Читать книгу A Reading of Life, with Other Poems - George Meredith - Страница 4

Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks,

An army issues out of wilderness,

With battle plucking round its ragged flanks;

Obstruction in the van; insane excess

Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress

Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks,

And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone,

The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay.

They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone;

A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they.

Then was the gracious birth of man’s new day;

Divided from the haunted night it shone.

That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang

Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide.

Another sun had risen to clasp his bride:

It was another earth unto him sang.

Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights?

From the Persuader came it, in those vales

Whereunto she melodiously invites,

Her troops of eager servitors regales?

Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed

Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead;

Nor either points for us the way of flame.

From him predestined mightier it came;

His task to hold them both in breast, and yield

Their dues to each, and of their war be field.

The foes that in repulsion never ceased,

Must he, who once has been the goodly beast

Of one or other, at whose beck he ran,

Constrain to make him serviceable man;

Offending neither, nor the natural claim

Each pressed, denying, for his true man’s name.

Ah, what a sweat of anguish in that strife

To hold them fast conjoined within him still;

Submissive to his will

Along the road of life!

And marvel not he wavered if at whiles

The forward step met frowns, the backward smiles.

For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain;

Repentance offered ecstasy in pain.

Delicious licence called it Nature’s cry;

Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh;

A tread on shingle timed his lame advance

Flung as the die of Bacchanalian Chance,

He of the troubled marching army leaned

On godhead visible, on godhead screened;

The radiant roseate, the curtained white;

Yet sharp his battle strained through day, through night.

He drank of fictions, till celestial aid

Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed;

Sagely the generous Giver circumspect,

To choose for grants the egregious, his elect;