Poem by George Meredith

A Ballad of Past Meridian

I

Last night returning from my twilight walk
I met the grey mist Death, whose eyeless brow
Was bent on me, and from his hand of chalk
He reached me flowers as from a withered bough:
O Death, what bitter nosegays givest thou!

II

Death said, I gather, and pursued his way.
Another stood by me, a shape in stone,
Sword-hacked and iron-stained, with breasts of clay,
And metal veins that sometimes fiery shone:
O Life, how naked and how hard when known!

III

Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I.
Then memory, like the nightjar on the pine,
And sightless hope, a woodlark in night sky,
Joined notes of Death and Life till night's decline
Of Death, of Life, those inwound notes are mine. 

1. Modern Love. Sonnet 24. The Misery is Greater, as I Live!
2. On Como
3. Hawarden
4. Modern Love. Sonnet 7. She Issues Radiant from Her Dressing-room
5. Empdeocles

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