Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
George Meredith 1828–1909The Spirit of Shakespeare
MeredithGHe knew thy sons. He prob’d from hell to hell
Of human passions, but of love deflower’d
His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well.
Thence came the honey’d corner at his lips,
The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails
Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips,
Yet full of speech and intershifting tales,
Close mirrors of us: thence had he the laugh
We feel is thine; broad as ten thousand beeves
At pasture! thence thy songs, that winnow chaff
From grain, bid sick Philosophy’s last leaves
Whirl, if they have no response—they enforced
To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced.
In gloomy noddings over life! They pass.
Not he to feed upon a breast unthank’d,
Or eye a beauteous face in a crack’d glass.
But he can spy that little twist of brain
Which mov’d some weighty leader of the blind,
Unwitting ’t was the goad of personal pain,
To view in curs’d eclipse our Mother’s mind,
And show us of some rigid harridan
The wretched bondmen till the end of time.
O liv’d the Master now to paint us Man,
That little twist of brain would ring a chime
Of whence it came and what it caus’d, to start
Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart.