Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/988

 GEORGE MEREDITH

Could I find a place to be alone with heaven,

I would speak my heart out: heaven is my need. Every woodland tree is flushing like the dogwood,

Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed. Flushing like the dogwood crimson in October;

Streaming like the flag-reed South-Wcst blown; Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted whitebeam:

All seem to know what is for heaven alone.

784 Phoebus with Admetus

WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked,

Who: and what a track show'd the upturned sod! Mindful were the bhepherds, as now the noon severe

Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evctide, How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere, Sister of his own, till her rays fell wide. God 1 of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darken'd That had thcc here obscure.

Chirping none, the scarlet cicalas crouch 'd in ranks:

Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk gray. Scarce the stony lizard suck'd hollows in his flanks:

Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flockb lay. Sudden bow'd the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard

Lcngthen'd ran the grasses, the sky grew slate. Then amid a swift flight of wmg'd seed white as curd,

Clear of limb a Youth smote the master's gate.

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