Analysis of A Reading Of Life--The Test Of Manhood

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks,
An army issues out of wilderness,
With battle plucking round its ragged flanks;
Obstruction in the van; insane excess
Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress
Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks,
And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone,
The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay.
They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone;
A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they.
Then was the gracious birth of man's new day;
Divided from the haunted night it shone.

That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang
Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide.
Another sun had risen to clasp his bride:
It was another earth unto him sang.

Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights?
From the Persuader came it, in those vales
Whereunto she melodiously invites,
Her troops of eager servitors regales?
Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed
Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead;
Nor either points for us the way of flame.
From him predestined mightier it came;
His task to hold them both in breast, and yield
Their dues to each, and of their war be field.

The foes that in repulsion never ceased,
Must he, who once has been the goodly beast
Of one or other, at whose beck he ran,
Constrain to make him serviceable man;
Offending neither, nor the natural claim
Each pressed, denying, for his true man's name.

Ah, what a sweat of anguish in that strife
To hold them fast conjoined within him still;
Submissive to his will
Along the road of life!
And marvel not he wavered if at whiles
The forward step met frowns, the backward smiles.
For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain;
Repentance offered ecstasy in pain.
Delicious licence called it Nature's cry;
Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh;
A tread on shingle timed his lame advance
Flung as the die of Bacchanalian Chance,
He of the troubled marching army leaned
On godhead visible, on godhead screened;
The radiant roseate, the curtained white;
Yet sharp his battle strained through day, through night.

He drank of fictions, till celestial aid
Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed;
Sagely the generous Giver circumspect,
To choose for grants the egregious, his elect;
And ever that imagined succour slew
The soul of brotherhood whence Reverence drew.

In fellowship religion has its founts:
The solitary his own God reveres:
Ascend no sacred Mounts
Our hungers or our fears.
As only for the numbers Nature's care
Is shown, and she the personal nothing heeds,
So to Divinity the spring of prayer
From brotherhood the one way upward leads.
Like the sustaining air
Are both for flowers and weeds.
But he who claims in spirit to be flower,
Will find them both an air that doth devour.

Whereby he smelt his treason, who implored
External gifts bestowed but on the sword;
Beheld himself, with less and less disguise,
Through those blood-cataracts which dimmed his eyes,
His army's foe, condemned to strive and fail;
See a black adversary's ghost prevail;
Never, though triumphs hailed him, hope to win
While still the conflict tore his breast within.

Out of that agony, misread for those
Imprisoned Powers warring unappeased,
The ghost of his black adversary rose,
To smother light, shut heaven, show earth diseased.
And long with him was wrestling ere emerged
A mind to read in him the reflex shade
Of its fierce torment; this way, that way urged;
By craven compromises hourly swayed.

Crouched as a nestling, still its wings untried,
The man's mind opened under weight of cloud.
To penetrate the dark was it endowed;
Stood day before a vision shooting wide.
Whereat the spectral enemy lost form;
The traversed wilderness exposed its track.
He felt the far advance in looking back;
Thence trust in his foot forward through the storm.

Under the low-browed tempest's eye of ire,
That ere it lightened smote a coward heart,
Earth nerved her chastened son to hail athwart
All ventures perilous his shrouded Sire;
A stranger still, religiously divined;
Not yet with understanding read aright.
But when the mind, the cherishable mind,
The multitude's grave shepherd, took full flight,
Himself as mirror raised among his kind,
He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight:
Knew that his force to fly, his will to see,
His heart enlarged beyond its ribbed domain,
Had come of many a grip in mastery,
Which held conjoined the hostile rival twain,
And of his bosom made him lord, to keep
Th


Scheme AXABBACDCDDC EFFE GHGHFFIIFF FFJJII KLLKMMNNOOPPFFFF FFFFQQ ARXRSTSTSTUU FFVVWWXX YFYFFFFF FFFFZ1 1 Z XFFUFFFFFF2 N2 NXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1011011101 1101011100 1101011101 010001011 1101110101 1011011101 0111011101 0111111111 11101011111 011111001011 1101011111 0101010111 1101110011 010010011 01011101111 1101011011 11001010101 10111011 11101 01110101 11111101101 0101111111 1101110111 111010011 1111110101 1111011111 01101101 1111110101 1111011111 0111110001 01010101001 1101011111 1101110011 111110111 010111 010111 0101110111 0101110101 1101101111 0101010001 0101011101 01011011 0111011101 1101111 1101010101 11100111 0100100011 1111011111 1111010101 1101011101 101001010 11110010101 010101011 0111011001 010010111 010011101 011101 1011101 1101010101 11010100101 1101000111 110011101 100101 1111001 11110101110 11111111010 0111110101 0101011101 101110101 111101111 1101011101 1011101 1011011111 1101011101 1111000111 01010101 011111001 11011101101 0111110101 0111010101 111111111 110100101 1101011101 0111010111 110011101 1101010101 10110011 0101000111 1101010101 1101110101 100111111 1111010101 1101011101 11010011010 010101001 11101011 1101011 01110111 0111010111 110111011 1111111111 1101011101 11110010100 111010101 0111011111 11
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 4,310
Words 761
Sentences 28
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 12, 4, 10, 6, 16, 6, 12, 8, 8, 8, 16
Lines Amount 106
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 321
Words per stanza (avg) 69
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:51 min read
65

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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