Poems by George Meredith Volume Ii Part 32

But still may they who sowed behind the plough True seed fix in the mind an unborn NOW To make the plagues afflicting us things past.

BELLEROPHON

I

Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nod Of palsy doing task of thanks for bread; Upon the stature of a G.o.d, He whom the G.o.ds have struck bends low his head.

II

Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongue Deformed, like his great frame: a broken arc: Once radiant as the javelin flung Right at the centre breastplate of his mark.

III

Oft pausing on his white-eyed inward look, Some undermountain narrative he tells, As gapped by Lykian heat the brook Cut from the source that in the upland swells.

IV

The cottagers who dole him fruit and crust With patient inattention hear him prate: And comes the snow, and comes the dust, Comes the old wanderer, more bent of late.

V

A crazy beggar grateful for a meal Has ever of himself a world to say.

For them he is an ancient wheel Spinning a knotted thread the livelong day.

VI

He cannot, nor do they, the tale connect; For never singer in the land had been Who him for theme did not reject: Spurned of the hoof that sprang the Hippocrene.

VII

Albeit a theme of flame to bring them straight The snorting white-winged brother of the wave, They hear him as a thing by fate Cursed in unholy babble to his grave.

VIII

As men that spied the wings, that heard the snort, Their sires have told; and of a martial prince Bestriding him; and old report Speaks of a monster slain by one long since.

IX

There is that story of the golden bit By G.o.ddess given to tame the lightning steed: A mortal who could mount, and sit Flying, and up Olympus midway speed.

X

He rose like the loosed fountain's utmost leap; He played the star at span of heaven right o'er Men's heads: they saw the snowy steep, Saw the winged shoulders: him they saw not more.

XI

He fell: and says the shattered man, I fell: And sweeps an arm the height an eagle wins; And in his breast a mouthless well Heaves the worn patches of his coat of skins.

XII

Lo, this is he in whom the surgent springs Of recollections richer than our skies To feed the flow of tuneful strings, Show but a pool of sc.u.m for shooting flies.

PHAETHON--ATTEMPTED IN THE GALLIAMBIC MEASURE

At the coming up of Phoebus the all-luminous charioteer, Double-visaged stand the mountains in imperial mult.i.tudes, And with shadows dappled men sing to him, Hail, O Beneficent!

For they shudder chill, the earth-vales, at his clouding, shudder to black; In the light of him there is music thro' the poplar and river-sedge, Renovation, chirp of brooks, hum of the forest--an ocean-song.

Never pearl from ocean-hollows by the diver exultingly, In his breathlessness, above thrust, is as earth to Helios.

Who usurps his place there, rashest? Aphrodite's loved one it is!

To his son the flaming Sun-G.o.d, to the tender youth, Phaethon, Rule of day this day surrenders as a thing hereditary, Having sworn by Styx tremendous, for the proof of his parentage, He would grant his son's pet.i.tion, whatsoever the sign thereof.

Then, rejoiced, the stripling answered: 'Rule of day give me; give it me, Give me place that men may see me how I blaze, and transcendingly I, divine, proclaim my birthright.' Darkened Helios, and his utterance Choked prophetic: 'O half mortal!' he exclaimed in an agony, 'O lost son of mine! lost son! No! put a prayer for another thing: Not for this: insane to wish it, and to crave the gift impious!

Cannot other gifts my G.o.dhead shed upon thee? miraculous Mighty gifts to prove a blessing, that to earth thou shalt be a joy?

Gifts of healing, wherewith men walk as the G.o.ds beneficently; As a G.o.d to sway to concord hearts of men, reconciling them; Gifts of verse, the lyre, the laurel, therewithal that thine origin Shall be known even as when I strike on the string'd sh.e.l.l with melody, And the golden notes, like medicine, darting straight to the cavities, Fill them up, till hearts of men bound as the billows, the ships thereon.'

Thus intently urged the Sun-G.o.d; but the force of his eloquence Was the pressing on of sea-waves scattered broad from the rocks away.

What shall move a soul from madness? Lost, lost in delirium, Rock-fast, the adolescent to his father, irreverent, 'By the oath! the oath! thine oath!' cried. The effulgent foreseer then, Quivering in his loins parental, on the boy's beaming countenance Looked and moaned, and urged him for love's sake, for sweet life's sake, to yield the claim, To abandon his mad hunger, and avert the calamity.

But he, vehement, pa.s.sionate, called out: 'Let me show I am what I say, That the taunts I hear be silenced: I am stung with their whispering.

Only, Thou, my Father, Thou tell how aloft the revolving wheels, How aloft the cleaving horse-crests I may guide peremptorily, Till I drink the shadows, fire-hot, like a flower celestial, And my fellows see me curbing the fierce steeds, the dear dew- drinkers: Yea, for this I gaze on life's light; throw for this any sacrifice.'

All the end foreseeing, Phoebus to his oath irrevocable Bowed obedient, deploring the insanity pitiless.

Then the flame-outsnorting horses were led forth: it was so decreed.

They were yoked before the glad youth by his sister-ancillaries.

Swift the ripple ripples follow'd, as of aureate Helicon, Down their flanks, while they impatient pawed desire of the distances, And the bit with fury champed. Oh! unimaginable delight!

Unimagined speed and splendour in the circle of upper air!

Glory grander than the armed host upon earth singing victory!

Chafed the youth with their spirit surcharged, as when blossom is shaken by winds, Marked that labour by his sister Phaethontiades finished, quick On the slope of the car his forefoot set a.s.sured: and the morning rose: Seeing whom, and what a day dawned, stood the G.o.d, as in harvest fields, When the reaper grasps the full sheaf and the sickle that severs it: Hugged the withered head with one hand, with the other, to indicate (If this woe might be averted, this immeasurable evil), Laid the kindling course in view, told how the reins to manipulate: Named the horses fondly, fearful, caution'd urgently betweenwhiles: Their diverging tempers dwelt on, and their wantonness, wickedness, That the voice of G.o.ds alone held in restraint; but the voice of G.o.ds; None but G.o.ds can curb. He spake: vain were the words: scarcely listening, Mounted Phaethon, swinging reins loose, and, 'Behold me, companions, It is I here, I!' he shouted, glancing down with supremacy; 'Not to any of you was this gift granted ever in annals of men; I alone what only G.o.ds can, I alone am governing day!'

Short the triumph, brief his rapture: see a hurricane suddenly Beat the lifting billow crestless, roll it broken this way and that; - At the leap on yielding ether, in despite of his reprimand, Swayed tumultuous the fire-steeds, plunging reckless. .h.i.ther and yon; Unto men a great amazement, all agaze at the Troubled East:- Pitifully for mastery striving in ascension, the charioteer, Reminiscent, drifts of counsel caught confused in his arid wits; The reins stiff ahind his shoulder madly pulled for the mastery, Till a thunder off the tense chords thro' his ears dinned horrible.

Panic seized him: fled his vision of inviolability; Fled the dream that he of mortals rode mischances predominant; And he cried, 'Had I pet.i.tioned for a cup of chill aconite, My descent to awful Hades had been soft, for now must I go With the curse by father Zeus cast on ambition immoderate.

Oh, my sisters! Thou, my G.o.ddess, in whose love I was enviable, From whose arms I rushed befrenzied, what a wreck will this body be, That admired of thee stood rose-warm in the courts where thy mysteries Celebration had from me, me the most splendidly privileged!

Never more shall I thy temple fill with incenses bewildering; Not again hear thy half-murmurs--I am lost!--never, never more.

I am wrecked on seas of air, hurled to my death in a vessel of flame!

Hither, sisters! Father, save me! Hither, succour me, Cypria!'

Now a wail of men to Zeus rang: from Olympus the Thunderer Saw the rage of the havoc wide-mouthed, the bright car superimpending Over Asia, Africa, low down; ruin flaming over the vales; Light disastrous rising savage out of smoke inveterately; Beast-black, conflagration like a menacing shadow move With voracious roaring southward, where aslant, insufferable, The bright steeds careered their parched way down an arc of the firmament.

For the day grew like to thick night, and the orb was its beacon- fire, And from hill to hill of darkness burst the day's apparition forth.

Lo, a wrestler, not a G.o.d, stood in the chariot ever lowering: Lo, the shape of one who raced there to outstrip the legitimate hours: Lo, the ravish'd beams of Phoebus dragged in shame at the chariot- wheels: Light of days of happy pipings by the mead-singing rivulets!

Lo, lo, increasing l.u.s.tre, torrid breath to the nostrils; lo, Torrid brilliancies thro' the vapours lighten swifter, penetrate them, Fasten merciless, ruminant, hueless, on earth's frame crackling busily.

He aloft, the frenzied driver, in the glow of the universe, Like the paling of the dawn-star withers visibly, he aloft: Bitter fury in his aspect, bitter death in the heart of him.

Crouch the herds, contract the reptiles, crouch the lions under their paws.

White as metal in the furnace are the faces of human-kind: Inarticulate creatures of earth dumb all await the ultimate shock.

To the bolt he launched, 'Strike dead, thou,' uttered Zeus, very terrible; 'Perish folly, else 'tis man's fate'; and the bolt flew unerringly.

Then the kindler stooped; from the torch-car down the measureless alt.i.tudes Leaned his rayless head, relinquished rein and footing, raised not a cry.

Like the flower on the river's surface when expanding it vanishes, Gave his limbs to right and left, quenched: and so fell he precipitate, Seen of men as a glad rain-fall, sending coolness yet ere it comes: So he showered above them, shadowed o'er the blue archipelagoes, O'er the silken-shining pastures of the continents and the isles; So descending brought revival to the greenery of our earth.