Poems. Volume 1. George Meredith

      Now, whirring like an eagle’s wing

      Preparing for a wide blue flight;

      Now, flapping like a sail that tacks

      And chides the wet bewildered mast;

      Now, screaming like an anguish’d thing

      Chased close by some down-breathing beak;

      Now, wailing like a breaking heart,

      That will not wholly break, but hopes

      With hope that knows itself in vain;

      Now, threatening like a storm-charged cloud;

      Now, cooing like a woodland dove;

      Now, up again in roar and wrath

      High soaring and wide sweeping; now,

      With sudden fury dashing down

      Full-force on the awaiting woods.

      Long waited there, for aspens frail

      That tinkle with a silver bell,

      To warn the Zephyr of their love,

      When danger is at hand, and wake

      The neighbouring boughs, surrendering all

      Their prophet harmony of leaves,

      Had caught his earliest windward thought,

      And told it trembling; naked birk

      Down showering her dishevelled hair,

      And like a beauty yielding up

      Her fate to all the elements,

      Had swayed in answer; hazels close,

      Thick brambles and dark brushwood tufts,

      And briared brakes that line the dells

      With shaggy beetling brows, had sung

      Shrill music, while the tattered flaws

      Tore over them, and now the whole

      Tumultuous concords, seized at once

      With savage inspiration,—pine,

      And larch, and beech, and fir, and thorn,

      And ash, and oak, and oakling, rave

      And shriek, and shout, and whirl, and toss,

      And stretch their arms, and split, and crack,

      And bend their stems, and bow their heads,

      And grind, and groan, and lion-like

      Roar to the echo-peopled hills

      And ravenous wilds, and crake-like cry

      With harsh delight, and cave-like call

      With hollow mouth, and harp-like thrill

      With mighty melodies, sublime,

      From clumps of column’d pines that wave

      A lofty anthem to the sky,

      Fit music for a prophet’s soul—

      And like an ocean gathering power,

      And murmuring deep, while down below

      Reigns calm profound;—not trembling now

      The aspens, but like freshening waves

      That fall upon a shingly beach;—

      And round the oak a solemn roll

      Of organ harmony ascends,

      And in the upper foliage sounds

      A symphony of distant seas.

      The voice of nature is abroad

      This night; she fills the air with balm;

      Her mystery is o’er the land;

      And who that hears her now and yields

      His being to her yearning tones,

      And seats his soul upon her wings,

      And broadens o’er the wind-swept world

      With her, will gather in the flight

      More knowledge of her secret, more

      Delight in her beneficence,

      Than hours of musing, or the lore

      That lives with men could ever give!

      Nor will it pass away when morn

      Shall look upon the lulling leaves,

      And woodland sunshine, Eden-sweet,

      Dreams o’er the paths of peaceful shade;—

      For every elemental power

      Is kindred to our hearts, and once

      Acknowledged, wedded, once embraced,

      Once taken to the unfettered sense,

      Once claspt into the naked life,

      The union is eternal.