A Reading of Life, with Other Poems

George Meredith

George Meredith

A Reading of Life, with Other Poems

A READING OF LIFE

THE VITAL CHOICE

I

Or shall we run with Artemis

Or yield the breast to Aphrodite?

Both are mighty;

Both give bliss;

Each can torture if divided;

Each claims worship undivided,

In her wake would have us wallow.

II

Youth must offer on bent knees

Homage unto one or other;

Earth, the mother,

This decrees;

And unto the pallid Scyther

Either points us shun we either

Shun or too devoutly follow.

WITH THE HUNTRESS

Through the water-eye of night,

Midway between eve and dawn,

See the chase, the rout, the flight

In deep forest; oread, faun,

Goat-foot, antlers laid on neck;

Ravenous all the line for speed.

See yon wavy sparkle beck

Sign of the Virgin Lady’s lead.

Down her course a serpent star

Coils and shatters at her heels;

Peals the horn exulting, peals

Plaintive, is it near or far.

Huntress, arrowy to pursue,

In and out of woody glen,

Under cliffs that tear the blue,

Over torrent, over fen,

She and forest, where she skims

Feathery, darken and relume:

Those are her white-lightning limbs

Cleaving loads of leafy gloom.

Mountains hear her and call back,

Shrewd with night: a frosty wail

Distant: her the emerald vale

Folds, and wonders in her track.

Now her retinue is lean,

Many rearward; streams the chase

Eager forth of covert; seen

One hot tide the rapturous race.

Quiver-charged and crescent-crowned,

Up on a flash the lighted mound

Leaps she, bow to shoulder, shaft

Strung to barb with archer’s craft,

Legs like plaited lyre-chords, feet

Songs to see, past pitch of sweet.

Fearful swiftness they outrun,

Shaggy wildness, grey or dun,

Challenge, charge of tusks elude:

Theirs the dance to tame the rude;

Beast, and beast in manhood tame,

Follow we their silver flame.

Pride of flesh from bondage free,

Reaping vigour of its waste,

Marks her servitors, and she

Sanctifies the unembraced.

Nought of perilous she reeks;

Valour clothes her open breast;

Sweet beyond the thrill of sex;

Hallowed by the sex confessed.

Huntress arrowy to pursue,

Colder she than sunless dew,

She, that breath of upper air;

Ay, but never lyrist sang,

Draught of Bacchus never sprang

Blood the bliss of Gods to share,

High o’er sweep of eagle wings,

Like the run with her, when rings

Clear her rally, and her dart,

In the forest’s cavern heart,

Tells of her victorious aim.

Then is pause and chatter, cheer,

Laughter at some satyr lame,

Looks upon the fallen deer,

Measuring his noble crest;

Here a favourite in her train,

Foremost mid her nymphs, caressed;

All applauded.В  Shall she reign

Worshipped?В  O to be with her there!

She, that breath of nimble air,

Lifts the breast to giant power.

Maid and man, and man and maid,

Who each other would devour

Elsewhere, by the chase betrayed,

There are comrades, led by her,

Maid-preserver, man-maker.

WITH THE PERSUADER

Who murmurs, hither, hither: who

Where nought is audible so fills the ear?

Where nought is visible can make appear

A veil with eyes that waver through,

Like twilight’s pledge of blessed night to come,

Or day most golden?В  All unseen and dumb,

She breathes, she moves, inviting flees,

Is lost, and leaves the thrilled desire

To clasp and strike a slackened lyre,

Till over smiles of hyacinth seas,

Flame in a crystal vessel sails

Beneath a dome of jewelled spray,

For land that drops the rosy day

On nights of throbbing nightingales.

Landward did the wonder flit,

Or heart’s desire of her, all earth in it.

We saw the heavens fling down their rose;

On rapturous waves we saw her glide;

The pearly sea-shell half enclose;

The shoal of sea-nymphs flush the tide;

And we, afire to kiss her feet, no more

Behold than tracks along a startled shore,

With brightened edges of dark leaves