as the schools, to divert, But fondly, perceiving him weak Before G.o.ds, and to shepherds a fear, A holiness, horn and heel.

All this she had learnt in her ear From Callistes, and taught him to feel.

Yea, the solemn divinity flushed Through the s.h.a.ggy brown skin of the beast, And the steeps where the cataract rushed, And the wilds where the forest is priest, Were his temple to clothe him in awe, While she spake: 'twas a wonder: she read The haunts of the beak and the claw As plain as the land of bread, But Cities and martial States, Whither soon the youth veered his theme, Were impervious barrier-gates To her: and that ship, a trireme, Nearing harbour, scarce wakened her glance, Though he dwelt on the message it bore Of sceptre and sword and lance To the bee-swarms black on the sh.o.r.e, Which were audible almost, So black they were. It befel That he called up the warrior host Of the Song pouring hydromel In thunder, the wide-winged Song.

And he named with his boyish pride The heroes, the n.o.ble throng Past Acheron now, foul tide!

With his joy of the G.o.dlike band And the verse divine, he named The chiefs pressing hot on the strand, Seen of G.o.ds, of G.o.ds aided, and maimed.

The fleetfoot and ireful; the King; Him, the prompter in stratagem, Many-shifted and masterful: Sing, O Muse! But she cried: Not of them She breathed as if breath had failed, And her eyes, while she bade him desist, Held the lost-to-light ghosts grey-mailed, As you see the grey river-mist Hold shapes on the yonder bank.

A moment her body waned, The light of her sprang and sank: Then she looked at the sun, she regained Clear feature, and she breathed deep.

She wore the wan smile he had seen, As the flow of the river of Sleep, On the mouth of the Shadow-Queen.

In sunlight she craved to bask, Saying: Life! And who was she? who?

Of what issue? He dared not ask, For that partly he knew.

VIII

A noise of the hollow ground Turned the eye to the ear in debate: Not the soft overflowing of sound Of the pines, ranked, lofty, straight, Barely swayed to some whispers remote, Some swarming whispers above: Not the pines with the faint airs afloat, Hush-hushing the nested dove: It was not the pines, or the rout Oft heard from mid-forest in chase, But the long m.u.f.fled roar of a shout Subterranean. Sharp grew her face.

She rose, yet not moved by affright; 'Twas rather good haste to use Her holiday of delight In the beams of the G.o.d of the Muse.

And the steeps of the forest she crossed, On its dry red sheddings and cones Up the paths by roots green-mossed, Spotted amber, and old mossed stones.

Then out where the brook-torrent starts To her leap, and from bend to curve A hurrying elbow darts For the instant-glancing swerve, Decisive, with violent will In the action formed, like hers, The maiden's, ascending; and still Ascending, the bud of the furze, The broom, and all blue-berried shoots Of stubborn and p.r.i.c.kly kind, The juniper flat on its roots, The dwarf rhododaphne, behind She left, and the mountain sheep Far behind, goat, herbage and flower.

The island was hers, and the deep, All heaven, a golden hour.

Then with wonderful voice, that rang Through air as the swan's nigh death, Of the glory of Light she sang, She sang of the rapture of Breath.

Nor ever, says he who heard, Heard Earth in her boundaries broad, From bosom of singer or bird A sweetness thus rich of the G.o.d Whose harmonies always are sane.

She sang of furrow and seed, The burial, birth of the grain, The growth, and the showers that feed, And the green blades waxing mature For the husbandman's armful brown.

O, the song in its burden ran pure, And burden to song was a crown.

Callistes, a singer, skilled In the gift he could measure and praise, By a rival's art was thrilled, Though she sang but a Song of Days, Where the husbandman's toil and strife Little varies to strife and toil: But the milky kernel of life, With her numbered: corn, wine, fruit, oil The song did give him to eat: Gave the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet The grace of the battle for food, With the issue Earth cannot refuse When men to their labour are sworn.

'Twas a song of the G.o.d of the Muse To the forehead of Morn.

IX

Him loved she. Lo, now was he veiled: Over sea stood a swelled cloud-rack: The fishing-boat heavenward sailed, Bent abeam, with a whitened track, Surprised, fast hauling the net, As it flew: sea dashed, earth shook.

She said: Is it night? O not yet!

With a travail of thoughts in her look.

The mountain heaved up to its peak: Sea darkened: earth gathered her fowl; Of bird or of branch rose the shriek.

Night? but never so fell a scowl Wore night, nor the sky since then When ocean ran swallowing sh.o.r.e, And the G.o.ds looked down for men.

Broke tempest with that stern roar Never yet, save when black on the whirl Rode wrath of a sovereign Power.

Then the youth and the shuddering girl, Dim as shades in the angry shower, Joined hands and descended a maze Of the paths that were racing alive Round boulder and bush, cleaving ways, Incessant, with sound of a hive.

The height was a fountain-urn Pouring streams, and the whole solid height Leaped, chasing at every turn The pair in one spirit of flight To the folding pineforest. Yet here, Like the pause to things hunted, in doubt, The stillness bred spectral fear Of the awfulness ranging without, And imminent. Downward they fled, From under the haunted roof, To the valley aquake with the tread Of an iron-resounding hoof, As of legions of thunderful horse Broken loose and in line tramping hard.

For the rage of a hungry force Roamed blind of its mark over sward: They saw it rush dense in the cloak Of its travelling swathe of steam; All the vale through a thin thread-smoke Was thrown back to distance extreme: And dull the full breast of it blinked, Like a buckler of steel breathed o'er, Diminished, in strangeness distinct, Glowing cold, unearthly, h.o.a.r: An Enna of fields beyond sun, Out of light, in a lurid web; And the traversing fury spun Up and down with a wave's flow and ebb; As the wave breaks to grasp and to spurn, Retire, and in ravenous greed, Inveterate, swell its return.

Up and down, as if wringing from speed Sights that made the unsighted appear, Delude and dissolve, on it scoured.

Lo, a sea upon land held career Through the plain of the vale half-devoured.

Callistes of home and escape Muttered swiftly, unwitting of speech.

She gazed at the Void of shape, She put her white hand to his reach, Saying: Now have we looked on the Three.

And divided from day, from night, From air that is breath, stood she, Like the vale, out of light.

X

Then again in disorderly words He muttered of home, and was mute, With the heart of the cowering birds Ere they burst off the fowler's foot.

He gave her some redness that streamed Through her limbs in a flitting glow.

The sigh of our life she seemed, The bliss of it clothing in woe.

Frailer than flower when the round Of the sickle encircles it: strong To tell of the things profound, Our inmost uttering song, Unspoken. So stood she awhile In the gloom of the terror afield, And the silence about her smile Said more than of tongue is revealed.

I have breathed: I have gazed: I have been: It said: and not joylessly shone The remembrance of light through the screen Of a face that seemed shadow and stone.

She led the youth trembling, appalled, To the lake-banks he saw sink and rise Like a panic-struck breast. Then she called, And the hurricane blackness had eyes.

It launched like the Thunderer's bolt.

Pale she drooped, and the youth by her side Would have clasped her and dared a revolt Sacrilegious as ever defied High Olympus, but vainly for strength His compa.s.sionate heart shook a frame Stricken rigid to ice all its length.

On amain the black traveller came.

Lo, a chariot, cleaving the storm, Clove the fountaining lake with a plough, And the lord of the steeds was in form He, the G.o.d of implacable brow, Darkness: he: he in person: he raged Through the wave like a boar of the wilds From the hunters and hounds disengaged, And a name shouted hoa.r.s.ely: his child's.

Horror melted in anguish to hear.

Lo, the wave hissed apart for the path Of the terrible Charioteer, With the foam and torn features of wrath, Hurled aloft on each arm in a sheet; And the steeds clove it, rushing at land Like the teeth of the famished at meat.

Then he swept out his hand.

XI

This, no more, doth Callistes recall: He saw, ere he dropped in swoon, On the maiden the chariot fall, As a thundercloud swings on the moon.

Forth, free of the deluge, one cry From the vanishing gallop rose clear: And: Skiegeneia! the sky Rang; Skiegeneia! the sphere.

And she left him therewith, to rejoice, Repine, yearn, and know not his aim, The life of their day in her voice, Left her life in her name.

XII

Now the valley in ruin of fields And fair meadowland, showing at eve Like the spear-pitted warrior's shields After battle, bade men believe That no other than wrathfullest G.o.d Had been loose on her beautiful breast, Where the flowery gra.s.s was clod, Wheat and vine as a trailing nest.

The valley, discreet in grief, Disclosed but the open truth, And Enna had hope of the sheaf: There was none for the desolate youth Devoted to mourn and to crave.

Of the secret he had divined Of his friend of a day would he rave: How for light of our earth she pined: For the olive, the vine and the wheat, Burning through with inherited fire: And when Mother went Mother to meet, She was prompted by simple desire In the day-destined car to have place At the skirts of the G.o.ddess, unseen, And be drawn to the dear earth's face.

She was fire for the blue and the green Of our earth, dark fire; athirst As a seed of her bosom for dawn, White air that had robed and nursed Her mother. Now was she gone With the Silent, the G.o.d without tear, Like a bud peeping out of its sheath To be sundered and stamped with the sere.

And Callistes to her beneath, As she to our beams, extinct, Strained arms: he was shade of her shade.

In division so were they linked.

But the song which had betrayed Her flight to the cavernous ear For its own keenly wakeful: that song Of the sowing and reaping, and cheer Of the husbandman's heart made strong Through droughts and deluging rains With his faith in the Great Mother's love: O the joy of the breath she sustains, And the lyre of the light above, And the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet: That song the youth ever pursued In the track of her footing fleet.

For men to be profited much By her day upon earth did he sing: Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch On the blossoms of tender Spring, Immortal: and how in her soul She is with them, and tearless abides, Folding grain of a love for one goal In patience, past flowing of tides.

And if unto him she was tears, He wept not: he wasted within: Seeming sane in the song, to his peers, Only crazed where the cravings begin.

Our Lady of Gifts prized he less Than her issue in darkness: the dim Lost Skiegencia's caress Of our earth made it richest for him.

And for that was a curse on him raised, And he withered rathe, dry to his prime, Though the bounteous Giver be praised Through the island with rites of old time Exceedingly fervent, and reaped Veneration for teachings devout, Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped And the wine-presses ruddily spout, And the olive and apple are juice At a touch light as hers lost below.

Whatsoever to men is of use Sprang his worship of them who bestow, In a measure of songs unexcelled: But that soul loving earth and the sun From her home of the shadows he held For his beacon where beam there is none: And to join her, or have her brought back, In his frenzy the singer would call, Till he followed where never was track, On the path trod of all.

THE LARK ASCENDING

He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, All intervolved and spreading wide, Like water-dimples down a tide Where ripple ripple overcurls And eddy into eddy whirls; A press of hurried notes that run So fleet they scarce are more than one, Yet changeingly the trills repeat And linger ringing while they fleet, Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear To her beyond the handmaid ear, Who sits beside our inner springs, Too often dry for this he brings, Which seems the very jet of earth At sight of sun, her music's mirth, As up he wings the spiral stair, A song of light, and pierces air With fountain ardour, fountain play, To reach the shining tops of day, And drink in everything discerned An ecstasy to music turned, Impelled by what his happy bill Disperses; drinking, showering still, Unthinking save that he may give His voice the outlet, there to live Renewed in endless notes of glee, So thirsty of his voice is he, For all to hear and all to know That he is joy, awake, aglow; The tumult of the heart to hear Through pureness filtered crystal-clear, And know the pleasure sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight; Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness shine, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white with shivers wet; And such the water-spirit's chime On mountain heights in morning's prime, Too freshly sweet to seem excess, Too animate to need a stress; But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening, as it waxes thin, The best in us to him akin; And every face to watch him raised, Puts on the light of children praised; So rich our human pleasure ripes When sweetness on sincereness pipes, Though nought be promised from the seas, But only a soft-ruffling breeze Sweep glittering on a still content, Serenity in ravishment For singing till his heaven fills, 'Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes: The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine, He is, the hills, the human line, The meadows green, the fallows brown, The dreams of labour in the town; He sings the sap, the quickened veins; The wedding song of sun and rains He is, the dance of children, thanks Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks, And eye of violets while they breathe; All these the circling song will wreathe, And you shall hear the herb and tree, The better heart of men shall see, Shall feel celestially, as long As you crave nothing save the song.

Was never voice of ours could say Our inmost in the sweetest way, Like yonder voice aloft, and link All hearers in the song they drink.

Our wisdom speaks from failing blood, Our pa.s.sion is too full in flood, We want the key of his wild note Of truthful in a tuneful throat; The song seraphically free Of taint of personality, So pure that it salutes the suns The voice of one for millions, In whom the millions rejoice For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere, Now names, and men still housing here, Whose lives, by many a battle-dint Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint, Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet For song our highest heaven to greet: Whom heavenly singing gives us new, Enspheres them brilliant in our blue, From firmest base to farthest leap, Because their love of Earth is deep, And they are warriors in accord With life to serve, and, pa.s.s reward, So touching purest and so heard In the brain's reflex of yon bird: Wherefore their soul in me, or mine, Through self-forgetfulness divine, In them, that song aloft maintains, To fill the sky and thrill the plains With showerings drawn from human stores, As he to silence nearer soars, Extends the world at wings and dome, More s.p.a.cious making more our home, Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings.