There is a rose in the garden; 30
I fell in a lump on the stiff dead floor;
And the bird sings over the roses.
O neither to heaven, nor yet to hell;
There is a rose in the garden;
Could I follow the lover I loved so well!
And the bird sings over the roses.
III.
The bridesmaids slept in their chambers apart;
There is a rose that’s ready;
Tall Margaret walk’d with her thumping heart;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
The frill of her nightgown below the left breast,
There is a rose that’s ready;
Had fall’n like a cloud of the moonlighted west;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
. . .
But where the west-cloud breaks to a star;
There is rose that’s ready; 10
Pale Margaret’s breast show’d a winding scar;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
O few are the brides with such a sign!
There is a rose that’s ready;
Tho’ I went mad the fault was mine;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
I must speak to him under this roof to-night;
There is a rose that’s ready;
I shall burn to death if I speak in the light;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping. 20
O my breast! I must strike you a bloodier wound;
There is a rose that’s ready;
Than when I scored you red and swoon’d,
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
I will stab my honour under his eye;
There is a rose that’s ready;
Tho’ I bleed to the death, I shall let out the lie;
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
O happy my bridesmaids! white sleep is with you!
There is a rose that’s ready; 30
Had he chosen among you he might sleep too!
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
O happy my bridesmaids! your breasts are clean;
There is a rose that’s ready;
You carry no mark of what has been!
There’s a rose that’s ready for clipping.
IV.
An hour before the chilly beam,
Red rose and white in the garden;2
The bridegroom started out of a dream,
And the bird sings over the roses.
He went to the door, and there espied
Red rose and white in the garden;
The figure of his silent bride,
And the bird sings over the roses.
He went to the door, and let her in;
Red rose and white in the garden; 10
Whiter look’d she than a child of sin;
And the bird sings over the roses.
She look’d so white, she look’d so sweet;
Red rose and white in the garden;
She look’d so pure he fell at her feet;
And the bird sings over the roses.
He fell at her feet with love and awe;
Red rose and white in the garden;
A stainless body of light he saw;
And the bird sings over the roses. 20
O Margaret, say you are not of the dead!
Red rose and white in the garden;
My bride! by the angels at night are you led?
And the bird sings over the roses.
. . .
I am not led by the angels about;
Red rose and white in the garden;
But I have a devil within to let out;
And the bird sings over the roses.
O Margaret! my bride and saint!
Red rose and white in the garden; 30
There is on you no earthly taint:
And the bird sings over the roses.
I am no saint, and no bride can I be,
Red rose and white in the garden;
Until I have open’d my bosom to thee;
And the bird sings over the roses.
To catch at her heart she laid one hand;
Red rose and white in the garden;
She told the tale where she did stand;
And the bird sings over the roses. 40
She stood before him pale and tall;
Red rose and white in the garden;
Her eyes between his, she told him all;
And the bird sings over the roses.
She saw how her body grew freckled and foul;
Red rose and white in the garden;
She heard from the woods the hooting owl;
And the bird sings over the roses.
With never a quiver her mouth did speak;
Red rose and white in the garden; 50
O when she had done she stood so meek!
And the bird sings over the roses.
. . .
The bridegroom stamp’d and call’d her vile;
Red rose and white in the garden;
He did but waken a little smile;
And the bird sings over the roses.
The bridegroom raged and call’d her foul;
Red rose and white in the garden;
She heard from the woods the hooting owl;
And the bird sings over the roses. 60
He mutter’d a name full bitter and sore:
Red rose and white in the garden;
She fell in a lump on the stiff dead floor;
And the bird sings over the roses.
O great was the wonder, and loud was the wail,
Red rose and white in the garden;
When through the household flew the tale;
And the bird sings over the roses.
The old grey mother she dress’d the bier;3
Red rose and white in the garden; 70
With a shivering chin and never a tear;
And the bird sings over the roses.
O had you but done as I bade you, my child!
Red rose and white in the garden;
You would not have died and been reviled;
And the bird sings over the roses.
The bridegroom he hung at midnight by the bier;
Red rose and white in the garden;
He eyed the white girl thro’ a dazzling tear;
And the bird sings over the roses. 80
O had you been false as the women who stray;
Red rose and white in the garden;
You would not be now with the Angels of Day!
And the bird sings over the roses.
Notes
1. There’s a . . . clipping: Gardeners are encouraged to clip spent roses off the shrub (“deadhead”) in order to encourage it to produce more blooms. Alternatively, a gardener may wish to clip a plump bud that is just about to open in order to display it in the house. Pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Sister Helen” (1854) is a precedent for ballad refrains like those used here.
2. Red rose . . . garden: Red roses are often symbols of passion, love, and/or desire; white roses often symbolize purity and/or innocence.
3. bier: the movable stand on which a corpse, whether in a coffin or not, is placed before burial and on which it is carried to the grave
Marian1
I.
She can be as wise as we,
And wiser when she wishes;
She can knit with cunning wit,
And dress the homely dishes.
She can flourish staff or pen,
And deal a wound that lingers;
She can talk the talk of men,
And touch with thrilling fingers.
II.
Match her ye across the sea,
Natures fond and fiery;
Ye who zest the turtle’s nest2
With the eagle’s eyrie.3
Soft and loving is her soul,
Swift and lofty
soaring;
Mixing with its dove-like dole
Passionate adoring.
III.
Such a she who’ll match with me?
In flying or pursuing,
Subtle wiles are in her smiles
To set the world a-wooing.
She is steadfast as a star,
And yet the maddest maiden:
She can wage a gallant war,
And give the peace of Eden.
Notes
1. Many readers regard this poem as a sketch of Mary Peacock Nicolls, Thomas Love Peacock’s daughter and Meredith’s first wife.
2. turtle’s nest: Female turtles create nest cavities by digging in the beach with their hind flippers; after depositing numerous eggs, the mother will use her hind flippers to hide the nest with sand.
3. eyrie: a nest of any large bird, especially one that nests high on cliffs or tall trees
The Head of Bran1
I.
When the Head of Bran
Was firm on British shoulders,
God made a man!
Cried all beholders.
Steel could not resist
The weight his arm would rattle;
He, with naked fist,
Has brain’d2 a knight in battle.
He march’d on the foe,
And never counted numbers; 10
Foreign widows know
The hosts he sent to slumbers.
As a street you scan,
That’s tower’d by the steeple,
So the Head of Bran
Rose o’er his people.
II.
“Death’s my neighbour,”
Quoth Bran the Blest;
“Christian labour
Brings Christian rest.
From the trunk sever
The Head of Bran,
That which never
Has bent to man!
“That which never
To men has bow’d, 10
Shall live ever
To shame the shroud:
Shall live ever
To face the foe;
Sever it, sever,
And with one blow.
“Be it written,
That all I wrought
Was for Britain,
In deed and thought: 20
Be it written,
That, while I die,
Glory to Britain!
Is my last cry.
“‘Glory to Britain!’
Death echoes me round.
Glory to Britain!
The world shall resound.
Glory to Britain!
In ruin and fall, 30
Glory to Britain!
Is heard over all.”
III.
Burn, Sun, down the sea!
Bran lies low with thee.
Burst, Morn, from the main!
Bran so shall rise again.
Blow, Wind, from the field!
Bran’s Head is the Briton’s shield.
Beam, Star, in the west!
Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.
IV.
Crimson-footed, like the stork,
From great ruts of slaughter,
Warriors of the Golden Torque,3
Cross the lifting water.
Princes seven, enchaining hands,
Bear the live head homeward.4
Lo! it speaks, and still commands;
Gazing far out foamward.
Fiery words of lightning sense,
Down the hollows thunder; 10
Forest hostels know not whence
Comes the speech, and wonder.
City-castles, on the steep,
Where the faithful Seven
House at midnight, hear, in sleep,
Laughter under heaven.
Lilies, swimming on the mere,5
In the castle shadow,
Under draw their heads, and Fear
Walks the misty meadow. 20
Tremble not! it is not Death
Pledging dark espousal:
’Tis the Head of endless breath,
Challenging carousal!
Brim the horn! a health is drunk,
Now, that shall keep going:
Life is but the pebble sunk;
Deeds, the circle growing!
Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran!
While his lead they follow, 30
Long shall heads in Britain plan
Speech Death cannot swallow!
Notes
1. “The Head of Bran” initially appeared in Once a Week (4 February 1860) with an illustration by John Everett Millais (see fig. 10) and a foreword by Meredith glossing the poem’s subject. Bran was a British king said to be the first Christian convert. Mortally injured in battle, he is said to have instructed seven princes to chop off his head and bury it facing France, at the site where the Tower of London now stands. The head is said to have protected Britain from invasion until King Arthur dug it up, refusing (in Meredith’s words) “in his pride, to trust to the charm.” This act was followed, Meredith continues, “by invasion and general disaster.”
2. brain’d: hit on the head
3. Torque: a collar, bracelet, or similar ornament consisting of a twisted narrow band or strip, usually of precious metal, worn especially by the ancient Gauls and Britons
4. Millais’s illustration (fig. 10) depicts the action in this stanza.
5. mere: a lake, a pond, or a pool
By Morning Twilight
I.
Night like a dying mother,
Eyes her young offspring, Day.
The birds are dreamily piping.
And O, my love, my darling!
The night is life ebb’d away:
Away beyond our reach!
A sea that has cast us pale on the beach;
Weeds with the weeds and the pebbles
That hear the lone tamarisk1 rooted in sand,
Sway 10
With the song of the sea to the land.
II.
Night has eyes of Heaven:
Eyes of Earth has Day.
How darkly over the pillow
The locks from your forehead stray!
How like yon tangled darkness
From the arch of pearly gray!
And now the blush steals on it, like the stream
Of rose across the crocus-bed2
In the pearly eastern arch.
I’m half in love with morning, 10
Morning fresh on her march,
To see you: but O for the shadowy gleam
Of our dark-jewell’d mistress,
Bearing the baby-dream
On the infinite vales of her bosom!
My love! I must up and away.
Notes
1. tamarisk: evergreen shrub or small tree, with slender feathery branches and minute scalelike leaves
2. crocus: a small plant with brilliant flowers, which are usually deep yellow or purple
Autumn Even-Song1
The long cloud edged with streaming gray,
Soars from the west;
The red leaf mounts with it away,
Showing the nest
A blot among the branches bare:
There is a cry of outcasts in the air.
Swift little breezes, darting chill,
Pant down the lake;
A crow flies from the yellow hill,
And in its wake 10
A baffled line of labouring rooks:2
Steel-surfaced to the light the river looks.
Pale on the panes of the old hall
Gleams the lone space
Between the sunset and the squall;3
And on its face
Mournfully glimmers to the last:
Great oaks grow mighty minstrels4 in the blast.
Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine
In the green light 20
Behind the cedar and the pine:
Come, thundering night!
Blacke
n broad earth with hoards of storm:
For me yon valley-cottage beckons warm.
Notes
1. “Autumn Even-Song” first appeared in Once a Week (3 December 1859).
2. rooks: loud Eurasian crows which nest in colonies in the tops of trees
3. squall: a loud, harsh cry or a sudden and violent gust of wind
4. minstrels: singers or musicians of the medieval period, especially those who sing heroic or lyric poetry
Unknown Fair Faces1
Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,
And place them among Memory’s great stars,
Where burns a face like Hesper:2 one like Mars:
Of visages I get a moment’s view,
Sweet eyes that in the Heaven of me, too,
Ascend, tho’ virgin to my life they pass’d.
Lo, these within my destiny seem glass’d3
At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new.
A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave,
Went in a shawl voluminous and white, 10
Last sunset by; and going sow’d a glance.
Earth is too poor to hold a second chance;
I will not ask for more than Fortune gave:
My heart she goes from—never from my sight!
Notes
1. PB suggests that this sonnet may have been inspired by Keats’s “To a Lady Seen for a Few Moments at Vauxhall.”
2. Hesper: the evening star (Venus when visible after sunset)
3. glass’d: either to set (an object, oneself) before a mirror or other reflecting surface, so as to cause an image to be reflected, or, more simply, to reflect
Phantasy1
I.
Within a Temple of the Toes,
Where twirl’d the passionate Wili,2
I saw full many a market rose,
And sigh’d for my village lily.
II.
With cynical Adrian3 then I took flight
To that old dead city4 whose carol
Bursts out like a reveller’s loud in the night,
As he sits astride his barrel.
III.
We two were bound the Alps to scale,
Up the rock-reflecting river;5
Old times blew thro’ me like a gale,
And kept my thoughts in a quiver.
IV.
Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine,
Reel’d silver-laced under my vision,
and into me pass’d, with the green-eyed wine6
Knocking hard at my head for admission.
V.
I held the village lily cheap,
And the dream around her idle:
Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep,
The bells led me off to a bridal.
VI.
My bride wore the hood of a Beguine,7
And mine was the foot to falter;
Three cowl’d monks, rat-eyed, were seen;
The Cross was of bones o’er the altar.
Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads Page 12
