404 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT.
And ready in all service save rebuke. With ebb of breakfast and the cider-cup Came high debate : the others seated there Were Osric, spinner of fine sentences, A delicate insect creeping over life Feeding on molecules of floral breath, And weaving gossamer to trap the sun ; ,
Laertes, ardent, rash, and radical ; fj
Discursive Eosencranz, grave Guildenstern, And he for whom the social meal was made — The polished priest, a tolerant listener, la?
Disposed to give a hearing to the lost, , 'b+
And breakfast with them ere they went bel ,w.
From alpine metaphysic glaciers first t s'
The talk sprang copious ; the themes werl. 3 old,
But so is human breath, so infant eyes, ,
The daily nurslings of creative light. h^
Small words held mighty meanings : Mv atter. Force,
Self, Not-self, Being, Seeming, Space a/md Time —
Plebeian toilers on the dusty road )
Of daily traffic, turned to Genii j,i
And cloudy giants darkening sun andji moon.
Creation was reversed in human talk j^:
None said, " Let Darkness be," but Dj larkness was ;
And in it weltered with Teutonic eas|.e,
An argumentative Leviathan, /
Blowing cascades from out his elemf.int,
The thunderous Eosencranz, till
""Cruce, I beg!" Said Osric, with nice accent. " I al)hor That battling of the ghosts, that stidfe of terms For utmost lack of color, form, and breath, That tasteless squabbling called Ph ilosophy :
As if a blue-winged butterfly afloat
