Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 144

'We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod, Whose lamps tremble continually With prayer sent up to G.o.d; And where each need, reveal'd, expects Its patient period.

'We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove Sometimes is felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His name audibly.

'And I myself will teach to him,-- I myself, lying so,-- The songs I sing here; which his mouth Shall pause in, hush'd and slow, Finding some knowledge at each pause, And some new thing to know.'

(Alas! to her wise simple mind These things were all but known Before: they trembled on her sense,-- Her voice had caught their tone.

Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas For life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reach'd?...

Was thy part understood Or borne in trust? And for her sake Shall this too be found good?-- May the close lips that knew not prayer Praise ever, though they would?)

'We two,' she said, 'will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is, With her five handmaidens, whose names Are five sweet symphonies:-- Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys.

'Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks And bosoms covered; Into the fine cloth, white like flame, Weaving the golden thread, To fas.h.i.+on the birth-robes for them Who are just born, being dead.

'He shall fear, haply, and be dumb.

Then I will lay my cheek To his, and tell about our love, Not once abash'd or weak: And the dear Mother will approve My pride, and let me speak.

'Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, To Him round whom all souls Kneel--the unnumber'd solemn heads Bow'd with their aureoles: And Angels, meeting us, shall sing To their citherns and citoles.

'There will I ask of Christ the Lord Thus much for him and me:-- To have more blessing than on earth In nowise; but to be As then we were,--being as then At peace. Yea, verily.

'Yea, verily; when he is come We will do thus and thus: Till this my vigil seem quite strange And almost fabulous; We two will live at once, one life; And peace shall be with us.'

She gazed, and listen'd, and then said, Less sad of speech than mild,-- 'All this is when he comes.' She ceased: The light thrill'd past her, fill'd With Angels, in strong level lapse.

Her eyes pray'd, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight Was vague 'mid the poised spheres.

And then she cast her arms along The golden barriers, And laid her face between her hands, And wept. (I heard her tears.)

George Meredith. 1828-1909

772. Love in the Valley

UNDER yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward, Couch'd with her arms behind her golden head, Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly, Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.

Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her, Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow, Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me: Then would she hold me and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirror'd winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.

Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, More love should I have, and much less care.

When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls.

Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon.

No, she is athirst and drinking up her wonder: Earth to her is young as the slip of the new moon.

Deals she an unkindness, 'tis but her rapid measure, Even as in a dance; and her smile can heal no less: Like the swinging May-cloud that pelts the flowers with hailstones Off a sunny border, she was made to bruise and bless.

Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.

Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown evejar.

Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could be will'd.

Tell the gra.s.sy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring, Tell it to forget the source that keeps it fill'd.

Stepping down the hill with her fair companions, Arm in arm, all against the raying West, Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches, Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossess'd.

Sweeter, for she is what my heart first awaking Whisper'd the world was; morning light is she.

Love that so desires would fain keep her changeless; Fain would fling the net, and fain have her free.

Happy happy time, when the white star hovers Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew, Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness, Threading it with colour, like yewberries the yew.

Thicker crowd the shades as the grave East deepens Glowing, and with crimson a long cloud swells.

Maiden still the morn is; and strange she is, and secret; Strange her eyes; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-sh.e.l.ls.

Sunrays, leaning on our southern hills and lighting Wild cloud-mountains that drag the hills along, Oft ends the day of your s.h.i.+fting brilliant laughter Chill as a dull face frowning on a song.

Ay, but shows the South-west a ripple-feather'd bosom Blown to silver while the clouds are shaken and ascend Scaling the mid-heavens as they stream, there comes a sunset Rich, deep like love in beauty without end.

When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams, Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams.

When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle In her long nightgown sweet as boughs of May, Beautiful she looks, like a tall garden-lily Pure from the night, and splendid for the day.

Mother of the dews, dark eye-lash'd twilight, Low-lidded twilight, o'er the valley's brim, Rounding on thy breast sings the dew-delighted skylark, Clear as though the dewdrops had their voice in him.

Hidden where the rose-flush drinks the rayless planet, Fountain-full he pours the spraying fountain-showers.

Let me hear her laughter, I would have her ever Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers.

All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose; Up lanes, woods through, they troop in joyful bands.

My sweet leads: she knows not why, but now she loiters, Eyes the bent anemones, and hangs her hands.

Such a look will tell that the violets are peeping, Coming the rose: and unaware a cry Springs in her bosom for odours and for colour, Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why.

Kerchief'd head and chin she darts between her tulips, Streaming like a willow gray in arrowy rain: Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again.

Black the driving raincloud b.r.e.a.s.t.s the iron gateway: She is forth to cheer a neighbour lacking mirth.

So when sky and gra.s.s met rolling dumb for thunder Saw I once a white dove, sole light of earth.

Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden, Train'd to stand in rows, and asking if they please.

I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones: O my wild ones! they tell me more than these.

You, my wild one, you tell of honied field-rose, Violet, blus.h.i.+ng eglantine in life; and even as they, They by the wayside are earnest of your goodness, You are of life's, on the banks that line the way.

Peering at her chamber the white crowns the red rose, Jasmine winds the porch with stars two and three.

Parted is the window; she sleeps; the starry jasmine Breathes a falling breath that carries thoughts of me.

Sweeter unpossess'd, have I said of her my sweetest?

Not while she sleeps: while she sleeps the jasmine breathes, Luring her to love; she sleeps; the starry jasmine Bears me to her pillow under white rose-wreaths.

Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the gra.s.s-glades; Yellow with cinquefoil of the dew-gray leaf; Yellow with stonecrop; the moss-mounds are yellow; Blue-neck'd the wheat sways, yellowing to the sheaf.

Green-yellow, bursts from the copse the laughing yaffle; Sharp as a sickle is the edge of shade and s.h.i.+ne: Earth in her heart laughs looking at the heavens, Thinking of the harvest: I look and think of mine.

This I may know: her dressing and undressing Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport s.h.i.+ft from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port White sails furl; or on the ocean borders White sails lean along the waves leaping green.

Visions of her shower before me, but from eyesight Guarded she would be like the sun were she seen.

Front door and back of the moss'd old farmhouse Open with the morn, and in a breezy link Freshly sparkles garden to stripe-shadow'd orchard, Green across a rill where on sand the minnows wink.

Busy in the gra.s.s the early sun of summer Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes Call my darling up with round and roguish challenge: Quaintest, richest carol of all the singing throats!

Cool was the woodside; cool as her white diary Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rush'd brown and red with suns.h.i.+ne; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool!

Spying from the farm, herself she fetch'd a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak.