A Reading of Life, with Other Poems. George Meredith

      Her head the Goddess from them turns,

      As from grey mounds of ashes in bronze urns.

      She views her quivering couples unconsoled,

      And of her beauty mirror they become,

      Like orchard blossoms, apple, pear and plum,

      Free of the cloud, beneath the flood of gold.

      Crowned with wreaths that burn in dew,

      Her couples whirl, sun-satiated,

      Athirst for shade, they sigh, they wed,

      They play the music made of two:

      Oldest of earth, earth’s youngest till earth’s end:

      Cunninger than the numbered strings,

      For melodies, for harmonies,

      For mastered discords, and the things

      Not vocable, whose mysteries

      Are inmost Love’s, Life’s reach of Life extend.

      Is it an anguish overflowing shame

      And the tongue’s pudency confides to her,

      With eyes of embers, breath of incense myrrh,

      The woman’s marrow in some dear youth’s name,

      Then is the Goddess tenderness

      Maternal, and she has a sister’s tones

      Benign to soothe intemperate distress,

      Divide despair from hope, and sighs from moans.

      Her gentleness imparts exhaling ease

      To those of her milk-bearer votaries

      As warm of bosom-earth as she; of the source

      Direct; erratic but in heart’s excess;

      Being mortal and ill-matched for Love’s great force;

      Like green leaves caught with flames by his impress.

      And pray they under skies less overcast,

      That swiftly may her star of eve descend,

      Her lustrous morning star fly not too fast,

      To lengthen blissful night will she befriend.

      Unfailing her reply to woman’s voice

      In supplication instant.  Is it man’s,

      She hears, approves his words, her garden scans,

      And him: the flowers are various, he has choice.

      Perchance his wound is deep; she listens long;

      Enjoys what music fills the plaintive song;

      And marks how he, who would be hawk at poise

      Above the bird, his plaintive song enjoys.

      She reads him when his humbled manhood weeps

      To her invoked: distraction is implored.

      A smile, and he is up on godlike leaps

      Above, with his bright Goddess owned the adored.

      His tales of her declare she condescends;

      Can share his fires, not always goads and rends:

      Moreover, quits a throne, and must enclose

      A queenlier gem than woman’s wayside rose.

      She bends, he quickens; she breathes low, he springs

      Enraptured; low she laughs, his woes disperse;

      Aloud she laughs and sweeps his varied strings.

      ’Tis taught him how for touch of mournful verse

      Rarely the music made of two ascends,

      And Beauty’s Queen some other way is won.

      Or it may solve the riddle, that she lends

      Herself to all, and yields herself to none,

      Save heavenliest: though claims by men are raised

      In hot assurance under shade of doubt:

      And numerous are the images bepraised

      As Beauty’s Queen, should passion head the rout.

      Be sure the ruddy hue is Love’s: to woo

      Love’s Fountain we must mount the ruddy hue.

      That is her garden’s precept, seen where shines

      Her blood-flower, and its unsought neighbour pines.

      Daughter of light, the joyful light,

      She bids her couples face full East,

      Reflecting radiance, even when from her feast

      Their outstretched arms brown deserts disunite,

      The lion-haunted thickets hold apart.

      In love the ruddy hue declares great heart;

      High confidence in her whose aid is lent

      To lovers lifting the tuned instrument,

      Not one of rippled strings and funeral tone.

      And doth the man pursue a tightened zone,

      Then be it as the Laurel God he runs,

      Confirmed to win, with countenance the Sun’s.

      Should pity bless the tremulous voice of woe

      He lifts for pity, limp his offspring show.

      For him requiring woman’s arts to please

      Infantile tastes with babe reluctances,

      No race of giants!  In the woman’s veins

      Persuasion ripely runs, through hers the pains.

      Her choice of him, should kind occasion nod,

      Aspiring blends the Titan with the God;

      Yet unto dwarf and mortal, she, submiss

      In her high Lady’s mandate, yields the kiss;

      And is it needed that Love’s daintier brute

      Be snared as hunter, she will tempt pursuit.

      She is great Nature’s ever intimate

      In breast, and doth as ready handmaid wait,

      Until perverted by her senseless male,

      She plays the winding snake, the shrinking snail,

      The flying deer, all tricks of evil fame,

      Elusive to allure, since he grew tame.

      Hence has the Goddess, Nature’s earliest Power,

      And greatest and most present, with her dower

      Of the transcendent beauty, gained repute

      For meditated guile.  She laughs to hear

      A charge her garden’s labyrinths scarce confute,

      Her garden’s histories tell of to all near.

      Let it be said, But less upon her guile

      Doth she rely for her immortal smile.

      Still let the rumour spread, and terror screens

      To push her conquests by the simplest means.

      While man abjures not lustihead, nor swerves

      From earth’s good labours, Beauty’s Queen he serves.

      Her spacious garden and her garden’s grant

      She offers in reward for handsome cheer:

      Choice of the nymphs whose