George Meredith Poems

Poems » george meredith

George Meredith
George Meredith, OM (February 12, 1828 – May 18, 1909) was an English novelist and poet. Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two years. He read law and was articled as a solicitor, but abandoned that profession for journalism and poetry shortly after marrying Mary Ellen Nicolls, a widowed daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, in 1849. He was twenty-one years old; she was thirty. He collected his early writings, first published in periodicals, into Poems, which was published to some acclaim in 1851. His wife left him and their five-year old son in 1858; she died three years later. Her departure was the inspiration for The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, his first "major novel". He married Marie Vulliamy in 1864 and settled in Surrey. He continued writing novels, and later in life he returned to writing poetry, often inspired by nature. Oscar Wilde, in his dialogue The Decay Of Lying, implies that Meredith, along with Balzac, is his favourite novelist, saying "Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning". As an advisor to publishers, Meredith is credited with helping Thomas Hardy start his literary career. Before his death, Meredith was honored from many quarters: he succeeded Lord Tennyson as president of the Society of Authors; in 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII. In 1909 he died at home in Box Hill, Surrey.

wisdom
 
 
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that co... [read poem]
what do i care?
 
 
What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?... [read poem]
the look
 
 
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
... [read poem]
morning
 
 
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shin... [read poem]
the tree of song
 
 
I sang my songs for the rest,
For you I am still;
The tree of my song is bare
On its ... [read poem]
wild asters
 
 
In the spring I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed dais... [read poem]
central park at dusk
 
 
Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,

While one by one... [read poem]
dirge in woods
 
 
A wind sways the pines,
And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses... [read poem]
a minuet of mozart's
 
 
Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound... [read poem]
there will come soft rains
 
 
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimme... [read poem]
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