Poems. Volume 3. George Meredith

         Then observe the antagonist, con

      His reasons for rocking the lullaby word.

      You stand on a different stage of the stairs.

      He fought certain battles, yon senile lord.

      In the strength of thee, feel his bequest to his heirs.

      We are now on his inches of ground hard won,

      For a perch to a flight o’er his resting fence.

      Does it knock too hard at thy head if I say,

         That Time is both father and son?

      Tough lesson, when senses are floods over sense!—

         Discern the paternal of Now

         As the Then of thy present tense.

         You may pull as you will either way,

         You can never be other than one.

         So, be filial.  Giants to slay

         Demand knowing eyes in their Jack.

      There are those whom we push from the path with respect.

      Bow to that elder, though seeing him bow

      To the backward as well, for a thunderous back

      Upon thee.  In his day he was not all wrong.

      Unto some foundered zenith he strove, and was wrecked.

      He scrambled to shore with a worship of shore.

      The Future he sees as the slippery murk;

      The Past as his doctrinal library lore.

      He stands now the rock to the wave’s wild wash.

      Yet thy lumpish antagonist once did work

         Heroical, one of our strong.

      His gold to retain and his dross reject,

      Engage him, but humour, not aiming to quash.

         Detest the dead squat of the Turk,

         And suffice it to move him along.

         Drink of faith in the brains a full draught

         Before the oration: beware

         Lest rhetoric moonily waft

         Whither horrid activities snare.

         Rhetoric, juice for the mob

         Despising more luminous grape,

         Oft at its fount has it laughed

         In the cataracts rolling for rape

         Of a Reason left single to sob!

      ’Tis known how the permanent never is writ

      In blood of the passions: mercurial they,

      Shifty their issue: stir not that pit

         To the game our brutes best play.

      But with rhetoric loose, can we check man’s brute?

      Assemblies of men on their legs invoke

      Excitement for wholesome diversion: there shoot

      Electrical sparks between their dry thatch

      And thy waved torch, more to kindle than light.

      ’Tis instant between you: the trick of a catch

         (To match a Batrachian croak)

      Will thump them a frenzy or fun in their veins.

      Then may it be rather the well-worn joke

      Thou repeatest, to stop conflagration, and write

      Penance for rhetoric.  Strange will it seem,

      When thou readest that form of thy homage to brains!

         For the secret why demagogues fail,

      Though they carry hot mobs to the red extreme,

         And knock out or knock in the nail

         (We will rank them as flatly sincere,

         Devoutly detesting a wrong,

      Engines o’ercharged with our human steam),

      Question thee, seething amid the throng.

      And ask, whether Wisdom is born of blood-heat;

      Or of other than Wisdom comes victory here;—

      Aught more than the banquet and roundelay,

      That is closed with a terrible terminal wail,

         A retributive black ding-dong?

      And ask of thyself: This furious Yea

         Of a speech I thump to repeat,

         In the cause I would have prevail,

         For seed of a nourishing wheat,

         Is it accepted of Song?

         Does it sound to the mind through the ear,

      Right sober, pure sane? has it disciplined feet?

         Thou wilt find it a test severe;

         Unerring whatever the theme.

      Rings it for Reason a melody clear,

         We have bidden old Chaos retreat;

         We have called on Creation to hear;

      All forces that make us are one full stream.

      Simple islander! thus may the spirit in verse,

      Showing its practical value and weight,

      Pipe to thee clear from the Empty Purse,

      Lead thee aloft to that high estate.—

         The test is conclusive, I deem:

         It embraces or mortally bites.

         We have then the key-note for debate:

         A Senate that sits on the heights

         Over discords, to shape and amend.

         And no singer is needed to serve

         The musical God, my friend.

      Needs only his law on a sensible nerve:

         A law that to Measure invites,

         Forbidding the passions contend.

         Is it accepted of Song?

         And if then the blunt answer be Nay,

      Dislink thee sharp from the ramping horde,

      Slaves of the Goddess of hoar-old sway,

         The Queen of delirious rites,

      Queen of those issueless mobs, that rend

      For frenzy the strings of a fruitful accord,

      Pursuing insensate, seething in throng,

      Their wild idea to its ashen end.

      Off to their Phrygia, shriek and gong,

      Shorn from their fellows, behold them wend!

         But thou, should the answer ring Ay,

         Hast warrant of seed for thy word:

         The musical God is nigh

      To inspirit and temper, tune it, and steer