Poems. Volume 1. George Meredith

      But all nature is against her!

      Pan, with all his sylvan troop,

      Thro’ the vista’d woodland valleys

      Blocks her course with cry and whoop!

      In the twilights of the thickets

      Trees bend down their gnarled boughs,

      Wild green leaves and low curved branches

      Hold her hair and beat her brows.

      Many a brake of brushwood covert,

      Where cold darkness slumbers mute,

      Slips a shrub to thwart her passage,

      Slides a hand to clutch her foot.

      Glens and glades of lushest verdure

      Toil her in their tawny mesh,

      Wilder-woofed ways and alleys

      Lock her struggling limbs in leash.

      Feathery grasses, flowery mosses,

      Knot themselves to make her trip;

      Sprays and stubborn sprigs outstretching

      Put a bridle on her lip;

      Many a winding lane betrays her,

      Many a sudden bosky shoot,

      And her knee makes many a stumble

      O’er some hidden damp old root,

      Whose quaint face peers green and dusky

      ’Mongst the matted growth of plants,

      While she rises wild and weltering,

      Speeding on with many pants.

      Tangles of the wild red strawberry

      Spread their freckled trammels frail;

      In the pathway creeping brambles

      Catch her in their thorny trail.

      All the widely sweeping greensward

      Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll;

      Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood

      Push her by from bole to bole.

      Groves of lemon, groves of citron,

      Tall high-foliaged plane and palm,

      Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive,

      Wave her back with gusts of balm.

      Languid jasmine, scrambling briony,

      Walls of close-festooning braid,

      Fling themselves about her, mingling

      With her wafted looks, waylaid.

      Twisting bindweed, honey’d woodbine,

      Cling to her, while, red and blue,

      On her rounded form ripe berries

      Dash and die in gory dew.

      Running ivies dark and lingering

      Round her light limbs drag and twine;

      Round her waist with languorous tendrils

      Reels and wreathes the juicy vine;

      Reining in the flying creature

      With its arms about her mouth;

      Bursting all its mellowing bunches

      To seduce her husky drouth;

      Crowning her with amorous clusters;

      Pouring down her sloping back

      Fresh-born wines in glittering rillets,

      Following her in crimson track.

      Buried, drenched in dewy foliage,

      Thus she glimmers from the dawn,

      Watched by every forest creature,

      Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun.

      Silver-sandalled Arethusa

      Not more swiftly fled the sands,

      Fled the plains and fled the sunlights,

      Fled the murmuring ocean strands.

      O, that now the earth would open!

      O, that now the shades would hide!

      O, that now the gods would shelter!

      Caverns lead and seas divide!

      Not more faint soft-lowing Io

      Panted in those starry eyes,

      When the sleepless midnight meadows

      Piteously implored the skies!

      Still her breathless flight she urges

      By the sanctuary stream,

      And the god with golden swiftness

      Follows like an eastern beam.

      Her the close bewildering greenery

      Darkens with its duskiest green,—

      Him each little leaflet welcomes,

      Flushing with an orient sheen.

      Thus he nears, and now all Tempe

      Rings with his melodious cry,

      Avenues and blue expanses

      Beam in his large lustrous eye!

      All the branches start to music!

      As if from a secret spring

      Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling

      In the nest and on the wing.

      Gleams and shines the glassy river

      And rich valleys every one;

      But of all the throbbing beauty

      Brightest! singled by the sun!

      Ivy round her glimmering ancle,

      Vine about her glowing brow,

      Never sure was bride so beauteous,

      Daphne, chosen nymph, as thou!

      Thus he nears! and now she feels him

      Breathing hot on every limb;

      And he hears her own quick pantings—

      Ah! that they might be for him.

      O, that like the flower he tramples,

      Bending from his golden tread,

      Full of fair celestial ardours,

      She would bow her bridal head.

      O, that like the flower she presses,

      Nodding from her lily touch,

      Light as in the harmless breezes,

      She would know the god for such!

      See! the golden arms are round her—

      To the air she grasps and clings!

      See! his glowing arms have wound her—

      To the sky she shrieks and springs!

      See! the flushing chace of Tempe

      Trembles with Olympian air—

      See! green sprigs and buds are shooting

      From those white raised arms of prayer!

      In the earth her feet are rooting!—

      Breasts and limbs and lifted eyes,

      Hair and lips and