Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/440

 404 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT.

And ready in all service save rebuke. With ebb of breakfast and the cider-cup Came high debate : the others seated there Were Osric, spinner of fine sentences, A delicate insect creeping over life Feeding on molecules of floral breath, And weaving gossamer to trap the sun ; ,

Laertes, ardent, rash, and radical ; fj

Discursive Eosencranz, grave Guildenstern, And he for whom the social meal was made — The polished priest, a tolerant listener, la?

Disposed to give a hearing to the lost,, 'b+

And breakfast with them ere they went bel ,w.

From alpine metaphysic glaciers first t s'

The talk sprang copious ; the themes werl. 3 old,

But so is human breath, so infant eyes, ,

The daily nurslings of creative light. h^

Small words held mighty meanings : Mv atter. Force,

Self, Not-self, Being, Seeming, Space a/md Time —

Plebeian toilers on the dusty road )

Of daily traffic, turned to Genii j,i

And cloudy giants darkening sun andji moon.

Creation was reversed in human talk j^:

None said, " Let Darkness be," but Dj larkness was ;

And in it weltered with Teutonic eas|.e,

An argumentative Leviathan, /

Blowing cascades from out his elemf.int,

The thunderous Eosencranz, till

""Cruce, I beg!" Said Osric, with nice accent. " I al)hor That battling of the ghosts, that stidfe of terms For utmost lack of color, form, and breath, That tasteless squabbling called Ph ilosophy : As if a blue-winged butterfly afloat