VI

     What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear,
     If there’s Law above all?  Answer that if you can! 
     Irreligious I’m not; but I look on this sphere
     As a place where a man should just think like a man. 
     It isn’t fair dealing!  But, contrariwise,
     Do bullets in battle the wicked select? 
     Why, then it’s all chance-work!  And yet, in her eyes,
     She holds a fixed something by which I am checked.

     VII

     Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall,
     If you eye it a minute ’ll have the same look: 
     So kind! and so merciful!  God of us all! 
     It’s the very same lesson we get from the Book. 
     Then, is Life but a trial?  Is that what is meant? 
     Some must toil, and some perish, for others below: 
     The injustice to each spreads a common content;
     Ay!  I’ve lost it again, for it can’t be quite so.

     VIII

     She’s the victim of fools:  that seems nearer the mark. 
     On earth there are engines and numerous fools. 
     Why the Lord can permit them, we’re still in the dark;
     He does, and in some sort of way they’re His tools. 
     It’s a roundabout way, with respect let me add,
     If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught: 
     But, perhaps, it’s the only way, though it’s so bad;
     In that case we’ll bow down our heads,—­as we ought.

     IX

     But the worst of me is, that when I bow my head,
     I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust,
     And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead
     Of humble acceptance:  for, question I must! 
     Here’s a creature made carefully—­carefully made! 
     Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why? 
     The answer seems nowhere:  it’s discord that’s played. 
     The sky’s a blue dish!—­an implacable sky!

     X

     Stop a moment.  I seize an idea from the pit. 
     They tell us that discord, though discord, alone,
     Can be harmony when the notes properly fit: 
     Am I judging all things from a single false tone? 
     Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls
     From devils to angels?  I’m blind with the sight. 
     It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls! 
     I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night.

     Poems by George Meredith — Volume 2

     [This etext was prepared from the 1912 Times Book Club “Surrey” edition
     by David Price]

     To J. M.

     Let Fate or Insufficiency provide
     Mean ends for men who what they are would be: 
     Penned in their narrow day no change they see
     Save one which strikes the blow to brutes and pride. 
     Our faith is ours and comes not on a tide: 
     And whether Earth’s great offspring, by decree,