George Meredith: Poems Summary

George Meredith: Poems Summary

Dirge in Woods

The wind blows through the pine-trees, like a breath. Below, there is a stillness, and the moss glows over the roots of the trees. The pine-tree drops its needles, which are quiet. The clouds rush past overhead, like a race is being held. We, as humans drop too, when we die, just like fruit.

Lucifer in Starlight

According to this poem, Lucifer is a prince, rising up on a night filled with stars. He is bored of the darkness in his realm and he swings high atop the ball in the sky: the moon, which is shielded slightly by cloud. Sinners slept, his prey in his own pride. He leaned to the West, over Africa.

When he travels through more open plains, he remembers his revolt from Heaven. When he reached the middle of the sky, seeing the stars regarded as the brain of heaven in this poem, he sank back down. An army of the unchangeable law marches round the ancient track in ranks.

Modern Love: I

A man knows his lover is crying, because when he places his hand near her head, her sobs are sharply stifled. She lay there, un-moving. As she attempts to control her crying, the darkness subsides. The middle of night forces her heart, bulging with memories and tears, to consume the silence. Memory and Tears, two personages in her heart, prevent her from sleeping, so she thinks back on darker years and regret. These memories and the sadness create a barrier in their marriage, and they each wish everything would be severed.

Modern Love: VIII

It is evident in this poem that the woman depicted did struggle, and righteousness as salt and feeling made her seem to be pitied. The speaker asks how the gulf between them was created and from whence it came. He cries onto his lover, which is a rare sight. He continues by contemplating how they got to this point, and how he misses his lover, longing for their relationship to be restored.

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