Poems. Volume 2. George Meredith

      Nor had saffron and sapphire and red

      Waved aloft to their sisters below,

      When gaped by the rock-channel head

      Of the lake, black, a cave at one blow,

      Reverberant over the plain:

      A sound oft fearfully swung

      For the coming of wrathful rain:

      And forth, like the dragon-tongue

      Of a fire beaten flat by the gale,

      But more as the smoke to behold,

      A chariot burst.  Then a wail

      Quivered high of the love that would fold

      Bliss immeasurable, bigger than heart,

      Though a God’s: and the wheels were stayed,

      And the team of the chariot swart

      Reared in marble, the six, dismayed,

      Like hoofs that by night plashing sea

      Curve and ramp from the vast swan-wave:

      For, lo, the Great Mother, She!

      And Callistes gazed, he gave

      His eyeballs up to the sight:

      The embrace of the Twain, of whom

      To men are their day, their night,

      Mellow fruits and the shearing tomb:

      Our Lady of the Sheaves

      And the Lily of Hades, the Sweet

      Of Enna: he saw through leaves

      The Mother and Daughter meet.

      They stood by the chariot-wheel,

      Embraced, very tall, most like

      Fellow poplars, wind-taken, that reel

      Down their shivering columns and strike

      Head to head, crossing throats: and apart,

      For the feast of the look, they drew,

      Which Darkness no longer could thwart;

      And they broke together anew,

      Exulting to tears, flower and bud.

      But the mate of the Rayless was grave:

      She smiled like Sleep on its flood,

      That washes of all we crave:

      Like the trance of eyes awake

      And the spirit enshrouded, she cast

      The wan underworld on the lake.

         They were so, and they passed.

      He tells it, who knew the law

      Upon mortals: he stood alive

      Declaring that this he saw:

         He could see, and survive.

      Now the youth was not ware of the beams

      With the grasses intertwined,

      For each thing seen, as in dreams,

      Came stepping to rear through his mind,

      Till it struck his remembered prayer

      To be witness of this which had flown

      Like a smoke melted thinner than air,

      That the vacancy doth disown.

      And viewing a maiden, he thought

      It might now be morn, and afar

      Within him the memory wrought

      Of a something that slipped from the car

      When those, the august, moved by:

      Perchance a scarf, and perchance

      This maiden.  She did not fly,

      Nor started at his advance:

      She looked, as when infinite thirst

      Pants pausing to bless the springs,

      Refreshed, unsated.  Then first

      He trembled with awe of the things

      He had seen; and he did transfer,

      Divining and doubting in turn,

      His reverence unto her;

      Nor asked what he crouched to learn:

      The whence of her, whither, and why

      Her presence there, and her name,

      Her parentage: under which sky

      Her birth, and how hither she came,

      So young, a virgin, alone,

      Unfriended, having no fear,

      As Oreads have; no moan,

      Like the lost upon earth; no tear;

      Not a sign of the torch in the blood,

      Though her stature had reached the height

      When mantles a tender rud

      In maids that of youths have sight,

      If maids of our seed they be:

      For he said: A glad vision art thou!

      And she answered him: Thou to me!

         As men utter a vow.

      Then said she, quick as the cries

      Of the rainy cranes: Light! light!

      And Helios rose in her eyes,

      That were full as the dew-balls bright,

      Relucent to him as dews

      Unshaded.  Breathing, she sent

      Her voice to the God of the Muse,

      And along the vale it went,

      Strange to hear: not thin, not shrill:

      Sweet, but no young maid’s throat:

      The echo beyond the hill

      Ran falling on half the note:

      And under the shaken ground

      Where the Hundred-headed groans

      By the roots of great Aetna bound,

      As of him were hollow tones

      Of wondering roared: a tale

      Repeated to sunless halls.

      But now off the face of the vale

      Shadows fled in a breath, and the walls

      Of the lake’s rock-head were gold,

      And the breast of the lake, that swell

      Of the crestless long wave rolled

      To shore-bubble, pebble and shell.

      A morning of radiant lids

      O’er the dance of the earth opened wide:

      The bees chose their flowers, the snub kids

      Upon hindlegs went sportive, or plied,

      Nosing, hard at the dugs to be filled:

      There was milk, honey, music to make:

      Up their branches the little birds billed:

      Chirrup, drone, bleat and buzz ringed the lake.

      O shining in sunlight, chief

      After water and water’s caress,

      Was the young bronze-orange leaf,

      That clung to the tree as a tress,

      Shooting lucid

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