George Meredith - Poems. Volume 1

Chillanwallah, Chillanwallah!
   Where our brothers fought and bled,
O thy name is natural music
   And a dirge above the dead!
Though we have not been defeated,
   Though we cant be overcome,
Still, wheneer thou art repeated,
   I would fain that grief were dumb.

Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
   Tis a name so sad and strange,
Like a breeze through midnight harpstrings
   Ringing many a mournful change;
But the wildness and the sorrow
   Have a meaning of their own
Oh, whereof no glad to-morrow
   Can relieve the dismal tone!

Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
   Tis a village dark and low,
By the bloody Jhelum river
   Bridged by the foreboding foe;
And across the wintry water
   He is ready to retreat,
When the carnage and the slaughter
   Shall have paid for his defeat.

Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
   Tis a wild and dreary plain,
Strewn with plots of thickest jungle,
   Matted with the gory stain.
There the murder-mouthed artillery,
   In the deadly ambuscade,
Wrought the thunder of its treachery
   On the skeleton brigade.

Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
   When the night set in with rain,
Came the savage plundering devils
   To their work among the slain;
And the wounded and the dying
   In cold blood did share the doom
Of their comrades round them lying,
   Stiff in the dead skyless gloom.

Chillianwallah, Chillianwallah!
   Thou wilt be a doleful chord,
And a mystic note of mourning
   That will need no chiming word;
And that heart will leap with anguish
   Who may understand thee best;
But the hopes of all will languish
   Till thy memory is at rest.

AndYonder look! yoho! yoho!
Nancy is off! the farmer cried,
Advancing by the river side,
Red-kerchieft and brown-coated;So,
My girl, who else could leap like that?
So neatly! like a lady!  Zounds!
Look at her how she leads the hounds!
And waving his dusty beaver hat,
He cheered across the chase-filled water,
And clapt his arm about his daughter,
And gave to Joan a courteous hug,
And kiss that, like a stubborn plug
From generous vats in vastness rounded,
The inner wealth and spirit sounded:
Eagerly pointing South, where, lo,
The daintiest, fleetest-footed doe
Led oer the fields and thro the furze
Beyond: her lively delicate ears
Prickt up erect, and in her track
A dappled lengthy-striding pack.

Scarce had they cast eyes upon her,
When every heart was wagered on her,
And half in dread, and half delight,
They watched her lovely bounding flight;
As now across the flashing green,
And now beneath the stately trees,
And now far distant in the dene,
She headed on with graceful ease:
Hanging aloft with doubled knees,
At times athwart some hedge or gate;
And slackening pace by slow degrees,
As for the foremost foe to wait.
Renewing her outstripping rate
Wheneer the hot pursuers neared,
By garden wall and paled estate,
Where clambering gazers whooped and cheered.
Here winding under elm and oak,
And slanting up the sunny hill:
Splashing the water here like smoke
Among the mill-holms round the mill.

AndLet her go; she shows her game,
My Nancy girl, my pet and treasure!
The farmer sighed: his eyes with pleasure
Brimming: Tis my daughters name,
My second daughter lying yonder.
And Willies eye in search did wander,
And caught at once, with moist regard,
The white gleams of a grey churchyard.
Three weeks before my girl had gone,
And while upon her pillows propped,
She lay at eve; the weakling fawn
For still it seems a fawn just dropt
A sennightto my Nancys bed
I brought to make my girl a gift:
The mothers of them both were dead:
And both to bless it was my drift,
By giving each a friend; not thinking
How rapidly my girl was sinking.
And I remember how, to pat
Its neck, she stretched her hand so weak,
And its cold nose against her cheek
Pressed fondly: and I fetched the mat
To make it up a couch just by her,
Where in the lone dark hours to lie:
For neither dear old nurse nor I
Would any single wish deny her.
And there unto the last it lay;
And in the pastures cared to play
Little or nothing: there its meals
And milk I brought: and even now
The creature such affection feels
For that old room that, when and how,
Tis strange to mark, it slinks and steals
To get there, and all day conceals.
And once when nurse who, since that time,
Keeps house for me, was very sick,
Waking upon the midnight chime,
And listening to the stair-clocks click,
I heard a rustling, half uncertain,
Close against the dark bed-curtain:
And while I thrust my leg to kick,
And feel the phantom with my feet,
A loving tongue began to lick
My left hand lying on the sheet;
And warm sweet breath upon me blew,
And that twas Nancy then I knew.
So, for her love, I had good cause
To have the creature Nancy christened.

He paused, and in the moments pause,
His eyes and Willies strangely glistened.
Nearer came Joan, and Bessy hung
With face averted, near enough
To hear, and sob unheard; the young
And careless ones had scampered off
Meantime, and sought the loftiest place
To beacon the approaching chase.

Daily upon the meads to browse,
Goes Nancy with those dairy cows
You see behind the clematis:
And such a favourite she is,
That when fatigued, and helter skelter,
Among them from her foes to shelter,
She dashes when the chase is over,
Theyll close her in and give her cover,
And bend their horns against the hounds,
And low, and keep them out of bounds!
From the house dogs she dreads no harm,
And is good friends with all the farm,
Man, and bird, and beast, howbeit
Their natures seem so opposite.
And she is known for many a mile,
And noted for her splendid style,
For her clear leap and quick slight hoof;
Welcome she is in many a roof.
And if I say, I love her, man!
I say but little: her fine eyes full
Of memories of my girl, at Yule
And May-time, make her dearer than
Dumb brute to men has been, I think.
So dear I do not find her dumb.
I know her ways, her slightest wink,
So well; and to my hand shell come,
Sidelong, for food or a caress,
Just like a loving human thing.
Nor can I help, I do confess,
Some touch of human sorrowing
To think there may be such a doubt
That from the next world shell be shut out,
And parted from me!  And well I mind
How, when my girls last moments came,
Her soft eyes very soft and kind,
She joined her hands and prayed the same,
That she might meet her father, mother,
Sister Bess, and each dear brother,
And with them, if it might be, one
Who was her last companion.
Meaning the fawnthe doe you mark
For my bay mare was then a foal,
And time has passed since then:but hark!

For like the shrieking of a soul
Shut in a tomb, a darkened cry
Of inward-wailing agony
Surprised them, and all eyes on each
Fixed in the mute-appealing speech
Of self-reproachful apprehension:
Knowing not what to think or do:
But Joan, recovering first, broke through
The instantaneous suspension,
And knelt upon the ground, and guessed
The bitterness at a glance, and pressed
Into the comfort of her breast
The deep-throed quaking shape that drooped
In miserys wilful aggravation,
Before the farmer as he stooped,
Touched with accusing consternation:
Soothing her as she sobbed aloud:
Not me! not me!  Oh, no, no, no!
Not me!  God will not take me in!
Nothing can wipe away my sin!
I shall not see her: you will go;
You and all that she loves so:
Not me! not me!  Oh, no, no, no!
Colourless, her long black hair,
Like seaweed in a tempest tossed
Tangling astray, to Joans care
She yielded like a creature lost:
Yielded, drooping toward the ground,
As doth a shape one half-hour drowned,
And heaved from sea with mast and spar,
All dark of its immortal star.
And on that tender heart, inured
To flatter basest grief, and fight
Despair upon the brink of night,
She suffered herself to sink, assured
Of refuge; and her ear inclined
To comfort; and her thoughts resigned
To counsel; her wild hair let brush
From off her weeping brows; and shook
With many little sobs that took
Deeper-drawn breaths, till into sighs,
Long sighs, they sank; and to the hush!
Of Joans gentle chide, she sought
Childlike to check them as she ought,
Looking up at her infantwise.
And Willie, gazing on them both,
Shivered with bliss through blood and brain,
To see the darling of his troth
Like a maternal angel strain
The sinful and the sinless child
At once on either breast, and there
In peace and promise reconciled
Unite them: nor could Natures care
With subtler sweet beneficence
Have fed the springs of penitence,
Still keeping true, though harshly tried,
The vital prop of human pride.