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POEMS
POEMS 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
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;
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