Poems

Find and share the perfect poems.

Modern Love: XVII

George Meredith

1828 –

1909

At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.

Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps

The Topic over intellectual deeps

In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.

With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:

It is in truth a most contagious game:

‘Hiding the skeleton,’ shall be its name.

Such play as this, the devils might appal!

But here’s the greater wonder; in that we

Enamoured of an acting naught can tire,

Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;

Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemoerioe,

Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.

We waken envy of our happy lot.

Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.

Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.

This poem is in the public domain.

More by this poet

Modern Love: XXX

What are we first? First, animals; and next
Intelligences at a leap; on whom
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,
And all that draweth on the tomb for text.
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.
We are the lords of life, and life is warm.

George Meredith

1909

Modern Love: XXIX

Am I failing? For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
But, as you will!

George Meredith

1909

Modern Love: XXXII

Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift
To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie
With her fair visage an inverted sky
Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,
Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth
(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address
The inner me that thirsts for her no less,
And has so long been languishing in drouth,
I feel that I am matched; that I am man!
One restless corner of my heart of head,
That holds a dying something never dead,
Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can.
It means, that woman is not, I opine,
Her sex’s antidote.

George Meredith

1909

Poems

Page submenu block

Modern Love: XVII

More by this poet

Newsletter Sign Up