Читать книгу Poems. Volume 2 - George Meredith - Страница 2

Now farewell to you! you are

One of my dearest, whom I trust:

Now follow you the Western star,

And cast the old world off as dust.

From many friends adieu! adieu!

The quick heart of the word therein.

Much that we hope for hangs with you:

We lose you, but we lose to win.

The beggar-king, November, frets:

His tatters rich with Indian dyes

Goes hugging: we our season’s debts

Pay calmly, of the Spring forewise.

We send our worthiest; can no less,

If we would now be read aright,—

To that great people who may bless

Or curse mankind: they have the might.

The proudest seasons find their graves,

And we, who would not be wooed, must court.

We have let the blunderers and the waves

Divide us, and the devil had sport.

The blunderers and the waves no more

Shall sever kindred sending forth

Their worthiest from shore to shore

For welcome, bent to prove their worth.

Go you and such as you afloat,

Our lost kinsfellowship to revive.

The battle of the antidote

Is tough, though silent: may you thrive!

I, when in this North wind I see

The straining red woods blown awry,

Feel shuddering like the winter tree,

All vein and artery on cold sky.

The leaf that clothed me is torn away;

My friend is as a flying seed.

Ay, true; to bring replenished day

Light ebbs, but I am bare, and bleed.

What husky habitations seem

These comfortable sayings! they fell,

In some rich year become a dream:—

So cries my heart, the infidel! . . .

Oh! for the strenuous mind in quest,

Arabian visions could not vie

With those broad wonders of the West,

And would I bid you stay?  Not I!

The strange experimental land

Where men continually dare take

Niagara leaps;—unshattered stand

’Twixt fall and fall;—for conscience’ sake,

Drive onward like a flood’s increase;—

Fresh rapids and abysms engage;—

(We live—we die) scorn fireside peace,

And, as a garment, put on rage,

Rather than bear God’s reprimand,

By rearing on a full fat soil

Concrete of sin and sloth;—this land,

You will observe it coil in coil.

The land has been discover’d long,

The people we have yet to know;

Themselves they know not, save that strong

For good and evil still they grow.

Nor know they us.  Yea, well enough

In that inveterate machine

Through which we speak the printed stuff

Daily, with voice most hugeous, mien

Tremendous:—as a lion’s show

The grand menagerie paintings hide:

Hear the drum beat, the trombones blow!

The poor old Lion lies inside! . . .

It is not England that they hear,

But mighty Mammon’s pipers, trained

To trumpet out his moods, and stir

His sluggish soul: her voice is chained:

Almost her spirit seems moribund!

O teach them, ’tis not she displays

The panic of a purse rotund,

Eternal dread of evil days,—

That haunting spectre of success

Which shows a heart sunk low in the girths:

Not England answers nobleness,—

‘Live for thyself: thou art not earth’s.’

Not she, when struggling manhood tries

For freedom, air, a hopefuller fate,

Points out the planet, Compromise,

And shakes a mild reproving pate:

Says never: ‘I am well at ease,

My sneers upon the weak I shed:

The strong have my cajoleries:

And those beneath my feet I tread.’

Nay, but ’tis said for her, great Lord!

The misery’s there!  The shameless one

Adjures mankind to sheathe the sword,

Herself not yielding what it won:—

Her sermon at cock-crow doth preach,

On sweet Prosperity—or greed.

‘Lo! as the beasts feed, each for each,

God’s blessings let us take, and feed!’

Ungrateful creatures crave a part—

She tells them firmly she is full;

Lost sheared sheep hurt her tender heart

With bleating, stops her ears with wool:—

Seized sometimes by prodigious qualms

(Nightmares of bankruptcy and death),—

Showers down in lumps a load of alms,

Then pants as one who has lost a breath;

Believes high heaven, whence favours flow,

Too kind to ask a sacrifice

For what it specially doth bestow;—

Gives she, ’tis generous, cheese to mice.

She saw the young Dominion strip

For battle with a grievous wrong,

And curled a noble Norman lip,

And looked with half an eye sidelong;

And in stout Saxon wrote her sneers,

Denounced the waste of blood and coin,

Implored the combatants, with tears,

Never to think they could rejoin.

Oh! was it England that, alas!

Turned sharp the victor to cajole?

Behold her features in the glass:

A monstrous semblance mocks her soul!

A false majority, by stealth,

Have got her fast, and sway the rod:

A headless tyrant built of wealth,

The hypocrite, the belly-God.

To him the daily hymns they raise:

His tastes are sought: his will is done:

He sniffs the putrid steam of praise,

Place for true England here is none!

But can a distant race discern

The difference ’twixt her and him?

My friend, that will you bid them learn.

He shames and binds her, head and limb.

Old wood has blossoms of this sort.

Though sound at core, she is old wood.

If freemen hate her, one retort

She has; but one!—‘You are my blood.’

A poet, half a prophet, rose

In recent days, and called for power.

I love him; but his mountain prose—

His Alp and valley and wild flower—

Proclaimed our weakness, not its source.

What medicine for disease had he?

Whom summoned for a show of force?

Our titular aristocracy!

Why, these are great at City feasts;

From City riches mainly rise:

’Tis well to hear them, when the beasts

That die for us they eulogize!

But these, of all the liveried crew

Obeisant in Mammon’s walk,

Most deferent ply the facial screw,

The spinal bend, submissive talk.

Small fear that they will run to books

(At least the better form of seed)!

I, too, have hoped from their good looks,

And fables of their Northman breed;—

Have hoped that they the land would head

In acts magnanimous; but, lo,

When fainting heroes beg for bread

They frown: where they are driven they go.

Good health, my friend! and may your lot

Be cheerful o’er the Western rounds.

This butter-woman’s market-trot

Of verse is passing market-bounds.

Adieu! the sun sets; he is gone.

On banks of fog faint lines extend:

Adieu! bring back a braver dawn

To England, and to me my friend.