Poems, by Alice Meynell

Transcribed from the 1903 John Lane edition by David Price, email [email protected]

Poems by Alice Meynell

Contents:

SONNET—MY HEART SHALL BE THY GARDEN
SONNET—THOUGHTS IN SEPARATION
TO A POET
SONG OF THE SPRING TO THE SUMMER
TO THE BELOVED
MEDITATION
TO THE BELOVED DEAD—A LAMENT
SONNET
IN AUTUMN
A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE
SONG
BUILDERS OF RUINS
SONNET
SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT
‘SOEUR MONIQUE’
IN EARLY SPRING
PARTED
REGRETS
SONG
SONNET—IN FEBRUARY
SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI’S MOTHER
SONNET—THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS
TO A LOST MELODY
SONNET—THE POET TO NATURE
THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD
SONNET
AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL
SONNET—THE NEOPHYTE
SONNET—SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS
SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK
SONNET—TO A DAISY
SONNET—TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME
FUTURE POETRY
THE POET SINGS TO HER POET
A POET’S SONNET
THE MODERN POET
AFTER A PARTING
RENOUNCEMENT
VENI CREATOR

DEDICATION

TO W. M.

Most of these verses were written in the author’s early youth, and were published in a volume called ‘Preludes,’ now out of print.  Other poems, representing the same transitory and early thoughts, which appeared in that volume, are now omitted as cruder than the rest; and their place is taken by the few verses written in maturer years.

SONNET—MY HEART SHALL BE THY GARDEN

My heart shall be thy garden.  Come, my own,
   Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
   Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal, thine alone.

Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
   Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.
   But ah, the birds, the birds!  Who shall build bowers
To keep these thine?  O friend, the birds have flown.

For as these come and go, and quit our pine
   To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,
       Sing one song only from our alder-trees.

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,
   Flit to the silent world and other summers,
      With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.

SONNET—THOUGHTS IN SEPARATION

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
   Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
   The good we love, and sleep—our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills!  And higher than they,

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
   Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
   Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
   Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,

My angel falls not short.  They greet each other.
   Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.

TO A POET

Thou who singest through the earth,
   All the earth’s wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
   Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
   Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
   Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
   Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store
Will be hidden on thy breast.
   Things thou longest for
Will not fear or shun thee more.

Thou shalt intimately lie
In the roots of flowers that thrust
Upwards from thee to the sky,
   With no more distrust,
When they blossom from thy dust.

Silent labours of the rain
Shall be near thee, reconciled;
Little lives of leaves and grain,
    All things shy and wild
Tell thee secrets, quiet child.

Earth, set free from thy fair fancies
And the art thou shalt resign,
Will bring forth her rue and pansies
   Unto more divine
Thoughts than any thoughts of thine.

Nought will fear thee, humbled creature.
There will lie thy mortal burden
Pressed unto the heart of Nature,
   Songless in a garden,
With a long embrace of pardon.

Then the truth all creatures tell,
And His will whom thou entreatest,
Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell
    Silence, the completest
Of thy poems, last, and sweetest.

SONG OF THE SPRING TO THE SUMMER

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

O poet of the time to be,
   My conqueror, I began for thee.
Enter into thy poet’s pain,
   And take the riches of the rain,
And make the perfect year for me.

Thou unto whom my lyre shall fall,
Whene’er thou comest, hear my call.
   O, keep the promise of my lays,
   Take the sweet parable of my days;
I trust thee with the aim of all.

And if thy thoughts unfold from me,
Know that I too have hints of thee,
   Dim hopes that come across my mind
   In the rare days of warmer wind,
And tones of summer in the sea.

And I have set thy paths, I guide
Thy blossoms on the wild hillside.
   And I, thy bygone poet, share
   The flowers that throng thy feet where
I led thy feet before I died.

TO THE BELOVED

Oh, not more subtly silence strays
   Amongst the winds, between the voices,
Mingling alike with pensive lays,
   And with the music that rejoices,
Than thou art present in my days.

My silence, life returns to thee
   In all the pauses of her breath.
Hush back to rest the melody
   That out of thee awakeneth;
And thou, wake ever, wake for me.

Full, full is life in hidden places,
   For thou art silence unto me.
Full, full is thought in endless spaces.
   Full is my life.  A silent sea
Lies round all shores with long embraces.

Thou art like silence all unvexed
   Though wild words part my soul from thee.
Thou art like silence unperplexed,
   A secret and a mystery
Between one footfall and the next.

Most dear pause in a mellow lay!
   Thou art inwoven with every air.
With thee the wildest tempests play,
   And snatches of thee everywhere
Make little heavens throughout a day.

Darkness and solitude shine, for me.
   For life’s fair outward part are rife
The silver noises; let them be.
   It is the very soul of life
Listens for thee, listens for thee.

O pause between the sobs of cares!
   O thought within all thought that is;
Trance between laughters unawares!
   Thou art the form of melodies,
And thou the ecstasy of prayers.

MEDITATION

Rorate Cœli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

No sudden thing of glory and fear
   Was the Lord’s coming; but the dear
Slow Nature’s days followed each other
To form the Saviour from his Mother
—One of the children of the year.

The earth, the rain, received the