Modern Love: L

By George Meredith 1828–1909 George Meredith

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:

The union of this ever-diverse pair!

These two were rapid falcons in a snare,

Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.

Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,

They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:

But they fed not on the advancing hours:

Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.

Then each applied to each that fatal knife,

Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul

When hot for certainties in this our life!—

In tragic hints here see what evermore

Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,

Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,

To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

Biography

George Meredith was a major Victorian novelist whose career developed in conjunction with an era of great change in English literature during the second half of the nineteenth century. While his early novels largely conformed to Victorian literary conventions, his later novels demonstrated a concern with character psychology, modern social problems, and the development of the novel form that has led to his being considered an . . .

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