Читать книгу Poems. Volume 2 - George Meredith - Страница 29

Last night returning from my twilight walk

I met the grey mist Death, whose eyeless brow

Was bent on me, and from his hand of chalk

He reached me flowers as from a withered bough:

O Death, what bitter nosegays givest thou!

Death said, I gather, and pursued his way.

Another stood by me, a shape in stone,

Sword-hacked and iron-stained, with breasts of clay,

And metal veins that sometimes fiery shone:

O Life, how naked and how hard when known!

Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I.

Then memory, like the nightjar on the pine,

And sightless hope, a woodlark in night sky,

Joined notes of Death and Life till night’s decline

Of Death, of Life, those inwound notes are mine.