Poems. Volume 1 - George Meredith 2 стр.

Love within the lovers breast
Burns like Hesper in the west,
Oer the ashes of the sun,
Till the day and night are done;
Then when dawn drives up her car
Lo! it is the morning star.

Love! thy love pours down on mine
As the sunlight on the vine,
As the snow-rill on the vale,
As the salt breeze in the sail;
As the song unto the bird,
On my lips thy name is heard.

As a dewdrop on the rose
In thy heart my passion glows,
As a skylark to the sky
Up into thy breast I fly;
As a sea-shell of the sea
Ever shall I sing of thee.

The Snowdrop is the prophet of the flowers;
It lives and dies upon its bed of snows;
And like a thought of spring it comes and goes,
Hanging its head beside our leafless bowers.
The suns betrothing kiss it never knows,
Nor all the glowing joy of golden showers;
But ever in a placid, pure repose,
More like a spirit with its look serene,
Droops its pale cheek veined thro with infant green.

Queen of her sisters is the sweet Wild Rose,
Sprung from the earnest sun and ripe young June;
The years own darling and the Summers Queen!
Lustrous as the new-throned crescent moon.
Much of that early prophet look she shows,
Mixed with her fair espoused blush which glows,
As if the ethereal fairy blood were seen;
Like a soft evening over sunset snows,
Half twilight violet shade, half crimson sheen.

Twin-born are both in beauteousness, most fair
In all that glads the eye and charms the air;
In all that wakes emotions in the mind
And sows sweet sympathies for human kind.
Twin-born, albeit their seasons are apart,
They bloom together in the thoughtful heart;
Fair symbols of the marvels of our state,
Mute speakers of the oracles of fate!

For each, fulfilling natures law, fulfils
Itself and its own aspirations pure;
Living and dying; letting faith ensure
New life when deathless Spring shall touch the hills.
Each perfect in its place; and each content
With that perfection which its being meant:
Divided not by months that intervene,
But linked by all the flowers that bud between.
Forever smiling thro its season brief,
The one in glory and the one in grief:
Forever painting to our museful sight,
How lowlihead and loveliness unite.

Born from the first blind yearning of the earth
To be a mother and give happy birth,
Ere yet the northern sun such rapture brings,
Lo, from her virgin breast the Snowdrop springs;
And ere the snows have melted from the grass,
And not a strip of greensward doth appear,
Save the faint prophecy its cheeks declare,
Alone, unkissed, unloved, behold it pass!
While in the ripe enthronement of the year,
Whispering the breeze, and wedding the rich air
With her so sweet, delicious bridal breath,
Odorous and exquisite beyond compare,
And starrd with dews upon her forehead clear,
Fresh-hearted as a Maiden Queen should be
Who takes the lands devotion as her fee,
The Wild Rose blooms, all summer for her dower,
Natures most beautiful and perfect flower.

When April with her wild blue eye
   Comes dancing over the grass,
And all the crimson buds so shy
   Peep out to see her pass;
As lightly she loosens her showery locks
   And flutters her rainy wings;
      Laughingly stoops
         To the glass of the stream,
      And loosens and loops
         Her hair by the gleam,
While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks
   Go frolicking round in rings;
Then Winter, he who tamed the fly,
Turns on his back and prepares to die,
For he cannot live longer under the sky.

Down the valleys glittering green,
Down from the hills in snowy rills,
He melts between the border sheen
   And leaps the flowery verges!
He cannot choose but brighten their hues,
And tho he would creep, he fain must leap,
   For the quick Spring spirit urges.
Down the vale and down the dale
He leaps and lights, till his moments fail,
Buried in blossoms red and pale,
   While the sweet birds sing his dirges!

O Winter!  Id live that life of thine,
With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue,
And never a song my whole life long,
Were such delicious burial mine!
To die and be buried, and so remain
A wandering brook in Aprils train,
Fixing my dying eyes for aye
On the dawning brows of maiden May.

   The moon is alone in the sky
      As thou in my soul;
   The sea takes her image to lie
      Where the white ripples roll
         All night in a dream,
         With the light of her beam,
Hushedly, mournfully, mistily up to the shore.
         The pebbles speak low
         In the ebb and the flow,
As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore:
         Nought other stirred
         Save my heart all unheard
Beating to bliss that is past evermore.

   A wicked man is bad enough on earth;
   But O the baleful lustre of a chief
   Once pledged in tyranny!  O star of dearth
   Darkly illumining a nations grief!
   How many men have worn thee on their brows!
   Alas for them and us!  Gods precious gift
   Of gracious dispensation got by theft
   The damning form of false unholy vows!
   The thief of God and man must have his fee:
   And thou, John Lackland, despicable prince
   Basest of Englands banes before or since!
   Thrice traitor, coward, thief!  O thou shalt be
   The historic warning, trampled and abhorrd
Who dared to steal and stain the symbols of the Lord!

A Princess in the eastern tale
Paced thro a marble city pale,
And saw in ghastly shapes of stone
The sculptured life she breathed alone;

Saw, whereer her eye might range,
Herself the only child of change;
And heard her echoed footfall chime
Between Oblivion and Time;

And in the squares where fountains played,
And up the spiral balustrade,
Along the drowsy corridors,
Even to the inmost sleeping floors,

Surveyed in wonder chilled with dread
The seemingness of Death, not dead;
Lifes semblance but without its storm,
And silence frosting every form;

Crowned figures, cold and grouping slaves,
Like suddenly arrested waves
About to sink, about to rise,
Strange meaning in their stricken eyes;

And cloths and couches live with flame
Of leopards fierce and lions tame,
And hunters in the jungle reed,
Thrown out by sombre glowing brede;

Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold,
And cumbrous gorgeousness of gold;
White casements oer embroidered seats,
Looking on solitudes of streets,

On palaces and columnd towers,
Unconscious of the stony hours;
Harsh gateways startled at a sound,
With burning lamps all burnishd round;

Surveyed in awe this wealth and state,
Touched by the finger of a Fate,
And drew with slow-awakening fear
The sternness of the atmosphere;

And gradually, with stealthier foot,
Became herself a thing as mute,
And listened,while with swift alarm
Her alien heart shrank from the charm;

Yet as her thoughts dilating rose,
Took glory in the great repose,
And over every postured form
Spread lava-like and brooded warm,

And fixed on every frozen face
Beheld the record of its race,
And in each chiselled feature knew
The stormy life that once blushed thro;

The ever-present of the past
There written; all that lightened last,
Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair,
Beauty and rage, all written there;

Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom
Is never flushed by blight or bloom,
But sentinelled by silent orbs,
Whose light the pallid scene absorbs.

Like such a one I pace along
This City with its sleeping throng;
Like her with dread and awe, that turns
To rapture, and sublimely yearns;

For now the quiet stars look down
On lights as quiet as their own;
The streets that groaned with traffic show
As if with silence paved below;

The latest revellers are at peace,
The signs of in-door tumult cease,
From gay saloon and low resort,
Comes not one murmur or report:

The clattering chariot rolls not by,
The windows show no waking eye,
The houses smoke not, and the air
Is clear, and all the midnight fair.

The centre of the striving world,
Round which the human fate is curled,
To which the future crieth wild,
Is pillowed like a cradled child.

The palace roof that guards a crown,
The mansion swathed in dreamy down,
Hovel, court, and alley-shed,
Sleep in the calmness of the dead.

Now while the many-motived heart
Lies hushedfireside and busy mart,
And mortal pulses beat the tune
That charms the calm cold ear o the moon

Whose yellowing crescent down the West
Leans listening, now when every breast
Its basest or its purest heaves,
The soul that joys, the soul that grieves;

While Fame is crowning happy brows
That day will blindly scorn, while vows
Of anguished love, long hidden, speak
From faltering tongue and flushing cheek

The language only known to dreams,
Rich eloquence of rosy themes!
While on the Beautys folded mouth
Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;

While Poverty dispenses alms
To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;
While old Mammon knows himself
The greatest beggar for his pelf;

While noble things in darkness grope,
The Statesmans aim, the Poets hope;
The Patriots impulse gathers fire,
And germs of future fruits aspire;

Now while dumb nature owns its links,
And from one common fountain drinks,
Methinks in all around I see
This Picture in Eternity;

A marbled City planted there
With all its pageants and despair;
A peopled hush, a Death not dead,
But stricken with Medusas head;

And in the Gorgons glance for aye
The lifeless immortality
Reveals in sculptured calmness all
Its latest life beyond recall.

A Princess in the eastern tale
Paced thro a marble city pale,
And saw in ghastly shapes of stone
The sculptured life she breathed alone;

Saw, whereer her eye might range,
Herself the only child of change;
And heard her echoed footfall chime
Between Oblivion and Time;

And in the squares where fountains played,
And up the spiral balustrade,
Along the drowsy corridors,
Even to the inmost sleeping floors,

Surveyed in wonder chilled with dread
The seemingness of Death, not dead;
Lifes semblance but without its storm,
And silence frosting every form;

Crowned figures, cold and grouping slaves,
Like suddenly arrested waves
About to sink, about to rise,
Strange meaning in their stricken eyes;

And cloths and couches live with flame
Of leopards fierce and lions tame,
And hunters in the jungle reed,
Thrown out by sombre glowing brede;

Dumb chambers hushed with fold on fold,
And cumbrous gorgeousness of gold;
White casements oer embroidered seats,
Looking on solitudes of streets,

On palaces and columnd towers,
Unconscious of the stony hours;
Harsh gateways startled at a sound,
With burning lamps all burnishd round;

Surveyed in awe this wealth and state,
Touched by the finger of a Fate,
And drew with slow-awakening fear
The sternness of the atmosphere;

And gradually, with stealthier foot,
Became herself a thing as mute,
And listened,while with swift alarm
Her alien heart shrank from the charm;

Yet as her thoughts dilating rose,
Took glory in the great repose,
And over every postured form
Spread lava-like and brooded warm,

And fixed on every frozen face
Beheld the record of its race,
And in each chiselled feature knew
The stormy life that once blushed thro;

The ever-present of the past
There written; all that lightened last,
Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair,
Beauty and rage, all written there;

Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom
Is never flushed by blight or bloom,
But sentinelled by silent orbs,
Whose light the pallid scene absorbs.

Like such a one I pace along
This City with its sleeping throng;
Like her with dread and awe, that turns
To rapture, and sublimely yearns;

For now the quiet stars look down
On lights as quiet as their own;
The streets that groaned with traffic show
As if with silence paved below;

The latest revellers are at peace,
The signs of in-door tumult cease,
From gay saloon and low resort,
Comes not one murmur or report:

The clattering chariot rolls not by,
The windows show no waking eye,
The houses smoke not, and the air
Is clear, and all the midnight fair.

The centre of the striving world,
Round which the human fate is curled,
To which the future crieth wild,
Is pillowed like a cradled child.

The palace roof that guards a crown,
The mansion swathed in dreamy down,
Hovel, court, and alley-shed,
Sleep in the calmness of the dead.

Now while the many-motived heart
Lies hushedfireside and busy mart,
And mortal pulses beat the tune
That charms the calm cold ear o the moon

Whose yellowing crescent down the West
Leans listening, now when every breast
Its basest or its purest heaves,
The soul that joys, the soul that grieves;

While Fame is crowning happy brows
That day will blindly scorn, while vows
Of anguished love, long hidden, speak
From faltering tongue and flushing cheek

The language only known to dreams,
Rich eloquence of rosy themes!
While on the Beautys folded mouth
Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;

While Poverty dispenses alms
To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;
While old Mammon knows himself
The greatest beggar for his pelf;

While noble things in darkness grope,
The Statesmans aim, the Poets hope;
The Patriots impulse gathers fire,
And germs of future fruits aspire;

Now while dumb nature owns its links,
And from one common fountain drinks,
Methinks in all around I see
This Picture in Eternity;

A marbled City planted there
With all its pageants and despair;
A peopled hush, a Death not dead,
But stricken with Medusas head;

And in the Gorgons glance for aye
The lifeless immortality
Reveals in sculptured calmness all
Its latest life beyond recall.

   Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy
   As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere.
   Tender to tearfulnesschildlike, and manly, and motherly;
Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground.

   Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and softness;
   Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance:
   Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright palaces;
Here in our May-blood we wander, careering mongst ladies and knights.

   Picture some Isle smiling green mid the white-foaming ocean;
   Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays;
   Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it;
Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warmd by one great human heart.

   Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration,
   Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm,
   Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen
The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the bright spheres.

   Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyréan
   Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends!
   Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing Orient
Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth.

   A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, exulting,
   And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed
   Renewed thro all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sunlight,
Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the holier orb.

   Seest thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending
   Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn?
   Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters
Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve.