Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/986

 GEORGE MEREDITH

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 evcjar. Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting:

So were it with me if forgetting could be wilPd. Tell the grassy hollow that hoJdb 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 meny tune she marches,

Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossessed. 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 yewbernes the yew.

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