And in the osier-isle111 we heard their noise.
We had not to look back on summer joys,
Or forward to a summer of bright dye.112 4
But in the largeness of the evening earth
Our spirits grew as we went side by side.
The hour became her husband, and my bride.
Love that had robb’d us so, thus bless’d our dearth! 8
The pilgrims of the year wax’d very loud
In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood
Full brown came from the west, and like pale blood
Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. 12
Love that had robb’d us of immortal things,
This little moment mercifully gave,
And still I see across the twilight wave,
The swan sail with her young beneath her wings. 16
XLVIII.
Their sense is with their senses all mix’d in.
Destroy’d by subtleties these women are!
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.113 4
Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near.
Our inmost hearts had open’d, each to each.
We drank the pure daylight of honest speech.
Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear. 8
For when of my lost Lady came the word,
This woman, O this agony of flesh!
Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh,
That I might seek that other like a bird. 12
I do adore the nobleness! despise
The act! She has gone forth, I know not where.
Will the hard world my sentience114 of her share?
I feel the truth; so let the world surmise. 16
XLIX.
He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge,
Nor any wicked change in her discern’d;
And she believed his old love had return’d,
Which was her exultation, and her scourge. 4
She took his hand, and walked with him, and seem’d
The wife he sought, tho’ shadowlike and dry.
She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
And tell her loudly she no longer dream’d. 8
She dared not say, “This is my breast: look in.”
But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak.
That night he learnt how silence best can speak
The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. 12
About the middle of the night her call
Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.
“Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!” she said.
Lethe115 had pass’d those lips, and he knew all. 16
L.
Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemn’d to do the flitting of the bat. 4
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wander’d once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. 8
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.116
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!— 12
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore! 16
Notes
1. Meredith did not include this epigraph in later editions. It appears to be his invention.
2. Like sculptured . . . between: Medieval tombs of married couples often featured images of both, lying side by side as if in bed. The sword between, however, suggests emotional or, as in Medieval courtly narratives, physical separation.
3. poison-flowers: cf. Baudelaire’s 1857 volume of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) (The Flowers of Evil), a collection of poems that thematized sexuality, carnality, and the allure of the beautiful female body
4. magnanimity: generosity of spirit
5. the man?: the wife’s lover
6. beneath our heel: cf. Genesis 3:15. God says to the serpent that tempted Eve: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
7. haply: maybe
8. shipwreck . . . ship: Meredith develops this image, which resonates with Sir Thomas Wyatt’s sonnet “My galley, charged with forgetfulness” and is also a version of a common Victorian trope for personal destiny, as the sequence unfolds. In Victorian literature, the ship often represents an individual soul on the sea of destiny; here it represents the couple’s marriage.
9. Cold as a mountain . . . wondering hate: one of several images that represent the battle between rational thought (Philosophy) and feeling (Passion)
10. Not till . . . kinship with the stars: We only look to Nature for consolation when all simple satisfactions (e.g., warmth) are exhausted.
11. Oh, wisdom . . . to the old: Wisdom is wasted on the old.
12. coward’s stroke: to strike someone down when he or she is not looking
13. How deftly . . . torturingly fair: The wife’s hairstyle accentuates her beauty; that a “known woman” is made “torturingly fair” suggests that the husband sees her beauty as a painful cover for her certain guilt. Cf. Sarah Stickney Ellis’s discussion of the power of a woman’s “personal attractions” in “Advice Manuals and Social Commentary” in the “Contexts” section.
14. whose the fault?: a constant refrain throughout the sequence
15. The God: Pan, the reed-pipe-playing Greek god connected with nature, spring, fertility, and lust. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Musical Instrument,” first published in 1860, describes Pan’s construction of his reed pipes.
16. If the same soul . . . old time restore!: These lines are addressed to his wife.
17. betweenwhiles: at intervals
18. defiles: literally, narrow passes or gorges. As a verb, defile can also mean to maul or to take someone’s virginity.
19. Heaven’s circle-glory: the sun
20. This sonnet is not in the manuscript version. See “Textual Variants” for original “Sonnet X.”
21. arraign’d: brought before a court of law to answer charges
22. mince: literally, to chop up into tiny pieces; also, to make light of or to disparage
23. showers . . . from the larks: In Shelley’s 1820 “To a Skylark,” the lark “showers a rain of melody” (line 35) upon the speaker. Larks often connote happiness.
24. What’s this . . . eyesight?: The husband notices that Nature is indifferent to his moods; the world looks just as beautiful now that he is tormented by the knowledge of his wife’s infidelity as it did when he believed himself to be happily in love.
25. Nor eyes . . . strange: The husband wonders if his wife feels the disconnect between their turbulent emotions and the beauty of the external world.
26. Within it . . . thee!: The husband projects their anguish onto the external world, imagining he can read the death of their relationship in the sunset. While there is room to interpret the “dead infant” literally, as the child the couple will never have, the first line of the following sonnet suggests that the “dead infant” represents the future.
27. our only visible friend: Nature
28. Lines 15 and 16 received particular scorn in Hutton’s review for the Spectator. See “Contemporary Reactions.” Meredith rewrote 16 for subsequent editions: “Whirls life within the shower of loosened hair!”
29. gold-hair’d lady: the husband’s mistress. He will refer to her as “My Lady” in subsequent sonnets.
30. Madam: the husband’s wife. He will continue to refer to her as
“Madam” in subsequent sonnets.
31. ‘Women still . . . deceive’: likely Meredith’s invention; no source has ever been identified
32. The Poet’s black stage-lion: Shakespeare’s Othello
33. Her own . . . tongue: The husband holds a love letter that his wife wrote to him early in their relationship.
34. The words . . . new: He compares the letter to him with a second letter that she has recently written to her lover.
35. Ephemeræ: flies or other insects with extremely short life spans
36. corpse-light: according to superstition, a ball of light portending death often seen over churchyards and ships
37. Jack . . . Meg: names of random, ordinary villagers
38. country . . . green: a country fair
39. signal shakings . . . leg: dancing
40. nut-brown stream: ale
41. May-fly: insect that lives only one day, so short-lived pleasures
42. Amphion-oak: Amphion, a figure from Greek mythology, whose music made the trees and stones do his bidding. In Tennyson’s “Amphion” (1842) the oak trees dance to the music of Amphion’s hornpipes. Amphion is also a genus of moths, an image that resonates in this sonnet.
43. bull and lamb: The bull is a symbol of fertilizing strength; the lamb is not only a symbol for Christ, but also (and more generally) a symbol of humility, innocence, and patience.
44. goat-legg’d: a reference to Pan (see note 15)
45. hap: chance, happenstance
46. helmsman: navigator; person who steers a ship; cf. Sonnet IV
47. deuce: devil
48. wanton-scented tress: lock of hair from one of his old lovers. He has thus also been unfaithful.
49. Struck through: by cupid’s arrow
50. Fainting points . . . wedlock: Fainting is considered a sign of pregnancy.
51. labour to confess?: The husband’s grotesque pun underscores his conviction that his relationship with his wife shall never again give birth to anything good.
52. glass: mirror
53. League-sunder’d: miles separated
54. attic-crib: room on the topmost floor
55. carouse: a bout of drinking
56. dullard: stupid, inert, dull
57. sustain!: support
58. For an image of the manuscript version of this sonnet, see fig. 12.
59. The misery . . . pure: This suggests that it makes the husband more miserable to suppose that his wife’s relationship with her lover is not physical.
60. French novel?: Victorians tended to associate French novels, like Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857), with sexual immorality and infidelity.
61. chagrin: distress or worry
62. Blanc-mange: French, a sweet custard
63. absinthe: French liquor distilled from wormwood, thought to lead to insanity and popular among nineteenth-century bohemians
64. rosbif: French, “roast beef”
65. abused: deceived and/or wronged
66. ere: before
67. erst: first
68. with . . . cursed: This sonnet’s imagery alludes to Satan’s fall from Heaven, his transformation into a serpent before tempting Eve, and God’s subsequent curse upon the serpent. See note 6.
69. dumb: silent
70. panacea: cure-all
71. Is the devil’s . . . composed?: The husband wonders whether his mistress (who is blond) or his wife (who is brunette) poses the most damning temptation.
72. human nakedness: cf. Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall
73. Pale lies . . . for text: Death seems far away to most humans. However, death inspires most of our (religious) writings.
74. Lady . . . eyes: both a categorical label for these poems and a metacritical comment upon sonnet conventions; cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 and Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, no. 7
75. visage: face
76. In the manuscript, the line reads “Beneath me, while the underlids uplift,” suggesting more overtly that the husband has consummated his affair. See “Textual Variants.”
77. drouth: drought
78. asp: poisonous snake
79. Bacchantes: female followers of Bacchus, god of wine and intoxication, who are often portrayed in states of violent, erotic frenzy
80. Louvre: Musée du Louvre, one of the world’s largest museums
81. The sumptuously . . . descending: Raphael’s painting St. Michael striking down the Demon (1518), held at the Louvre. The image is a common one and refers to a passage in Revelation (12:7–9): “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. . . . And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (see fig. 4).
82. Pharsalians: those from the Pharsalus region of ancient Greece. In the painting, St. Michael (and his hair) appears perfectly composed.
83. Oh, Raphael . . . terms: Meredith was associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, a mid-nineteenth-century “brotherhood” of English artists who repudiated Raphael’s imitators and claimed to take their inspiration from nature rather than artistic convention.
84. The Deluge: Genesis (6–9) describes the great flood that destroyed nearly all of mankind as punishment for their disobedience. The term deluge also connotes the self-absorption of France’s King Louis XV. Caring little about the results of his extravagance and lack of foresight, he famously said, “Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the flood.”). The French Revolution began some fifteen years after his death.
85. Vesuvius: volcano in Naples that erupted in 1861
86. Niagara: waterfall in Ontario, Canada
87. Providence: God; God’s power
88. torpidly: listlessly, numbly
89. Forfeits: a game in which players give up a personal item as a penalty and redeem themselves by performing a task
90. large-brow’d: phrenology, the study of the shape of the head, accorded intelligence and benevolence to those with large foreheads (brows)
91. the chariot: the sun; Greek god Helios (also identified with Apollo) drives the chariot of the sun across the sky each day.
92. fix: to make permanent, as in photography
93. Gogmagogs: The word derives from the biblical “Gog” and “Magog,” but here refers to giants of British folklore.
94. arrow’d: attracted, pulled like an arrow
95. petrification: turning into stone, as when facing the Medusa
96. the woman . . . name: the wife
97. ween: think, suspect
98. amain: quickly and/or violently, with full force
99. shades: ghosts or souls
100. nuptials: weddings; in zoology, mating season
101. Pallas: Athena, the Greek goddess of war, wisdom, and strength; a virgin goddess, she fights on behalf of just causes.
102. Hebe shamed!: Daughter of Zeus and Hera and cupbearer to the gods, Hebe is said to have dropped the wine she carried to them and, ashamed, never appeared again. Thomas Moore’s “The Fall of Hebe: A Dithyrambic Ode” (1806) describes the scene.
103. breakers: dangerous ocean waves that break violently against a rocky coast or as they pass over reefs or shallows
104. wot: knows
105. No villain need be!: a resolution to the question of blame: “the wrong is mixed” and “no villain need be”
106. Hesper: the evening star (Venus when visible after sunset)
107. parley: talk
108. Matin-bell: bell for morning prayer service
109. love-salute: kiss
110. morning: sudden realization, horrifying new thought
111. osier: willow tree
112. dye: color
113. or we shall . . . win: reference to Eve, who gives in to temptation and thus gives up the Garden of Eden
114. sentience: consciousness, susceptibility to sensation
115. Lethe: In Greek mythology, a r
iver of Hades; those who drink from it forget all. The wife has taken poison.
116. dole: dolor; grief, sorrow, or division
Roadside Philosophers
Juggling Jerry1
I.
Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we’ll halt a stage.
It’s nigh my last above the daisies:2
My next leaf ’ll be man’s blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it’s no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all’s3 been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.
II.
We’ve travelled times to this old common:4
Often we’ve hung our pots in the gorse.5
We’ve had a stirring life, old woman!
You, and I, and the old grey horse.
Races, and fairs, and royal occasions,
Found us coming to their call:
Now they’ll miss us at our stations:
There’s a Juggler outjuggles all!
III.
Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly!
Over the duck-pond the willow shakes.
Easy to think that grieving’s folly,
When the hand’s firm as driven stakes!
Ay! when we’re strong, and braced, and manful,
Life’s a sweet fiddle: but we’re a batch
Born to become the Great Juggler’s han’ful:
Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch.
IV.
Here’s where the lads of the village cricket:
I was a lad not wide from here:
Couldn’t I whip off the bale from the wicket?6
Like an old world those days appear!
Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatch’d ale-house—I know them!
They are old friends of my halts,7 and seem,
Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them:
Juggling don’t hinder the heart’s esteem.
V.
Juggling’s no sin, for we must have victual:8
Nature allows us to bait for the fool.
Holding one’s own makes us juggle no little;
But, to increase it, hard juggling’s the rule.
You that are sneering at my profession,
Haven’t you juggled a vast amount?
There’s the Prime Minister, in one Session,
Juggles more games than my sins’ll count.
VI.
I’ve murder’d insects with mock thunder:
Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads Page 9
