Poem by George Meredith

My Theme

Of me and of my theme think what thou wilt:
The song of gladness one straight bolt can check.
But I have never stood at Fortune's beck:
Were she and her light crew to run atilt
At my poor holding little would be spilt;
Small were the praise for singing o'er that wreck.
Who courts her dooms to strife his bended neck;
He grasps a blade, not always by the hilt.
Nathless she strikes at random, can be fell
With other than those votaries she deals
The black or brilliant from her thunder-rift.
I say but that this love of Earth reveals
A soul beside our own to quicken, quell,
Irradiate, and through ruinous floods uplift.

1. A Ballad of Past Meridian
2. Alternation
3. At the Funeral
4. Modern Love. Sonnet 31. This Golden Head has Wit in it
5. Modern Love. Sonnet 27. Distraction is the Panacea, Sir!

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