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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1186-h.zip b/1186-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d98aacc --- /dev/null +++ b/1186-h.zip diff --git a/1186-h/1186-h.htm b/1186-h/1186-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80b267a --- /dev/null +++ b/1186-h/1186-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1568 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Poems</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Poems, by Alice Meynell</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems, by Alice Meynell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Poems + +Author: Alice Meynell + +Release Date: March 16, 2005 [eBook #1186] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1903 John Lane edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>Poems by Alice Meynell</h1> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>SONNET—MY HEART SHALL BE THY GARDEN<br /> +SONNET—THOUGHTS IN SEPARATION<br /> +TO A POET<br /> +SONG OF THE SPRING TO THE SUMMER<br /> +TO THE BELOVED<br /> +MEDITATION<br /> +TO THE BELOVED DEAD—A LAMENT<br /> +SONNET<br /> +IN AUTUMN<br /> +A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE<br /> +SONG<br /> +BUILDERS OF RUINS<br /> +SONNET<br /> +SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT<br /> +‘SOEUR MONIQUE’<br /> +IN EARLY SPRING<br /> +PARTED<br /> +REGRETS<br /> +SONG<br /> +SONNET—IN FEBRUARY<br /> +SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI’S MOTHER<br /> +SONNET—THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS<br /> +TO A LOST MELODY<br /> +SONNET—THE POET TO NATURE<br /> +THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD<br /> +SONNET<br /> +AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL<br /> +SONNET—THE NEOPHYTE<br /> +SONNET—SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS<br /> +SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK<br /> +SONNET—TO A DAISY<br /> +SONNET—TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME<br /> +FUTURE POETRY<br /> +THE POET SINGS TO HER POET<br /> +A POET’S SONNET<br /> +THE MODERN POET<br /> +AFTER A PARTING<br /> +RENOUNCEMENT<br /> +VENI CREATOR</p> +<h2>DEDICATION</h2> +<p>TO W. M.</p> +<p><i>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</i>.</p> +<h2>SONNET—MY HEART SHALL BE THY GARDEN</h2> +<p>My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own,<br /> + Into thy garden; thine be happy hours<br /> + Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,<br /> +From root to crowning petal, thine alone.</p> +<p>Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown<br /> + Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.<br /> + But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers<br /> +To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown.</p> +<p>For as these come and go, and quit our pine<br /> + To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,<br /> + Sing one song only from our alder-trees.</p> +<p>My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,<br /> + Flit to the silent world and other summers,<br /> + With wings that dip beyond the silver +seas.</p> +<h2>SONNET—THOUGHTS IN SEPARATION</h2> +<p>We never meet; yet we meet day by day<br /> + Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:<br /> + The good we love, and sleep—our innocence.<br /> +O hills of life, high hills! And higher than they,</p> +<p>Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.<br /> + Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,<br /> + Above the summits of our souls, far hence,<br /> +An angel meets an angel on the way.</p> +<p>Beyond all good I ever believed of thee<br /> + Or thou of me, these always love and live.<br /> +And though I fail of thy ideal of me,</p> +<p>My angel falls not short. They greet each other.<br /> + Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,<br /> +Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.</p> +<h2>TO A POET</h2> +<p>Thou who singest through the earth,<br /> + All the earth’s wild creatures fly thee,<br /> +Everywhere thou marrest mirth.<br /> + Dumbly they defy thee.<br /> +There is something they deny thee.</p> +<p>Pines thy fallen nature ever<br /> +For the unfallen Nature sweet.<br /> +But she shuns thy long endeavour,<br /> + Though her flowers and wheat<br /> +Throng and press thy pausing feet.</p> +<p>Though thou tame a bird to love thee,<br /> +Press thy face to grass and flowers,<br /> +All these things reserve above thee<br /> + Secrets in the bowers,<br /> +Secrets in the sun and showers.</p> +<p>Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.<br /> +In thy songs must wind and tree<br /> +Bear the fictions of thy sadness,<br /> + Thy humanity.<br /> +For their truth is not for thee.</p> +<p>Wait, and many a secret nest,<br /> +Many a hoarded winter-store<br /> +Will be hidden on thy breast.<br /> + Things thou longest for<br /> +Will not fear or shun thee more.</p> +<p>Thou shalt intimately lie<br /> +In the roots of flowers that thrust<br /> +Upwards from thee to the sky,<br /> + With no more distrust,<br /> +When they blossom from thy dust.</p> +<p>Silent labours of the rain<br /> +Shall be near thee, reconciled;<br /> +Little lives of leaves and grain,<br /> + All things shy and wild<br /> +Tell thee secrets, quiet child.</p> +<p>Earth, set free from thy fair fancies<br /> +And the art thou shalt resign,<br /> +Will bring forth her rue and pansies<br /> + Unto more divine<br /> +Thoughts than any thoughts of thine.</p> +<p>Nought will fear thee, humbled creature.<br /> +There will lie thy mortal burden<br /> +Pressed unto the heart of Nature,<br /> + Songless in a garden,<br /> +With a long embrace of pardon.</p> +<p>Then the truth all creatures tell,<br /> +And His will whom thou entreatest,<br /> +Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell<br /> + Silence, the completest<br /> +Of thy poems, last, and sweetest.</p> +<h2>SONG OF THE SPRING TO THE SUMMER</h2> +<p>THE POET SINGS TO HER POET</p> +<p>O poet of the time to be,<br /> + My conqueror, I began for thee.<br /> +Enter into thy poet’s pain,<br /> + And take the riches of the rain,<br /> +And make the perfect year for me.</p> +<p>Thou unto whom my lyre shall fall,<br /> +Whene’er thou comest, hear my call.<br /> + O, keep the promise of my lays,<br /> + Take the sweet parable of my days;<br /> +I trust thee with the aim of all.</p> +<p>And if thy thoughts unfold from me,<br /> +Know that I too have hints of thee,<br /> + Dim hopes that come across my mind<br /> + In the rare days of warmer wind,<br /> +And tones of summer in the sea.</p> +<p>And I have set thy paths, I guide<br /> +Thy blossoms on the wild hillside.<br /> + And I, thy bygone poet, share<br /> + The flowers that throng thy feet where<br /> +I led thy feet before I died.</p> +<h2>TO THE BELOVED</h2> +<p>Oh, not more subtly silence strays<br /> + Amongst the winds, between the voices,<br /> +Mingling alike with pensive lays,<br /> + And with the music that rejoices,<br /> +Than thou art present in my days.</p> +<p>My silence, life returns to thee<br /> + In all the pauses of her breath.<br /> +Hush back to rest the melody<br /> + That out of thee awakeneth;<br /> +And thou, wake ever, wake for me.</p> +<p>Full, full is life in hidden places,<br /> + For thou art silence unto me.<br /> +Full, full is thought in endless spaces.<br /> + Full is my life. A silent sea<br /> +Lies round all shores with long embraces.</p> +<p>Thou art like silence all unvexed<br /> + Though wild words part my soul from thee.<br /> +Thou art like silence unperplexed,<br /> + A secret and a mystery<br /> +Between one footfall and the next.</p> +<p>Most dear pause in a mellow lay!<br /> + Thou art inwoven with every air.<br /> +With thee the wildest tempests play,<br /> + And snatches of thee everywhere<br /> +Make little heavens throughout a day.</p> +<p>Darkness and solitude shine, for me.<br /> + For life’s fair outward part are rife<br /> +The silver noises; let them be.<br /> + It is the very soul of life<br /> +Listens for thee, listens for thee.</p> +<p>O pause between the sobs of cares!<br /> + O thought within all thought that is;<br /> +Trance between laughters unawares!<br /> + Thou art the form of melodies,<br /> +And thou the ecstasy of prayers.</p> +<h2>MEDITATION</h2> +<p><i>Rorate Cœli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum</i>.<br /> +<i>Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem</i>.</p> +<p>No sudden thing of glory and fear<br /> + Was the Lord’s coming; but the dear<br /> +Slow Nature’s days followed each other<br /> +To form the Saviour from his Mother<br /> +—One of the children of the year.</p> +<p>The earth, the rain, received the trust,<br /> +—The sun and dews, to frame the Just.<br /> + He drew his daily life from these,<br /> + According to his own decrees<br /> +Who makes man from the fertile dust.</p> +<p>Sweet summer and the winter wild,<br /> +These brought him forth, the Undefiled.<br /> + The happy Springs renewed again<br /> + His daily bread, the growing grain,<br /> +The food and raiment of the Child.</p> +<h2>TO THE BELOVED DEAD—A LAMENT</h2> +<p>Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers<br /> + Play on a window-pane.<br /> +The time is there, the form of music lingers;<br /> + But O thou sweetest strain,<br /> +Where is thy soul? Thou liest i’ the wind and rain.</p> +<p>Even as to him who plays that idle air,<br /> + It seems a melody,<br /> +For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,<br /> + Dead, thou dost live in me,<br /> +And all this lonely soul is full of thee.</p> +<p>Thou song of songs!—not music as before<br /> + Unto the outward ear;<br /> +My spirit sings thee inly evermore,<br /> + Thy falls with tear on tear.<br /> +I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.</p> +<p>Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,<br /> + Is there no pulse to move thee,<br /> +At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,<br /> + And falling tears above thee,<br /> +O music stifled from the ears that love thee?</p> +<p>Oh, for a strain of thee from outer air!<br /> + Soul wearies soul, I find.<br /> +Of thee, thee, thee, I am mournfully aware,<br /> + —Contained in one poor mind,<br /> +Who wert in tune and time to every wind.</p> +<p>Poor grave, poor lost belovéd! but I burn<br /> + For some more vast To be.<br /> +As he that played that secret tune may turn<br /> + And strike it on a lyre triumphantly,<br /> +I wait some future, all a lyre for thee.</p> +<h2>SONNET</h2> +<p>Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,<br /> + Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances<br /> + Of time and change upon your happiest fancies.<br /> +I keep your golden hour, and will restore it.</p> +<p>If ever, in time to come, you would explore it—<br /> + Your old self whose thoughts went like last year’s +pansies,<br /> + Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances;<br /> +In my unfailing praises now I store it.</p> +<p>To keep all joys of yours from Time’s estranging,<br /> + I shall be then a treasury where your gay,<br /> + Happy, and pensive past for ever is.</p> +<p>I shall be then a garden charmed from changing,<br /> + In which your June has never passed away.<br /> + Walk there awhile among my memories.</p> +<h2>IN AUTUMN</h2> +<p>The leaves are many under my feet,<br /> + And drift one way.<br /> +Their scent of death is weary and sweet.<br /> + A flight of them is in the grey<br /> +Where sky and forest meet.</p> +<p>The low winds moan for dead sweet years;<br /> + The birds sing all for pain,<br /> +Of a common thing, to weary ears,—<br /> + Only a summer’s fate of rain,<br /> +And a woman’s fate of tears.</p> +<p>I walk to love and life alone<br /> + Over these mournful places,<br /> +Across the summer overthrown,<br /> + The dead joys of these silent faces,<br /> +To claim my own.</p> +<p>I know his heart has beat to bright<br /> + Sweet loves gone by.<br /> +I know the leaves that die to-night<br /> + Once budded to the sky,<br /> +And I shall die from his delight.</p> +<p>O leaves, so quietly ending now,<br /> + You have heard cuckoos sing.<br /> +And I will grow upon my bough<br /> + If only for a Spring,<br /> +And fall when the rain is on my brow.</p> +<p>O tell me, tell me ere you die,<br /> + Is it worth the pain?<br /> +You bloomed so fair, you waved so high;<br /> + Now that the sad days wane,<br /> +Are you repenting where you lie?</p> +<p>I lie amongst you, and I kiss<br /> + Your fragrance mouldering.<br /> +O dead delights, is it such bliss,<br /> + That tuneful Spring?<br /> +Is love so sweet, that comes to this?</p> +<p>O dying blisses of the year,<br /> + I hear the young lambs bleat,<br /> +The clamouring birds i’ the copse I hear,<br /> + I hear the waving wheat,<br /> +Together laid on a dead-leaf bier.</p> +<p>Kiss me again as I kiss you;<br /> + Kiss me again;<br /> +For all your tuneful nights of dew,<br /> + In this your time of rain,<br /> +For all your kisses when Spring was new.</p> +<p>You will not, broken hearts; let be.<br /> + I pass across your death<br /> +To a golden summer you shall not see,<br /> + And in your dying breath<br /> +There is no benison for me.</p> +<p>There is an autumn yet to wane,<br /> + There are leaves yet to fall,<br /> +Which, when I kiss, may kiss again,<br /> + And, pitied, pity me all for all,<br /> +And love me in mist and rain.</p> +<h2>A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE</h2> +<p>Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,<br /> +O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses<br /> +What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.</p> +<p>O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!<br /> +O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,<br /> +And from the changes of my heart must make thee.</p> +<p>O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven.<br /> +Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?<br /> +And are they calm about the fall of even?</p> +<p>Pause near the ending of thy long migration,<br /> +For this one sudden hour of desolation<br /> +Appeals to one hour of thy meditation.</p> +<p>Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee<br /> +Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,<br /> +Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.</p> +<p>Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander<br /> +Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder<br /> +The misty mountains of the morning yonder.</p> +<p>Listen:- the mountain winds with rain were fretting,<br /> +And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting.<br /> +I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.</p> +<p>What part of this wild heart of mine I know not<br /> +Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,<br /> +And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.</p> +<p>Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it<br /> +Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,<br /> +And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.</p> +<p>Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee.<br /> +Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence hide thee,<br /> +This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,—</p> +<p>Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden,<br /> +With thy regrets was morning over-shaden,<br /> +With sorrow thou hast left, her life was laden.</p> +<p>But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee<br /> +Life changes, and the years and days renew thee.<br /> +Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee.</p> +<p>Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses<br /> +Upon the evening as the morning tresses,<br /> +Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses.</p> +<p>And we, so altered in our shifting phases,<br /> +Track one another ’mid the many mazes<br /> +By the eternal child-breath of the daisies.</p> +<p>I have not writ this letter of divining<br /> +To make a glory of thy silent pining,<br /> +A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.</p> +<p>Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.<br /> +Only one morning, and the day was clouded.<br /> +And one old age with all regrets is crowded.</p> +<p>Oh, hush; oh, hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.<br /> +Oh, hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping?<br /> +Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?</p> +<p>Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.<br /> +Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter<br /> +That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her.</p> +<p>The one who now thy faded features guesses,<br /> +With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,<br /> +With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.</p> +<h2>SONG</h2> +<p>As the inhastening tide doth roll,<br /> +Dear and desired, along the whole<br /> + Wide shining strand, and floods the caves,<br /> + Your love comes filling with happy waves<br /> +The open sea-shore of my soul.</p> +<p>But inland from the seaward spaces,<br /> +None knows, not even you, the places<br /> + Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,<br /> + —The little solitudes of delight<br /> +This tide constrains in dim embraces.</p> +<p>You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,<br /> +But know not of the quiet dimmed<br /> + Rivers your coming floods and fills,<br /> + The little pools ’mid happier hills,<br /> +My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.</p> +<p>What, I have secrets from you? Yes.<br /> +But, visiting Sea, your love doth press<br /> + And reach in further than you know,<br /> + And fills all these; and when you go,<br /> +There’s loneliness in loneliness.</p> +<h2>BUILDERS OF RUINS</h2> +<p>We build with strength the deep tower-wall<br /> + That shall be shattered thus and thus.<br /> +And fair and great are court and hall,<br /> + But <i>how</i> fair—this is not for us,<br /> +Who know the lack that lurks in all.</p> +<p>We know, we know how all too bright<br /> + The hues are that our painting wears,<br /> +And how the marble gleams too white;—<br /> + We speak in unknown tongues, the years<br /> +Interpret everything aright,</p> +<p>And crown with weeds our pride of towers,<br /> + And warm our marble through with sun,<br /> +And break our pavements through with flowers,<br /> + With an Amen when all is done,<br /> +Knowing these perfect things of ours.</p> +<p>O days, we ponder, left alone,<br /> + Like children in their lonely hour,<br /> +And in our secrets keep your own,<br /> + As seeds the colour of the flower.<br /> +To-day they are not all unknown,</p> +<p>The stars that ’twixt the rise and fall,<br /> + Like relic-seers, shall one by one<br /> +Stand musing o’er our empty hall;<br /> + And setting moons shall brood upon<br /> +The frescoes of our inward wall.</p> +<p>And when some midsummer shall be,<br /> + Hither will come some little one<br /> +(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he),<br /> + Sit on a ruin i’ the late long sun,<br /> +And think, one foot upon his knee.</p> +<p>And where they wrought, these lives of ours,<br /> + So many-worded, many-souled,<br /> +A North-west wind will take the towers,<br /> + And dark with colour, sunny and cold,<br /> +Will range alone among the flowers.</p> +<p>And here or there, at our desire,<br /> + The little clamorous owl shall sit<br /> +Through her still time; and we aspire<br /> + To make a law (and know not it)<br /> +Unto the life of a wild briar.</p> +<p>Our purpose is distinct and dear,<br /> + Though from our open eyes ’tis hidden.<br /> +Thou, Time-to-come, shalt make it clear,<br /> + Undoing our work; we are children chidden<br /> +With pity and smiles of many a year.</p> +<p>Who shall allot the praise, and guess<br /> + What part is yours and what is ours?—<br /> +O years that certainly will bless<br /> + Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with flowers,<br /> +With ruin all our perfectness.</p> +<p>Be patient, Time, of our delays,<br /> + Too happy hopes, and wasted fears,<br /> +Our faithful ways, our wilful ways,<br /> + Solace our labours, O our seers<br /> +The seasons, and our bards the days;</p> +<p>And make our pause and silence brim<br /> + With the shrill children’s play, and sweets<br /> +Of those pathetic flowers and dim,<br /> + Of those eternal flowers my Keats<br /> +Dying felt growing over him.</p> +<h2>SONNET</h2> +<p>I touched the heart that loved me as a player<br /> + Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill<br /> + No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still<br /> +I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air<br /> +Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?).<br /> + Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil<br /> + My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will.<br /> +He is gone, and silence takes me unaware.</p> +<p>The songs I knew not he resumes, set free<br /> +From my constraining love, alas for me!<br /> + His part in our tune goes with him; my part<br /> +Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute<br /> + As one with full strong music in his heart<br /> +Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute.</p> +<h2>SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT</h2> +<p>THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET</p> +<p>From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn,<br /> + We two are sundered always, sweet.<br /> +A few stars shake o’er the rocky lawn<br /> + And the cold sea-shore when we meet.<br /> + The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet.</p> +<p>We are not day and night, my Fair,<br /> + But one. It is an hour of hours.<br /> +And thoughts that are not otherwhere<br /> + Are thought here ’mid the blown sea-flowers,<br /> + This meeting and this dusk of ours.</p> +<p>Delight has taken Pain to her heart,<br /> + And there is dusk and stars for these.<br /> +Oh, linger, linger! They would not part;<br /> + And the wild wind comes from over-seas<br /> + With a new song to the olive trees.</p> +<p>And when we meet by the sounding pine<br /> + Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother.<br /> +And when thy sweet eyes answer mine,<br /> + Peace nestles close to her mournful mother,<br /> + And Hope and Weariness kiss each other.</p> +<h2>‘SOEUR MONIQUE’</h2> +<p>A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN</p> +<p>Quiet form of silent nun,<br /> +What has given you to my inward eyes?<br /> +What has marked you, unknown one,<br /> +In the throngs of centuries<br /> +That mine ears do listen through?<br /> +This old master’s melody<br /> +That expresses you,<br /> +This admired simplicity,<br /> +Tender, with a serious wit,<br /> +And two words, the name of it,<br /> +‘Soeur Monique.’</p> +<p>And if sad the music is,<br /> +It is sad with mysteries<br /> +Of a small immortal thing<br /> +That the passing ages sing,—<br /> +Simple music making mirth<br /> +Of the dying and the birth<br /> +Of the people of the earth.</p> +<p>No, not sad; we are beguiled,<br /> +Sad with living as we are;<br /> +Ours the sorrow, outpouring<br /> +Sad self on a selfless thing,<br /> +As our eyes and hearts are mild<br /> +With our sympathy for Spring,<br /> +With a pity sweet and wild<br /> +For the innocent and far,<br /> +With our sadness in a star,<br /> +Or our sadness in a child.</p> +<p>But two words, and this sweet air.<br /> + Soeur Monique,<br /> +Had he more, who set you there?<br /> +Was his music-dream of you<br /> +Of some perfect nun he knew,<br /> +Or of some ideal, as true?</p> +<p>And I see you where you stand<br /> +With your life held in your hand<br /> +As a rosary of days.<br /> +And your thoughts in calm arrays,<br /> +And your innocent prayers are told<br /> +On your rosary of days.<br /> +And the young days and the old<br /> +With their quiet prayers did meet<br /> +When the chaplet was complete.</p> +<p>Did it vex you, the surmise<br /> +Of this wind of words, this storm of cries,<br /> + Though you kept the silence so<br /> + In the storms of long ago,<br /> + And you keep it, like a star?<br /> + —Of the evils triumphing,<br /> +Strong, for all your perfect conquering,<br /> + Silenced conqueror that you are?<br /> +And I wonder at your peace, I wonder.<br /> +Would it trouble you to know,<br /> +Tender soul, the world and sin<br /> +By your calm feet trodden under<br /> + Long ago,<br /> +Living now, mighty to win?<br /> +And your feet are vanished like the snow.</p> +<p>Vanished; but the poet, he<br /> +In whose dream your face appears,<br /> +He who ranges unknown years<br /> +With your music in his heart,<br /> +Speaks to you familiarly<br /> +Where you keep apart,<br /> +And invents you as you were.<br /> +And your picture, O my nun!<br /> +Is a strangely easy one,<br /> +For the holy weed you wear,<br /> +For your hidden eyes and hidden hair,<br /> +And in picturing you I may<br /> +Scarcely go astray.</p> +<p>O the vague reality!<br /> +The mysterious certainty!<br /> +O strange truth of these my guesses<br /> +In the wide thought-wildernesses!<br /> +—Truth of one divined of many flowers;<br /> +Of one raindrop in the showers<br /> +Of the long-ago swift rain;<br /> +Of one tear of many tears<br /> +In some world-renownéd pain;<br /> +Of one daisy ’mid the centuries of sun;<br /> +Of a little living nun<br /> +In the garden of the years.</p> +<p>Yes, I am not far astray;<br /> +But I guess you as might one<br /> +Pausing when young March is grey,<br /> +In a violet-peopled day;<br /> +All his thoughts go out to places that he knew,<br /> +To his child-home in the sun,<br /> +To the fields of his regret,<br /> +To one place i’ the innocent March air,<br /> +By one olive, and invent<br /> +The familiar form and scent<br /> +Safely; a white violet<br /> +Certainly is there.</p> +<p>Soeur Monique, remember me.<br /> +’Tis not in the past alone<br /> +I am picturing you to be;<br /> +But my little friend, my own,<br /> +In my moment, pray for me.<br /> +For another dream is mine,<br /> +And another dream is true,<br /> + Sweeter even,<br /> +Of the little ones that shine<br /> +Lost within the light divine,—<br /> +Of some meekest flower, or you,<br /> + In the fields of Heaven.</p> +<h2>IN EARLY SPRING</h2> +<p>O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise<br /> + In the young children’s eyes.<br /> +But I have learnt the years, and know the yet<br /> + Leaf-folded violet.<br /> +Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell<br /> + The cuckoo’s fitful bell.<br /> +I wander in a grey time that encloses<br /> + June and the wild hedge-roses.<br /> +A year’s procession of the flowers doth pass<br /> + My feet, along the grass.<br /> +And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know<br /> + The notes that stir you so,<br /> +Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear<br /> + Beginnings of the year.<br /> +In these young days you meditate your part;<br /> + I have it all by heart.</p> +<p>I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers<br /> + Hidden and warm with showers,<br /> +And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall<br /> + Alter his interval.<br /> +But not a flower or song I ponder is<br /> + My own, but memory’s.<br /> +I shall be silent in those days desired<br /> + Before a world inspired.<br /> +O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases<br /> + Earth, thy familiar daisies.</p> +<p>The poet mused upon the dusky height,<br /> + Between two stars towards night,<br /> +His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,<br /> + The meaning of his face:<br /> +There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,<br /> + Hid in his grey young eyes.<br /> +My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,<br /> + And wonder for his voice.<br /> +Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire<br /> + But to divine his lyre?<br /> +Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,<br /> + But he is lord of his.</p> +<h2>PARTED</h2> +<p>Farewell to one now silenced quite,<br /> +Sent out of hearing, out of sight,—<br /> + My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.<br /> + He is not banished, though, for this,—<br /> +Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.</p> +<p>Though I shall walk with him no more,<br /> +A low voice sounds upon the shore.<br /> + He must not watch my resting-place<br /> + But who shall drive a mournful face<br /> +From the sad winds about my door?</p> +<p>I shall not hear his voice complain,<br /> +But who shall stop the patient rain?<br /> + His tears must not disturb my heart,<br /> + But who shall change the years, and part<br /> +The world from every thought of pain?</p> +<p>Although my life is left so dim,<br /> +The morning crowns the mountain-rim;<br /> + Joy is not gone from summer skies,<br /> + Nor innocence from children’s eyes,<br /> +And all these things are part of him.</p> +<p>He is not banished, for the showers<br /> +Yet wake this green warm earth of ours.<br /> + How can the summer but be sweet?<br /> + I shall not have him at my feet,<br /> +And yet my feet are on the flowers.</p> +<h2>REGRETS</h2> +<p>As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour<br /> + Out by the low sand spaces,<br /> +The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore<br /> + With lingering embraces,—</p> +<p>So in the tide of life that carries me<br /> + From where thy true heart dwells,<br /> +Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee<br /> + With lessening farewells;</p> +<p>Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets;<br /> + A care half lost in cares;<br /> +The saddest of my verses; dim regrets;<br /> + Thy name among my prayers.</p> +<p>I would the day might come, so waited for,<br /> + So patiently besought,<br /> +When I, returning, should fill up once more<br /> + Thy desolated thought;</p> +<p>And fill thy loneliness that lies apart<br /> + In still, persistent pain.<br /> +Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart,<br /> + As the tide comes again,</p> +<p>And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets<br /> + Seaweeds afloat, and fills<br /> +The silent pools, rivers and rivulets<br /> + Among the inland hills?</p> +<h2>SONG</h2> +<p>My Fair, no beauty of thine will last<br /> + Save in my love’s eternity.<br /> + Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,<br /> +Are lost for ever—their moment past—<br /> + Except the few thou givest to me.</p> +<p>Thy sweet words vanish day by day,<br /> + As all breath of mortality;<br /> + Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,<br /> +And all thy dear tones pass away,<br /> + Except the few that sing to me.</p> +<p>Hide then within my heart, oh, hide<br /> + All thou art loth should go from thee.<br /> + Be kinder to thyself and me.<br /> +My cupful from this river’s tide<br /> + Shall never reach the long sad sea.</p> +<h2>SONNET—IN FEBRUARY</h2> +<p>Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,<br /> + Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,<br /> + And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.<br /> +A poet’s face asleep is this grey morn.</p> +<p>Now in the midst of the old world forlorn<br /> + A mystic child is set in these still hours.<br /> + I keep this time, even before the flowers,<br /> +Sacred to all the young and the unborn;</p> +<p>To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,<br /> + And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,<br /> + And to the future of my own young art,</p> +<p>And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,<br /> + My friend, to your calm face and the immortal<br /> + Child tarrying all your life-time in +your heart.</p> +<h2>SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI’S MOTHER</h2> +<p>I had not seen my son’s dear face<br /> +(He chose the cloister by God’s grace)<br /> + Since it had come to full flower-time.<br /> + I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,<br /> +That folded flower of his dear face.</p> +<p>Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears<br /> +When on a day in many years<br /> + One of his Order came. I thrilled,<br /> + Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled.<br /> +I doubted, for my mists of tears.</p> +<p>His blessing be with me for ever!<br /> +My hope and doubt were hard to sever.<br /> + —That altered face, those holy weeds.<br /> + I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,<br /> +And lost his echoing feet for ever.</p> +<p>If to my son my alms were given<br /> +I know not, and I wait for Heaven.<br /> + He did not plead for child of mine,<br /> + But for another Child divine,<br /> +And unto Him it was surely given.</p> +<p>There is One alone who cannot change;<br /> +Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange;<br /> + And all I give is given to One.<br /> + I might mistake my dearest son,<br /> +But never the Son who cannot change.</p> +<h2>SONNET—THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS</h2> +<p>Like him who met his own eyes in the river,<br /> + The poet trembles at his own long gaze<br /> + That meets him through the changing nights and days<br /> +From out great Nature; all her waters quiver<br /> +With his fair image facing him for ever;<br /> + The music that he listens to betrays<br /> + His own heart to his ears; by trackless ways<br /> +His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour.</p> +<p>His dreams are far among the silent hills;<br /> + His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain<br /> +With winds at night; strange recognition thrills<br /> + His lonely heart with piercing love and pain;<br /> +He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills,<br /> + His weary tears that touch him with the rain.</p> +<h2>TO A LOST MELODY</h2> +<p>Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody,<br /> + Sung beyond memory,<br /> +When golden to the winds this world of ours<br /> + Waved wild with boundless flowers;<br /> +Sung in some past when wildernesses were,—<br /> + Not dead, not dead, lost air!<br /> +Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou,<br /> + And what soul knows thee now?<br /> +Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind<br /> + From that o’erburdened mind<br /> +That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue<br /> + By which thou first wert sung?<br /> +Was not the holy choir the endless dome,<br /> + And nature all thy home?<br /> +Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast.<br /> + Lulling thy storms to rest?<br /> +And is the June air laden with thee now,<br /> + Passing the summer-bough?<br /> +And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea<br /> + Balmy with thoughts of thee?<br /> +To rock on daybreak winds dost thou rejoice,<br /> + As first on his strong voice<br /> +Whose radiant morning soul did give thee birth,<br /> + Gave thee to heaven and earth?<br /> +Or did each bird win one dear note of thee<br /> + To pipe eternally?<br /> +Art thou the secret of the small field-flowers<br /> + Nodding thy time for hours,<br /> +—Blown by the happy winds from hill to hill,<br /> + And such a secret still?<br /> +Or wert thou rapt awhile to other spheres<br /> + To gladden tenderer ears?<br /> +Doth music’s soul contain thee, precious air,<br /> + Sleepest thou clasped there,<br /> +Until a time shall come for thee to start<br /> + Into some unborn heart?<br /> +Then wilt thou as the clouds of ages roll,<br /> + Thou migratory soul,<br /> +Amid a different, wilder, wilderness<br /> + —In crowds that throng and press,<br /> +Revive thy blessed cadences forgotten<br /> + In some soul new-begotten?<br /> +Oh, wilt thou ever tire of thy long rest<br /> + On nature’s silent breast?<br /> +And wilt thou leave thy rainbow showers, to bear<br /> + A part in human care?<br /> +—Forsake thy boundless silence to make choice<br /> + Of some pathetic voice?<br /> +—Forsake thy stars, thy suns, thy moons, thy skies<br /> + For man’s desiring sighs?</p> +<h2>SONNET—THE POET TO NATURE</h2> +<p>I have no secrets from thee, lyre sublime,<br /> + My lyre whereof I make my melody.<br /> + I sing one way like the west wind through thee,<br /> +With my whole heart, and hear thy sweet strings chime.</p> +<p>But thou, who soundest in my tune and rhyme,<br /> + Hast tones I wake not, in thy land and sea,<br /> + Loveliness not for me, secrets from me,<br /> +Thoughts for another, and another time.</p> +<p>And as, the west wind passed, the south wind alters<br /> + His intimate sweet things, his hues of noon,<br /> + The voices of his waves, sound of his +pine,</p> +<p>The meanings of his lost heart,—this thought falters<br /> + In my short song—‘Another bard shall tune<br /> + Thee, my one Lyre, to other songs than +mine.’</p> +<h2>THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD</h2> +<p>In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,<br /> +—Hills that look into the sun, and there a river’d meadow-land.<br /> +And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,<br /> + When you thought, and chose the hills.</p> +<p>‘If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.<br /> +With a singing soul for music’s sake, I climb and meet the rain,<br /> +And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be<br /> + Unconsoled by sympathy.’</p> +<p>But how dared you use me so? For you bring my ripe years low<br /> +To your child’s whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.<br /> +And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.<br /> + But you mark not, through the years.</p> +<p>‘To the mountain leads my way. If the plains are green +to-day,<br /> +These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May,<br /> +With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that grow.’<br /> + But the summer in the snow?</p> +<p>Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold,<br /> +Settled by a wayward child’s ideal at some ten years old?<br /> +—How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay +not for,<br /> + Will not open to you more?</p> +<p>You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are wild,<br /> +And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled,<br /> +Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun,<br /> + To feel how the winds came on.</p> +<p>But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear,<br /> +Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air,<br /> +And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills<br /> + Wider wilderness fulfils.</p> +<p>And if e’er you should come down to the village or the town,<br /> +With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown,<br /> +You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire,<br /> + Nor be known by any fire.</p> +<p>It is memory that shrinks. You were all too brave, methinks,<br /> +Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks,<br /> +Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie<br /> + All the life that was to be.</p> +<p>With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain,<br /> +Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again;<br /> +But regret may turn with longing to that one hour’s choice you +had,<br /> + When the silence broodeth sad.</p> +<p>I rebel <i>not</i>, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly,<br /> +For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I,<br /> +With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit,<br /> + Sing the Amen, knowing it.</p> +<h2>SONNET</h2> +<p>A poet of one mood in all my lays,<br /> + Ranging all life to sing one only love,<br /> + Like a west wind across the world I move,<br /> +Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways.</p> +<p>The countries change, but not the west-wind days<br /> + Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above,<br /> + And on all seas the colours of a dove,<br /> +And on all fields a flash of silver greys.</p> +<p>I make the whole world answer to my art<br /> + And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears<br /> +I change not ever, bearing, for my part,<br /> + One thought that is the treasure of my years,<br /> +A small cloud full of rain upon my heart<br /> + And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears.</p> +<h2>AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL</h2> +<p>There’s a feast undated yet:<br /> + Both our true lives hold it fast,—<br /> +The first day we ever met.<br /> + What a great day came and passed!<br /> + —Unknown then, but known at last.</p> +<p>And we met: You knew not me,<br /> + Mistress of your joys and fears;<br /> +Held my hands that held the key<br /> + Of the treasure of your years,<br /> + Of the fountain of your tears.</p> +<p>For you knew not it was I,<br /> + And I knew not it was you.<br /> +We have learnt, as days went by.<br /> + But a flower struck root and grew<br /> + Underground, and no one knew.</p> +<p>Days of days! Unmarked it rose,<br /> + In whose hours we were to meet;<br /> +And forgotten passed. Who knows,<br /> + Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,<br /> + At the coming of your feet?</p> +<p>One mere day, we thought; the measure<br /> + Of such days the year fulfils.<br /> +Now, how dearly would we treasure<br /> + Something from its fields, its rills,<br /> + And its memorable hills;</p> +<p>—But one leaf of oak or lime,<br /> + Or one blossom from its bowers<br /> +No one gathered at the time.<br /> + Oh, to keep that day of ours<br /> + By one relic of its flowers!</p> +<h2>SONNET—THE NEOPHYTE</h2> +<p>Who knows what days I answer for to-day:<br /> + Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow<br /> + This yet unfaded and a faded brow;<br /> +Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.</p> +<p>Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,<br /> + Give one repose to pain I know not now,<br /> + One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.<br /> +I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.</p> +<p>Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.<br /> + I fold to-day at altars far apart<br /> +Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat<br /> + I seal my love to-be, my folded art.<br /> +I light the tapers at my head and feet,<br /> + And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.</p> +<h2>SONNET—SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS</h2> +<p>O’er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;<br /> + The Spring comes with a full heart silently,<br /> + And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea<br /> +Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.</p> +<p>With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together<br /> + Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.<br /> + Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,<br /> +Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.</p> +<p>I fain would put my hands about thy face,<br /> + Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,<br /> + And draw thee to me like a mournful child.</p> +<p>Thou lookest on me from another place;<br /> + I touch not this day’s secret, nor the thing<br /> + That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes +wild.</p> +<h2>SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK</h2> +<p>All my stars forsake me,<br /> +And the dawn-winds shake me.<br /> +Where shall I betake me?</p> +<p>Whither shall I run<br /> +Till the set of sun,<br /> +Till the day be done?</p> +<p>To the mountain-mine,<br /> +To the boughs o’ the pine,<br /> +To the blind man’s eyne,</p> +<p>To a brow that is<br /> +Bowed upon the knees,<br /> +Sick with memories.</p> +<h2>SONNET—TO A DAISY</h2> +<p>Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,<br /> + Like all created things, secrets from me,<br /> + And stand a barrier to eternity.<br /> +And I, how can I praise thee well and wide?</p> +<p>From where I dwell—upon the hither side?<br /> + Thou little veil for so great mystery,<br /> + When shall I penetrate all things and thee,<br /> +And then look back? For this I must abide,</p> +<p>Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled<br /> + Literally between me and the world.<br /> + Then I shall drink from in beneath a +spring,</p> +<p>And from a poet’s side shall read his book.<br /> + O daisy mine, what will it be to look<br /> + From God’s side even of such a +simple thing?</p> +<h2>SONNET—TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME</h2> +<p>Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?<br /> + This winter of a silent poet’s heart<br /> + Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,<br /> +Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.</p> +<p>Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?<br /> + Did the dead summer’s last warmth foster thee?<br /> + Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,<br /> +And stirring out of sight,—and thou the sign?</p> +<p>Where shall I look—backwards or to the morrow<br /> + For others of thy fragrance, secret child?<br /> + Who knows if last things or if first +things claim thee?</p> +<p>—Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,<br /> + Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?<br /> + How, my December violet, shall I name +thee?</p> +<h2>FUTURE POETRY</h2> +<p>No new delights to our desire<br /> + The singers of the past can yield.<br /> + I lift mine eyes to hill and field,<br /> +And see in them your yet dumb lyre,<br /> + Poets unborn and unrevealed.</p> +<p>Singers to come, what thoughts will start<br /> + To song? what words of yours be sent<br /> + Through man’s soul, and with earth be blent?<br /> +These worlds of nature and the heart<br /> + Await you like an instrument.</p> +<p>Who knows what musical flocks of words<br /> + Upon these pine-tree tops will light,<br /> + And crown these towers in circling flight<br /> +And cross these seas like summer birds,<br /> + And give a voice to the day and night?</p> +<p>Something of you already is ours;<br /> + Some mystic part of you belongs<br /> + To us whose dreams your future throngs,<br /> +Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,<br /> + Which will mean so much in your songs.</p> +<p>I wonder, like the maid who found,<br /> + And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme<br /> + Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream.<br /> +She dreams on its sealed past profound;<br /> + On a deep future sealed I dream.</p> +<p>She bears it in her wanderings<br /> + Within her arms, and has not pressed<br /> + Her unskilled fingers, but her breast<br /> +Upon those silent sacred strings;<br /> + I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest.</p> +<p>For I, i’ the world of lands and seas,<br /> + The sky of wind and rain and fire,<br /> + And in man’s world of long desire—<br /> +In all that is yet dumb in these—<br /> + Have found a more mysterious lyre.</p> +<h2>THE POET SINGS TO HER POET</h2> +<p>THE MOON TO THE SUN</p> +<p>As the full moon shining there<br /> +To the sun that lighteth her<br /> +Am I unto thee for ever,<br /> +O my secret glory-giver!<br /> +O my light, I am dark but fair,<br /> + Black but fair.</p> +<p>Shine, Earth loves thee! And then shine<br /> +And be loved through thoughts of mine.<br /> +All thy secrets that I treasure<br /> +I translate them at my pleasure.<br /> +I am crowned with glory of thine.<br /> + Thine, not thine.</p> +<p>I make pensive thy delight,<br /> +And thy strong gold silver-white.<br /> +Though all beauty of nine thou makest,<br /> +Yet to earth which thou forsakest<br /> +I have made thee fair all night,<br /> + Day all night.</p> +<h2>A POET’S SONNET</h2> +<p>If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear,<br /> + To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping?<br /> + To the long winds of heaven? Shall these come sweeping<br /> +My songs forgone against my face and hair?</p> +<p>Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear,<br /> + My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping?<br /> + No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping,<br /> +And I shall die a poet unaware.</p> +<p>From me, my art, thou canst not pass away;<br /> + And I, a singer though I cease to sing,<br /> + Shall own thee without joy in thee or +woe.</p> +<p>Through my indifferent words of every day,<br /> + Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring<br /> + And make my poem; and I shall not know.</p> +<h2>THE MODERN POET</h2> +<p>A SONG OF DERIVATIONS</p> +<p>I come from nothing; but from where<br /> +Come the undying thoughts I bear?<br /> + Down, through long links of death and birth,<br /> + From the past poets of the earth.<br /> +My immortality is there.</p> +<p>I am like the blossom of an hour.<br /> +But long, long vanished sun and shower<br /> + Awoke my breath i’ the young world’s air.<br /> + I track the past back everywhere<br /> +Through seed and flower and seed and flower.</p> +<p>Or I am like a stream that flows<br /> +Full of the cold springs that arose<br /> + In morning lands, in distant hills;<br /> + And down the plain my channel fills<br /> +With melting of forgotten snows.</p> +<p>Voices, I have not heard, possessed<br /> +My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed<br /> + With relics of the far unknown.<br /> + And mixed with memories not my own<br /> +The sweet streams throng into my breast.</p> +<p>Before this life began to be,<br /> +The happy songs that wake in me<br /> + Woke long ago and far apart.<br /> + Heavily on this little heart<br /> +Presses this immortality.</p> +<h2>AFTER A PARTING</h2> +<p>Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;<br /> + I never name thee even.<br /> +But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?<br /> + For thou art so near Heaven<br /> +That heavenward meditations pause upon thee.</p> +<p>Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;<br /> + My trembling thoughts discern<br /> +Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;<br /> + And if I turn from but one sin, I turn<br /> +Unto a smile of thine.</p> +<p>How shall I thrust thee apart<br /> + Since all my growth tends to thee night and day—<br /> +To thee faith, hope, and art?<br /> + Swift are the currents setting all one way;<br /> +They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.</p> +<h2>RENOUNCEMENT</h2> +<p>I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,<br /> + I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—<br /> + The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven’s +height,<br /> +And in the sweetest passage of a song.</p> +<p>Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng<br /> + This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;<br /> + But it must never, never come in sight;<br /> +I must stop short of thee the whole day long.</p> +<p>But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,<br /> + When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,<br /> + And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,</p> +<p>Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—<br /> + With the first dream that comes with the first sleep<br /> + I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.</p> +<h2>VENI CREATOR</h2> +<p>So humble things Thou hast borne for us, O God,<br /> +Left’st Thou a path of lowliness untrod?<br /> +Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden.<br /> +For we endure the tender pain of pardon,—<br /> +One with another we forbear. Give heed,<br /> +Look at the mournful world Thou hast decreed.<br /> +The time has come. At last we hapless men<br /> +Know all our haplessness all through. Come, then,<br /> +Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven,<br /> +Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1186-h.htm or 1186-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/8/1186 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Poems + +Author: Alice Meynell + +Release Date: March 16, 2005 [eBook #1186] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1903 John Lane edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +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 Coeli 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 trust, +--The sun and dews, to frame the Just. + He drew his daily life from these, + According to his own decrees +Who makes man from the fertile dust. + +Sweet summer and the winter wild, +These brought him forth, the Undefiled. + The happy Springs renewed again + His daily bread, the growing grain, +The food and raiment of the Child. + + + + +TO THE BELOVED DEAD--A LAMENT + + +Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers + Play on a window-pane. +The time is there, the form of music lingers; + But O thou sweetest strain, +Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the wind and rain. + +Even as to him who plays that idle air, + It seems a melody, +For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair, + Dead, thou dost live in me, +And all this lonely soul is full of thee. + +Thou song of songs!--not music as before + Unto the outward ear; +My spirit sings thee inly evermore, + Thy falls with tear on tear. +I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear. + +Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme, + Is there no pulse to move thee, +At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time, + And falling tears above thee, +O music stifled from the ears that love thee? + +Oh, for a strain of thee from outer air! + Soul wearies soul, I find. +Of thee, thee, thee, I am mournfully aware, + --Contained in one poor mind, +Who wert in tune and time to every wind. + +Poor grave, poor lost beloved! but I burn + For some more vast To be. +As he that played that secret tune may turn + And strike it on a lyre triumphantly, +I wait some future, all a lyre for thee. + + + + +SONNET + + +Your own fair youth, you care so little for it, + Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances + Of time and change upon your happiest fancies. +I keep your golden hour, and will restore it. + +If ever, in time to come, you would explore it-- + Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies, + Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances; +In my unfailing praises now I store it. + +To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging, + I shall be then a treasury where your gay, + Happy, and pensive past for ever is. + +I shall be then a garden charmed from changing, + In which your June has never passed away. + Walk there awhile among my memories. + + + + +IN AUTUMN + + +The leaves are many under my feet, + And drift one way. +Their scent of death is weary and sweet. + A flight of them is in the grey +Where sky and forest meet. + +The low winds moan for dead sweet years; + The birds sing all for pain, +Of a common thing, to weary ears,-- + Only a summer's fate of rain, +And a woman's fate of tears. + +I walk to love and life alone + Over these mournful places, +Across the summer overthrown, + The dead joys of these silent faces, +To claim my own. + +I know his heart has beat to bright + Sweet loves gone by. +I know the leaves that die to-night + Once budded to the sky, +And I shall die from his delight. + +O leaves, so quietly ending now, + You have heard cuckoos sing. +And I will grow upon my bough + If only for a Spring, +And fall when the rain is on my brow. + +O tell me, tell me ere you die, + Is it worth the pain? +You bloomed so fair, you waved so high; + Now that the sad days wane, +Are you repenting where you lie? + +I lie amongst you, and I kiss + Your fragrance mouldering. +O dead delights, is it such bliss, + That tuneful Spring? +Is love so sweet, that comes to this? + +O dying blisses of the year, + I hear the young lambs bleat, +The clamouring birds i' the copse I hear, + I hear the waving wheat, +Together laid on a dead-leaf bier. + +Kiss me again as I kiss you; + Kiss me again; +For all your tuneful nights of dew, + In this your time of rain, +For all your kisses when Spring was new. + +You will not, broken hearts; let be. + I pass across your death +To a golden summer you shall not see, + And in your dying breath +There is no benison for me. + +There is an autumn yet to wane, + There are leaves yet to fall, +Which, when I kiss, may kiss again, + And, pitied, pity me all for all, +And love me in mist and rain. + + + + +A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE + + +Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses, +O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses +What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses. + +O mother, for the weight of years that break thee! +O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee, +And from the changes of my heart must make thee. + +O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven. +Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven? +And are they calm about the fall of even? + +Pause near the ending of thy long migration, +For this one sudden hour of desolation +Appeals to one hour of thy meditation. + +Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee +Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee, +Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee. + +Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander +Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder +The misty mountains of the morning yonder. + +Listen:- the mountain winds with rain were fretting, +And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting. +I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting. + +What part of this wild heart of mine I know not +Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not, +And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not. + +Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it +Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it, +And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it. + +Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee. +Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence hide thee, +This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,-- + +Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden, +With thy regrets was morning over-shaden, +With sorrow thou hast left, her life was laden. + +But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee +Life changes, and the years and days renew thee. +Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee. + +Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses +Upon the evening as the morning tresses, +Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses. + +And we, so altered in our shifting phases, +Track one another 'mid the many mazes +By the eternal child-breath of the daisies. + +I have not writ this letter of divining +To make a glory of thy silent pining, +A triumph of thy mute and strange declining. + +Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded. +Only one morning, and the day was clouded. +And one old age with all regrets is crowded. + +Oh, hush; oh, hush! Thy tears my words are steeping. +Oh, hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping? +Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping? + +Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her. +Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter +That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her. + +The one who now thy faded features guesses, +With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses, +With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses. + + + + +SONG + + +As the inhastening tide doth roll, +Dear and desired, along the whole + Wide shining strand, and floods the caves, + Your love comes filling with happy waves +The open sea-shore of my soul. + +But inland from the seaward spaces, +None knows, not even you, the places + Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight, + --The little solitudes of delight +This tide constrains in dim embraces. + +You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed, +But know not of the quiet dimmed + Rivers your coming floods and fills, + The little pools 'mid happier hills, +My silent rivulets, over-brimmed. + +What, I have secrets from you? Yes. +But, visiting Sea, your love doth press + And reach in further than you know, + And fills all these; and when you go, +There's loneliness in loneliness. + + + + +BUILDERS OF RUINS + + +We build with strength the deep tower-wall + That shall be shattered thus and thus. +And fair and great are court and hall, + But _how_ fair--this is not for us, +Who know the lack that lurks in all. + +We know, we know how all too bright + The hues are that our painting wears, +And how the marble gleams too white;-- + We speak in unknown tongues, the years +Interpret everything aright, + +And crown with weeds our pride of towers, + And warm our marble through with sun, +And break our pavements through with flowers, + With an Amen when all is done, +Knowing these perfect things of ours. + +O days, we ponder, left alone, + Like children in their lonely hour, +And in our secrets keep your own, + As seeds the colour of the flower. +To-day they are not all unknown, + +The stars that 'twixt the rise and fall, + Like relic-seers, shall one by one +Stand musing o'er our empty hall; + And setting moons shall brood upon +The frescoes of our inward wall. + +And when some midsummer shall be, + Hither will come some little one +(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he), + Sit on a ruin i' the late long sun, +And think, one foot upon his knee. + +And where they wrought, these lives of ours, + So many-worded, many-souled, +A North-west wind will take the towers, + And dark with colour, sunny and cold, +Will range alone among the flowers. + +And here or there, at our desire, + The little clamorous owl shall sit +Through her still time; and we aspire + To make a law (and know not it) +Unto the life of a wild briar. + +Our purpose is distinct and dear, + Though from our open eyes 'tis hidden. +Thou, Time-to-come, shalt make it clear, + Undoing our work; we are children chidden +With pity and smiles of many a year. + +Who shall allot the praise, and guess + What part is yours and what is ours?-- +O years that certainly will bless + Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with flowers, +With ruin all our perfectness. + +Be patient, Time, of our delays, + Too happy hopes, and wasted fears, +Our faithful ways, our wilful ways, + Solace our labours, O our seers +The seasons, and our bards the days; + +And make our pause and silence brim + With the shrill children's play, and sweets +Of those pathetic flowers and dim, + Of those eternal flowers my Keats +Dying felt growing over him. + + + + +SONNET + + +I touched the heart that loved me as a player + Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill + No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still +I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air +Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?). + Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil + My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will. +He is gone, and silence takes me unaware. + +The songs I knew not he resumes, set free +From my constraining love, alas for me! + His part in our tune goes with him; my part +Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute + As one with full strong music in his heart +Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. + + + + +SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT + + +THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET + +From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn, + We two are sundered always, sweet. +A few stars shake o'er the rocky lawn + And the cold sea-shore when we meet. + The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet. + +We are not day and night, my Fair, + But one. It is an hour of hours. +And thoughts that are not otherwhere + Are thought here 'mid the blown sea-flowers, + This meeting and this dusk of ours. + +Delight has taken Pain to her heart, + And there is dusk and stars for these. +Oh, linger, linger! They would not part; + And the wild wind comes from over-seas + With a new song to the olive trees. + +And when we meet by the sounding pine + Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother. +And when thy sweet eyes answer mine, + Peace nestles close to her mournful mother, + And Hope and Weariness kiss each other. + + + + +'SOEUR MONIQUE' + + +A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN + +Quiet form of silent nun, +What has given you to my inward eyes? +What has marked you, unknown one, +In the throngs of centuries +That mine ears do listen through? +This old master's melody +That expresses you, +This admired simplicity, +Tender, with a serious wit, +And two words, the name of it, +'Soeur Monique.' + +And if sad the music is, +It is sad with mysteries +Of a small immortal thing +That the passing ages sing,-- +Simple music making mirth +Of the dying and the birth +Of the people of the earth. + +No, not sad; we are beguiled, +Sad with living as we are; +Ours the sorrow, outpouring +Sad self on a selfless thing, +As our eyes and hearts are mild +With our sympathy for Spring, +With a pity sweet and wild +For the innocent and far, +With our sadness in a star, +Or our sadness in a child. + +But two words, and this sweet air. + Soeur Monique, +Had he more, who set you there? +Was his music-dream of you +Of some perfect nun he knew, +Or of some ideal, as true? + +And I see you where you stand +With your life held in your hand +As a rosary of days. +And your thoughts in calm arrays, +And your innocent prayers are told +On your rosary of days. +And the young days and the old +With their quiet prayers did meet +When the chaplet was complete. + +Did it vex you, the surmise +Of this wind of words, this storm of cries, + Though you kept the silence so + In the storms of long ago, + And you keep it, like a star? + --Of the evils triumphing, +Strong, for all your perfect conquering, + Silenced conqueror that you are? +And I wonder at your peace, I wonder. +Would it trouble you to know, +Tender soul, the world and sin +By your calm feet trodden under + Long ago, +Living now, mighty to win? +And your feet are vanished like the snow. + +Vanished; but the poet, he +In whose dream your face appears, +He who ranges unknown years +With your music in his heart, +Speaks to you familiarly +Where you keep apart, +And invents you as you were. +And your picture, O my nun! +Is a strangely easy one, +For the holy weed you wear, +For your hidden eyes and hidden hair, +And in picturing you I may +Scarcely go astray. + +O the vague reality! +The mysterious certainty! +O strange truth of these my guesses +In the wide thought-wildernesses! +--Truth of one divined of many flowers; +Of one raindrop in the showers +Of the long-ago swift rain; +Of one tear of many tears +In some world-renowned pain; +Of one daisy 'mid the centuries of sun; +Of a little living nun +In the garden of the years. + +Yes, I am not far astray; +But I guess you as might one +Pausing when young March is grey, +In a violet-peopled day; +All his thoughts go out to places that he knew, +To his child-home in the sun, +To the fields of his regret, +To one place i' the innocent March air, +By one olive, and invent +The familiar form and scent +Safely; a white violet +Certainly is there. + +Soeur Monique, remember me. +'Tis not in the past alone +I am picturing you to be; +But my little friend, my own, +In my moment, pray for me. +For another dream is mine, +And another dream is true, + Sweeter even, +Of the little ones that shine +Lost within the light divine,-- +Of some meekest flower, or you, + In the fields of Heaven. + + + + +IN EARLY SPRING + + +O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise + In the young children's eyes. +But I have learnt the years, and know the yet + Leaf-folded violet. +Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell + The cuckoo's fitful bell. +I wander in a grey time that encloses + June and the wild hedge-roses. +A year's procession of the flowers doth pass + My feet, along the grass. +And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know + The notes that stir you so, +Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear + Beginnings of the year. +In these young days you meditate your part; + I have it all by heart. + +I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers + Hidden and warm with showers, +And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall + Alter his interval. +But not a flower or song I ponder is + My own, but memory's. +I shall be silent in those days desired + Before a world inspired. +O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases + Earth, thy familiar daisies. + +The poet mused upon the dusky height, + Between two stars towards night, +His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, + The meaning of his face: +There was the secret, fled from earth and skies, + Hid in his grey young eyes. +My heart and all the Summer wait his choice, + And wonder for his voice. +Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire + But to divine his lyre? +Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries, + But he is lord of his. + + + + +PARTED + + +Farewell to one now silenced quite, +Sent out of hearing, out of sight,-- + My friend of friends, whom I shall miss. + He is not banished, though, for this,-- +Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight. + +Though I shall walk with him no more, +A low voice sounds upon the shore. + He must not watch my resting-place + But who shall drive a mournful face +From the sad winds about my door? + +I shall not hear his voice complain, +But who shall stop the patient rain? + His tears must not disturb my heart, + But who shall change the years, and part +The world from every thought of pain? + +Although my life is left so dim, +The morning crowns the mountain-rim; + Joy is not gone from summer skies, + Nor innocence from children's eyes, +And all these things are part of him. + +He is not banished, for the showers +Yet wake this green warm earth of ours. + How can the summer but be sweet? + I shall not have him at my feet, +And yet my feet are on the flowers. + + + + +REGRETS + + +As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour + Out by the low sand spaces, +The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore + With lingering embraces,-- + +So in the tide of life that carries me + From where thy true heart dwells, +Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee + With lessening farewells; + +Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets; + A care half lost in cares; +The saddest of my verses; dim regrets; + Thy name among my prayers. + +I would the day might come, so waited for, + So patiently besought, +When I, returning, should fill up once more + Thy desolated thought; + +And fill thy loneliness that lies apart + In still, persistent pain. +Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart, + As the tide comes again, + +And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets + Seaweeds afloat, and fills +The silent pools, rivers and rivulets + Among the inland hills? + + + + +SONG + + +My Fair, no beauty of thine will last + Save in my love's eternity. + Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully, +Are lost for ever--their moment past-- + Except the few thou givest to me. + +Thy sweet words vanish day by day, + As all breath of mortality; + Thy laughter, done, must cease to be, +And all thy dear tones pass away, + Except the few that sing to me. + +Hide then within my heart, oh, hide + All thou art loth should go from thee. + Be kinder to thyself and me. +My cupful from this river's tide + Shall never reach the long sad sea. + + + + +SONNET--IN FEBRUARY + + +Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, + Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, + And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers. +A poet's face asleep is this grey morn. + +Now in the midst of the old world forlorn + A mystic child is set in these still hours. + I keep this time, even before the flowers, +Sacred to all the young and the unborn; + +To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat, + And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal, + And to the future of my own young art, + +And, among all these things, to you, my sweet, + My friend, to your calm face and the immortal + Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart. + + + + +SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI'S MOTHER + + +I had not seen my son's dear face +(He chose the cloister by God's grace) + Since it had come to full flower-time. + I hardly guessed at its perfect prime, +That folded flower of his dear face. + +Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears +When on a day in many years + One of his Order came. I thrilled, + Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled. +I doubted, for my mists of tears. + +His blessing be with me for ever! +My hope and doubt were hard to sever. + --That altered face, those holy weeds. + I filled his wallet and kissed his beads, +And lost his echoing feet for ever. + +If to my son my alms were given +I know not, and I wait for Heaven. + He did not plead for child of mine, + But for another Child divine, +And unto Him it was surely given. + +There is One alone who cannot change; +Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange; + And all I give is given to One. + I might mistake my dearest son, +But never the Son who cannot change. + + + + +SONNET--THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS + + +Like him who met his own eyes in the river, + The poet trembles at his own long gaze + That meets him through the changing nights and days +From out great Nature; all her waters quiver +With his fair image facing him for ever; + The music that he listens to betrays + His own heart to his ears; by trackless ways +His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour. + +His dreams are far among the silent hills; + His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain +With winds at night; strange recognition thrills + His lonely heart with piercing love and pain; +He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills, + His weary tears that touch him with the rain. + + + + +TO A LOST MELODY + + +Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody, + Sung beyond memory, +When golden to the winds this world of ours + Waved wild with boundless flowers; +Sung in some past when wildernesses were,-- + Not dead, not dead, lost air! +Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou, + And what soul knows thee now? +Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind + From that o'erburdened mind +That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue + By which thou first wert sung? +Was not the holy choir the endless dome, + And nature all thy home? +Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast. + Lulling thy storms to rest? +And is the June air laden with thee now, + Passing the summer-bough? +And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea + Balmy with thoughts of thee? +To rock on daybreak winds dost thou rejoice, + As first on his strong voice +Whose radiant morning soul did give thee birth, + Gave thee to heaven and earth? +Or did each bird win one dear note of thee + To pipe eternally? +Art thou the secret of the small field-flowers + Nodding thy time for hours, +--Blown by the happy winds from hill to hill, + And such a secret still? +Or wert thou rapt awhile to other spheres + To gladden tenderer ears? +Doth music's soul contain thee, precious air, + Sleepest thou clasped there, +Until a time shall come for thee to start + Into some unborn heart? +Then wilt thou as the clouds of ages roll, + Thou migratory soul, +Amid a different, wilder, wilderness + --In crowds that throng and press, +Revive thy blessed cadences forgotten + In some soul new-begotten? +Oh, wilt thou ever tire of thy long rest + On nature's silent breast? +And wilt thou leave thy rainbow showers, to bear + A part in human care? +--Forsake thy boundless silence to make choice + Of some pathetic voice? +--Forsake thy stars, thy suns, thy moons, thy skies + For man's desiring sighs? + + + + +SONNET--THE POET TO NATURE + + +I have no secrets from thee, lyre sublime, + My lyre whereof I make my melody. + I sing one way like the west wind through thee, +With my whole heart, and hear thy sweet strings chime. + +But thou, who soundest in my tune and rhyme, + Hast tones I wake not, in thy land and sea, + Loveliness not for me, secrets from me, +Thoughts for another, and another time. + +And as, the west wind passed, the south wind alters + His intimate sweet things, his hues of noon, + The voices of his waves, sound of his pine, + +The meanings of his lost heart,--this thought falters + In my short song--'Another bard shall tune + Thee, my one Lyre, to other songs than mine.' + + + + +THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD + + +In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand, +--Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land. +And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills, + When you thought, and chose the hills. + +'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain. +With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain, +And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be + Unconsoled by sympathy.' + +But how dared you use me so? For you bring my ripe years low +To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know. +And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears. + But you mark not, through the years. + +'To the mountain leads my way. If the plains are green to-day, +These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May, +With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that grow.' + But the summer in the snow? + +Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold, +Settled by a wayward child's ideal at some ten years old? +--How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay not for, + Will not open to you more? + +You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are wild, +And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled, +Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun, + To feel how the winds came on. + +But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear, +Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air, +And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills + Wider wilderness fulfils. + +And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, +With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, +You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire, + Nor be known by any fire. + +It is memory that shrinks. You were all too brave, methinks, +Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks, +Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie + All the life that was to be. + +With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain, +Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again; +But regret may turn with longing to that one hour's choice you had, + When the silence broodeth sad. + +I rebel _not_, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly, +For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I, +With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit, + Sing the Amen, knowing it. + + + + +SONNET + + +A poet of one mood in all my lays, + Ranging all life to sing one only love, + Like a west wind across the world I move, +Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways. + +The countries change, but not the west-wind days + Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above, + And on all seas the colours of a dove, +And on all fields a flash of silver greys. + +I make the whole world answer to my art + And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears +I change not ever, bearing, for my part, + One thought that is the treasure of my years, +A small cloud full of rain upon my heart + And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears. + + + + +AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL + + +There's a feast undated yet: + Both our true lives hold it fast,-- +The first day we ever met. + What a great day came and passed! + --Unknown then, but known at last. + +And we met: You knew not me, + Mistress of your joys and fears; +Held my hands that held the key + Of the treasure of your years, + Of the fountain of your tears. + +For you knew not it was I, + And I knew not it was you. +We have learnt, as days went by. + But a flower struck root and grew + Underground, and no one knew. + +Days of days! Unmarked it rose, + In whose hours we were to meet; +And forgotten passed. Who knows, + Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet, + At the coming of your feet? + +One mere day, we thought; the measure + Of such days the year fulfils. +Now, how dearly would we treasure + Something from its fields, its rills, + And its memorable hills; + +--But one leaf of oak or lime, + Or one blossom from its bowers +No one gathered at the time. + Oh, to keep that day of ours + By one relic of its flowers! + + + + +SONNET--THE NEOPHYTE + + +Who knows what days I answer for to-day: + Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow + This yet unfaded and a faded brow; +Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray. + +Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way, + Give one repose to pain I know not now, + One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how. +I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey. + +Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat. + I fold to-day at altars far apart +Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat + I seal my love to-be, my folded art. +I light the tapers at my head and feet, + And lay the crucifix on this silent heart. + + + + +SONNET--SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS + + +O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather; + The Spring comes with a full heart silently, + And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea +Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather. + +With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together + Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers. + Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, +Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether. + +I fain would put my hands about thy face, + Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring, + And draw thee to me like a mournful child. + +Thou lookest on me from another place; + I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing + That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild. + + + + +SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK + + +All my stars forsake me, +And the dawn-winds shake me. +Where shall I betake me? + +Whither shall I run +Till the set of sun, +Till the day be done? + +To the mountain-mine, +To the boughs o' the pine, +To the blind man's eyne, + +To a brow that is +Bowed upon the knees, +Sick with memories. + + + + +SONNET--TO A DAISY + + +Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide, + Like all created things, secrets from me, + And stand a barrier to eternity. +And I, how can I praise thee well and wide? + +From where I dwell--upon the hither side? + Thou little veil for so great mystery, + When shall I penetrate all things and thee, +And then look back? For this I must abide, + +Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled + Literally between me and the world. + Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring, + +And from a poet's side shall read his book. + O daisy mine, what will it be to look + From God's side even of such a simple thing? + + + + +SONNET--TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME + + +Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine? + This winter of a silent poet's heart + Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art, +Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine. + +Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line? + Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee? + Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me, +And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign? + +Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow + For others of thy fragrance, secret child? + Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee? + +--Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow, + Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild? + How, my December violet, shall I name thee? + + + + +FUTURE POETRY + + +No new delights to our desire + The singers of the past can yield. + I lift mine eyes to hill and field, +And see in them your yet dumb lyre, + Poets unborn and unrevealed. + +Singers to come, what thoughts will start + To song? what words of yours be sent + Through man's soul, and with earth be blent? +These worlds of nature and the heart + Await you like an instrument. + +Who knows what musical flocks of words + Upon these pine-tree tops will light, + And crown these towers in circling flight +And cross these seas like summer birds, + And give a voice to the day and night? + +Something of you already is ours; + Some mystic part of you belongs + To us whose dreams your future throngs, +Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers, + Which will mean so much in your songs. + +I wonder, like the maid who found, + And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme + Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream. +She dreams on its sealed past profound; + On a deep future sealed I dream. + +She bears it in her wanderings + Within her arms, and has not pressed + Her unskilled fingers, but her breast +Upon those silent sacred strings; + I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest. + +For I, i' the world of lands and seas, + The sky of wind and rain and fire, + And in man's world of long desire-- +In all that is yet dumb in these-- + Have found a more mysterious lyre. + + + + +THE POET SINGS TO HER POET + + +THE MOON TO THE SUN + +As the full moon shining there +To the sun that lighteth her +Am I unto thee for ever, +O my secret glory-giver! +O my light, I am dark but fair, + Black but fair. + +Shine, Earth loves thee! And then shine +And be loved through thoughts of mine. +All thy secrets that I treasure +I translate them at my pleasure. +I am crowned with glory of thine. + Thine, not thine. + +I make pensive thy delight, +And thy strong gold silver-white. +Though all beauty of nine thou makest, +Yet to earth which thou forsakest +I have made thee fair all night, + Day all night. + + + + +A POET'S SONNET + + +If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear, + To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping? + To the long winds of heaven? Shall these come sweeping +My songs forgone against my face and hair? + +Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear, + My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping? + No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping, +And I shall die a poet unaware. + +From me, my art, thou canst not pass away; + And I, a singer though I cease to sing, + Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe. + +Through my indifferent words of every day, + Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring + And make my poem; and I shall not know. + + + + +THE MODERN POET + + +A SONG OF DERIVATIONS + +I come from nothing; but from where +Come the undying thoughts I bear? + Down, through long links of death and birth, + From the past poets of the earth. +My immortality is there. + +I am like the blossom of an hour. +But long, long vanished sun and shower + Awoke my breath i' the young world's air. + I track the past back everywhere +Through seed and flower and seed and flower. + +Or I am like a stream that flows +Full of the cold springs that arose + In morning lands, in distant hills; + And down the plain my channel fills +With melting of forgotten snows. + +Voices, I have not heard, possessed +My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed + With relics of the far unknown. + And mixed with memories not my own +The sweet streams throng into my breast. + +Before this life began to be, +The happy songs that wake in me + Woke long ago and far apart. + Heavily on this little heart +Presses this immortality. + + + + +AFTER A PARTING + + +Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee; + I never name thee even. +But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee? + For thou art so near Heaven +That heavenward meditations pause upon thee. + +Thou dost beset the path to every shrine; + My trembling thoughts discern +Thy goodness in the good for which I pine; + And if I turn from but one sin, I turn +Unto a smile of thine. + +How shall I thrust thee apart + Since all my growth tends to thee night and day-- +To thee faith, hope, and art? + Swift are the currents setting all one way; +They draw my life, my life, out of my heart. + + + + +RENOUNCEMENT + + +I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, + I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-- + The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height, +And in the sweetest passage of a song. + +Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng + This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; + But it must never, never come in sight; +I must stop short of thee the whole day long. + +But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, + When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, + And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, + +Must doff my will as raiment laid away,-- + With the first dream that comes with the first sleep + I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. + + + + +VENI CREATOR + + +So humble things Thou hast borne for us, O God, +Left'st Thou a path of lowliness untrod? +Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden. +For we endure the tender pain of pardon,-- +One with another we forbear. Give heed, +Look at the mournful world Thou hast decreed. +The time has come. At last we hapless men +Know all our haplessness all through. Come, then, +Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven, +Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS*** + + +******* This file should be named 1186.txt or 1186.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/8/1186 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +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 + + + + +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 Coeli 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 trust, +- The sun and dews, to frame the Just. +He drew his daily life from these, +According to his own decrees +Who makes man from the fertile dust. + +Sweet summer and the winter wild, +These brought him forth, the Undefiled. +The happy Springs renewed again +His daily bread, the growing grain, +The food and raiment of the Child. + + + +TO THE BELOVED DEAD--A LAMENT + + + +Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers +Play on a window-pane. +The time is there, the form of music lingers; +But O thou sweetest strain, +Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the wind and rain. + +Even as to him who plays that idle air, +It seems a melody, +For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair, +Dead, thou dost live in me, +And all this lonely soul is full of thee. + +Thou song of songs!--not music as before +Unto the outward ear; +My spirit sings thee inly evermore, +Thy falls with tear on tear. +I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear. + +Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme, +Is there no pulse to move thee, +At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time, +And falling tears above thee, +O music stifled from the ears that love thee? + +Oh, for a strain of thee from outer air! +Soul wearies soul, I find. +Of thee, thee, thee, I am mournfully aware, +- Contained in one poor mind, +Who wert in tune and time to every wind. + +Poor grave, poor lost beloved! but I burn +For some more vast To be. +As he that played that secret tune may turn +And strike it on a lyre triumphantly, +I wait some future, all a lyre for thee. + + + +SONNET + + + +Your own fair youth, you care so little for it, +Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances +Of time and change upon your happiest fancies. +I keep your golden hour, and will restore it. + +If ever, in time to come, you would explore it - +Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies, +Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances; +In my unfailing praises now I store it. + +To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging, +I shall be then a treasury where your gay, +Happy, and pensive past for ever is. + +I shall be then a garden charmed from changing, +In which your June has never passed away. +Walk there awhile among my memories. + + + +IN AUTUMN + + + +The leaves are many under my feet, +And drift one way. +Their scent of death is weary and sweet. +A flight of them is in the grey +Where sky and forest meet. + +The low winds moan for dead sweet years; +The birds sing all for pain, +Of a common thing, to weary ears, - +Only a summer's fate of rain, +And a woman's fate of tears. + +I walk to love and life alone +Over these mournful places, +Across the summer overthrown, +The dead joys of these silent faces, +To claim my own. + +I know his heart has beat to bright +Sweet loves gone by. +I know the leaves that die to-night +Once budded to the sky, +And I shall die from his delight. + +O leaves, so quietly ending now, +You have heard cuckoos sing. +And I will grow upon my bough +If only for a Spring, +And fall when the rain is on my brow. + +O tell me, tell me ere you die, +Is it worth the pain? +You bloomed so fair, you waved so high; +Now that the sad days wane, +Are you repenting where you lie? + +I lie amongst you, and I kiss +Your fragrance mouldering. +O dead delights, is it such bliss, +That tuneful Spring? +Is love so sweet, that comes to this? + +O dying blisses of the year, +I hear the young lambs bleat, +The clamouring birds i' the copse I hear, +I hear the waving wheat, +Together laid on a dead-leaf bier. + +Kiss me again as I kiss you; +Kiss me again; +For all your tuneful nights of dew, +In this your time of rain, +For all your kisses when Spring was new. + +You will not, broken hearts; let be. +I pass across your death +To a golden summer you shall not see, +And in your dying breath +There is no benison for me. + +There is an autumn yet to wane, +There are leaves yet to fall, +Which, when I kiss, may kiss again, +And, pitied, pity me all for all, +And love me in mist and rain. + + + +A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE + + + +Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses, +O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses +What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses. + +O mother, for the weight of years that break thee! +O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee, +And from the changes of my heart must make thee. + +O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven. +Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven? +And are they calm about the fall of even? + +Pause near the ending of thy long migration, +For this one sudden hour of desolation +Appeals to one hour of thy meditation. + +Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee +Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee, +Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee. + +Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander +Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder +The misty mountains of the morning yonder. + +Listen:- the mountain winds with rain were fretting, +And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting. +I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting. + +What part of this wild heart of mine I know not +Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not, +And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not. + +Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it +Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it, +And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it. + +Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee. +Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence hide thee, +This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee, - + +Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden, +With thy regrets was morning over-shaden, +With sorrow thou hast left, her life was laden. + +But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee +Life changes, and the years and days renew thee. +Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee. + +Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses +Upon the evening as the morning tresses, +Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses. + +And we, so altered in our shifting phases, +Track one another 'mid the many mazes +By the eternal child-breath of the daisies. + +I have not writ this letter of divining +To make a glory of thy silent pining, +A triumph of thy mute and strange declining. + +Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded. +Only one morning, and the day was clouded. +And one old age with all regrets is crowded. + +Oh, hush; oh, hush! Thy tears my words are steeping. +Oh, hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping? +Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping? + +Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her. +Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter +That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her. + +The one who now thy faded features guesses, +With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses, +With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses. + + + +SONG + + + +As the inhastening tide doth roll, +Dear and desired, along the whole +Wide shining strand, and floods the caves, +Your love comes filling with happy waves +The open sea-shore of my soul. + +But inland from the seaward spaces, +None knows, not even you, the places +Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight, +- The little solitudes of delight +This tide constrains in dim embraces. + +You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed, +But know not of the quiet dimmed +Rivers your coming floods and fills, +The little pools 'mid happier hills, +My silent rivulets, over-brimmed. + +What, I have secrets from you? Yes. +But, visiting Sea, your love doth press +And reach in further than you know, +And fills all these; and when you go, +There's loneliness in loneliness. + + + +BUILDERS OF RUINS + + + +We build with strength the deep tower-wall +That shall be shattered thus and thus. +And fair and great are court and hall, +But HOW fair--this is not for us, +Who know the lack that lurks in all. + +We know, we know how all too bright +The hues are that our painting wears, +And how the marble gleams too white; - +We speak in unknown tongues, the years +Interpret everything aright, + +And crown with weeds our pride of towers, +And warm our marble through with sun, +And break our pavements through with flowers, +With an Amen when all is done, +Knowing these perfect things of ours. + +O days, we ponder, left alone, +Like children in their lonely hour, +And in our secrets keep your own, +As seeds the colour of the flower. +To-day they are not all unknown, + +The stars that 'twixt the rise and fall, +Like relic-seers, shall one by one +Stand musing o'er our empty hall; +And setting moons shall brood upon +The frescoes of our inward wall. + +And when some midsummer shall be, +Hither will come some little one +(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he), +Sit on a ruin i' the late long sun, +And think, one foot upon his knee. + +And where they wrought, these lives of ours, +So many-worded, many-souled, +A North-west wind will take the towers, +And dark with colour, sunny and cold, +Will range alone among the flowers. + +And here or there, at our desire, +The little clamorous owl shall sit +Through her still time; and we aspire +To make a law (and know not it) +Unto the life of a wild briar. + +Our purpose is distinct and dear, +Though from our open eyes 'tis hidden. +Thou, Time-to-come, shalt make it clear, +Undoing our work; we are children chidden +With pity and smiles of many a year. + +Who shall allot the praise, and guess +What part is yours and what is ours? - +O years that certainly will bless +Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with flowers, +With ruin all our perfectness. + +Be patient, Time, of our delays, +Too happy hopes, and wasted fears, +Our faithful ways, our wilful ways, +Solace our labours, O our seers +The seasons, and our bards the days; + +And make our pause and silence brim +With the shrill children's play, and sweets +Of those pathetic flowers and dim, +Of those eternal flowers my Keats +Dying felt growing over him. + + + +SONNET + + + +Touched the heart that loved me as a player +Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill +No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still +I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air +Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?). +Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil +My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will. +He is gone, and silence takes me unaware. + +The songs I knew not he resumes, set free +From my constraining love, alas for me! +His part in our tune goes with him; my part +Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute +As one with full strong music in his heart +Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. + + + +SONG OF THE DAY TO THE NIGHT +THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET + + + +From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn, +We two are sundered always, sweet. +A few stars shake o'er the rocky lawn +And the cold sea-shore when we meet. +The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet. + +We are not day and night, my Fair, +But one. It is an hour of hours. +And thoughts that are not otherwhere +Are thought here 'mid the blown sea-flowers, +This meeting and this dusk of ours. + +Delight has taken Pain to her heart, +And there is dusk and stars for these. +Oh, linger, linger! They would not part; +And the wild wind comes from over-seas +With a new song to the olive trees. + +And when we meet by the sounding pine +Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother. +And when thy sweet eyes answer mine, +Peace nestles close to her mournful mother, +And Hope and Weariness kiss each other. + + + +'SOEUR MONIQUE' +A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN + + + +Quiet form of silent nun, +What has given you to my inward eyes? +What has marked you, unknown one, +In the throngs of centuries +That mine ears do listen through? +This old master's melody +That expresses you, +This admired simplicity, +Tender, with a serious wit, +And two words, the name of it, +'Soeur Monique.' + +And if sad the music is, +It is sad with mysteries +Of a small immortal thing +That the passing ages sing, - +Simple music making mirth +Of the dying and the birth +Of the people of the earth. + +No, not sad; we are beguiled, +Sad with living as we are; +Ours the sorrow, outpouring +Sad self on a selfless thing, +As our eyes and hearts are mild +With our sympathy for Spring, +With a pity sweet and wild +For the innocent and far, +With our sadness in a star, +Or our sadness in a child. + +But two words, and this sweet air. +Soeur Monique, +Had he more, who set you there? +Was his music-dream of you +Of some perfect nun he knew, +Or of some ideal, as true? + +And I see you where you stand +With your life held in your hand +As a rosary of days. +And your thoughts in calm arrays, +And your innocent prayers are told +On your rosary of days. +And the young days and the old +With their quiet prayers did meet +When the chaplet was complete. + +Did it vex you, the surmise +Of this wind of words, this storm of cries, +Though you kept the silence so +In the storms of long ago, +And you keep it, like a star? +- Of the evils triumphing, +Strong, for all your perfect conquering, +Silenced conqueror that you are? +And I wonder at your peace, I wonder. +Would it trouble you to know, +Tender soul, the world and sin +By your calm feet trodden under +Long ago, +Living now, mighty to win? +And your feet are vanished like the snow. + +Vanished; but the poet, he +In whose dream your face appears, +He who ranges unknown years +With your music in his heart, +Speaks to you familiarly +Where you keep apart, +And invents you as you were. +And your picture, O my nun! +Is a strangely easy one, +For the holy weed you wear, +For your hidden eyes and hidden hair, +And in picturing you I may +Scarcely go astray. + +O the vague reality! +The mysterious certainty! +O strange truth of these my guesses +In the wide thought-wildernesses! +- Truth of one divined of many flowers; +Of one raindrop in the showers +Of the long-ago swift rain; +Of one tear of many tears +In some world-renowned pain; +Of one daisy 'mid the centuries of sun; +Of a little living nun +In the garden of the years. + +Yes, I am not far astray; +But I guess you as might one +Pausing when young March is grey, +In a violet-peopled day; +All his thoughts go out to places that he knew, +To his child-home in the sun, +To the fields of his regret, +To one place i' the innocent March air, +By one olive, and invent +The familiar form and scent +Safely; a white violet +Certainly is there. + +Soeur Monique, remember me. +'Tis not in the past alone +I am picturing you to be; +But my little friend, my own, +In my moment, pray for me. +For another dream is mine, +And another dream is true, +Sweeter even, +Of the little ones that shine +Lost within the light divine, - +Of some meekest flower, or you, +In the fields of Heaven. + + + +IN EARLY SPRING + + + +O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise +In the young children's eyes. +But I have learnt the years, and know the yet +Leaf-folded violet. +Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell +The cuckoo's fitful bell. +I wander in a grey time that encloses +June and the wild hedge-roses. +A year's procession of the flowers doth pass +My feet, along the grass. +And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know +The notes that stir you so, +Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear +Beginnings of the year. +In these young days you meditate your part; +I have it all by heart. + +I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers +Hidden and warm with showers, +And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall +Alter his interval. +But not a flower or song I ponder is +My own, but memory's. +I shall be silent in those days desired +Before a world inspired. +O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases +Earth, thy familiar daisies. + +The poet mused upon the dusky height, +Between two stars towards night, +His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, +The meaning of his face: +There was the secret, fled from earth and skies, +Hid in his grey young eyes. +My heart and all the Summer wait his choice, +And wonder for his voice. +Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire +But to divine his lyre? +Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries, +But he is lord of his. + + + +PARTED + + + +Farewell to one now silenced quite, +Sent out of hearing, out of sight, - +My friend of friends, whom I shall miss. +He is not banished, though, for this, - +Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight. + +Though I shall walk with him no more, +A low voice sounds upon the shore. +He must not watch my resting-place +But who shall drive a mournful face +From the sad winds about my door? + +I shall not hear his voice complain, +But who shall stop the patient rain? +His tears must not disturb my heart, +But who shall change the years, and part +The world from every thought of pain? + +Although my life is left so dim, +The morning crowns the mountain-rim; +Joy is not gone from summer skies, +Nor innocence from children's eyes, +And all these things are part of him. + +He is not banished, for the showers +Yet wake this green warm earth of ours. +How can the summer but be sweet? +I shall not have him at my feet, +And yet my feet are on the flowers. + + + +REGRETS + + + +As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour +Out by the low sand spaces, +The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore +With lingering embraces, - + +So in the tide of life that carries me +From where thy true heart dwells, +Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee +With lessening farewells; + +Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets; +A care half lost in cares; +The saddest of my verses; dim regrets; +Thy name among my prayers. + +I would the day might come, so waited for, +So patiently besought, +When I, returning, should fill up once more +Thy desolated thought; + +And fill thy loneliness that lies apart +In still, persistent pain. +Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart, +As the tide comes again, + +And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets +Seaweeds afloat, and fills +The silent pools, rivers and rivulets +Among the inland hills? + + + +SONG + + + +My Fair, no beauty of thine will last +Save in my love's eternity. +Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully, +Are lost for ever--their moment past - +Except the few thou givest to me. + +Thy sweet words vanish day by day, +As all breath of mortality; +Thy laughter, done, must cease to be, +And all thy dear tones pass away, +Except the few that sing to me. + +Hide then within my heart, oh, hide +All thou art loth should go from thee. +Be kinder to thyself and me. +My cupful from this river's tide +Shall never reach the long sad sea. + + + +SONNET--IN FEBRUARY + + + +Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, +Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, +And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers. +A poet's face asleep is this grey morn. + +Now in the midst of the old world forlorn +A mystic child is set in these still hours. +I keep this time, even before the flowers, +Sacred to all the young and the unborn; + +To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat, +And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal, +And to the future of my own young art, + +And, among all these things, to you, my sweet, +My friend, to your calm face and the immortal +Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart. + + + +SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI'S MOTHER + + + +I had not seen my son's dear face +(He chose the cloister by God's grace) +Since it had come to full flower-time. +I hardly guessed at its perfect prime, +That folded flower of his dear face. + +Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears +When on a day in many years +One of his Order came. I thrilled, +Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled. +I doubted, for my mists of tears. + +His blessing be with me for ever! +My hope and doubt were hard to sever. +- That altered face, those holy weeds. +I filled his wallet and kissed his beads, +And lost his echoing feet for ever. + +If to my son my alms were given +I know not, and I wait for Heaven. +He did not plead for child of mine, +But for another Child divine, +And unto Him it was surely given. + +There is One alone who cannot change; +Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange; +And all I give is given to One. +I might mistake my dearest son, +But never the Son who cannot change. + + + +SONNET--THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS + + + +Like him who met his own eyes in the river, +The poet trembles at his own long gaze +That meets him through the changing nights and days +From out great Nature; all her waters quiver +With his fair image facing him for ever; +The music that he listens to betrays +His own heart to his ears; by trackless ways +His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour. + +His dreams are far among the silent hills; +His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain +With winds at night; strange recognition thrills +His lonely heart with piercing love and pain; +He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills, +His weary tears that touch him with the rain. + + + +TO A LOST MELODY + + + +Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody, +Sung beyond memory, +When golden to the winds this world of ours +Waved wild with boundless flowers; +Sung in some past when wildernesses were, - +Not dead, not dead, lost air! +Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou, +And what soul knows thee now? +Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind +From that o'erburdened mind +That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue +By which thou first wert sung? +Was not the holy choir the endless dome, +And nature all thy home? +Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast. +Lulling thy storms to rest? +And is the June air laden with thee now, +Passing the summer-bough? +And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea +Balmy with thoughts of thee? +To rock on daybreak winds dost thou rejoice, +As first on his strong voice +Whose radiant morning soul did give thee birth, +Gave thee to heaven and earth? +Or did each bird win one dear note of thee +To pipe eternally? +Art thou the secret of the small field-flowers +Nodding thy time for hours, +- Blown by the happy winds from hill to hill, +And such a secret still? +Or wert thou rapt awhile to other spheres +To gladden tenderer ears? +Doth music's soul contain thee, precious air, +Sleepest thou clasped there, +Until a time shall come for thee to start +Into some unborn heart? +Then wilt thou as the clouds of ages roll, +Thou migratory soul, +Amid a different, wilder, wilderness +- In crowds that throng and press, +Revive thy blessed cadences forgotten +In some soul new-begotten? +Oh, wilt thou ever tire of thy long rest +On nature's silent breast? +And wilt thou leave thy rainbow showers, to bear +A part in human care? +- Forsake thy boundless silence to make choice +Of some pathetic voice? +- Forsake thy stars, thy suns, thy moons, thy skies +For man's desiring sighs? + + + +SONNET--THE POET TO NATURE + + + +I have no secrets from thee, lyre sublime, +My lyre whereof I make my melody. +I sing one way like the west wind through thee, +With my whole heart, and hear thy sweet strings chime. + +But thou, who soundest in my tune and rhyme, +Hast tones I wake not, in thy land and sea, +Loveliness not for me, secrets from me, +Thoughts for another, and another time. + +And as, the west wind passed, the south wind alters +His intimate sweet things, his hues of noon, +The voices of his waves, sound of his pine, + +The meanings of his lost heart,--this thought falters +In my short song--'Another bard shall tune +Thee, my one Lyre, to other songs than mine.' + + + +THE POET TO HIS CHILDHOOD + + + +In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand, +- Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land. +And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me +thrills, +When you thought, and chose the hills. + +'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain. +With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain, +And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be +Unconsoled by sympathy.' + +But how dared you use me so? For you bring my ripe years low +To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know. +And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears. +But you mark not, through the years. + +'To the mountain leads my way. If the plains are green to-day, +These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May, +With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that +grow.' +But the summer in the snow? + +Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold, +Settled by a wayward child's ideal at some ten years old? +- How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay not +for, +Will not open to you more? + +You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are +wild, +And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled, +Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun, +To feel how the winds came on. + +But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear, +Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air, +And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills +Wider wilderness fulfils. + +And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, +With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, +You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire, +Nor be known by any fire. + +It is memory that shrinks. You were all too brave, methinks, +Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks, +Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie +All the life that was to be. + +With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain, +Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again; +But regret may turn with longing to that one hour's choice you had, +When the silence broodeth sad. + +I rebel NOT, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly, +For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I, +With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit, +Sing the Amen, knowing it. + + + +SONNET + + + +A poet of one mood in all my lays, +Ranging all life to sing one only love, +Like a west wind across the world I move, +Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways. + +The countries change, but not the west-wind days +Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above, +And on all seas the colours of a dove, +And on all fields a flash of silver greys. + +I make the whole world answer to my art +And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears +I change not ever, bearing, for my part, +One thought that is the treasure of my years, +A small cloud full of rain upon my heart +And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears. + + + +AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL + + + +There's a feast undated yet: +Both our true lives hold it fast, - +The first day we ever met. +What a great day came and passed! +- Unknown then, but known at last. + +And we met: You knew not me, +Mistress of your joys and fears; +Held my hands that held the key +Of the treasure of your years, +Of the fountain of your tears. + +For you knew not it was I, +And I knew not it was you. +We have learnt, as days went by. +But a flower struck root and grew +Underground, and no one knew. + +Days of days! Unmarked it rose, +In whose hours we were to meet; +And forgotten passed. Who knows, +Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet, +At the coming of your feet? + +One mere day, we thought; the measure +Of such days the year fulfils. +Now, how dearly would we treasure +Something from its fields, its rills, +And its memorable hills; + +- But one leaf of oak or lime, +Or one blossom from its bowers +No one gathered at the time. +Oh, to keep that day of ours +By one relic of its flowers! + + + +SONNET--THE NEOPHYTE + + + +Who knows what days I answer for to-day: +Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow +This yet unfaded and a faded brow; +Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray. + +Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way, +Give one repose to pain I know not now, +One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how. +I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey. + +Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat. +I fold to-day at altars far apart +Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat +I seal my love to-be, my folded art. +I light the tapers at my head and feet, +And lay the crucifix on this silent heart. + + + +SONNET--SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS + + + +O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather; +The Spring comes with a full heart silently, +And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea +Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather. + +With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together +Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers. +Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, +Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether. + +I fain would put my hands about thy face, +Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring, +And draw thee to me like a mournful child. + +Thou lookest on me from another place; +I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing +That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild. + + + +SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK + + + +All my stars forsake me, +And the dawn-winds shake me. +Where shall I betake me? + +Whither shall I run +Till the set of sun, +Till the day be done? + +To the mountain-mine, +To the boughs o' the pine, +To the blind man's eyne, + +To a brow that is +Bowed upon the knees, +Sick with memories. + + + +SONNET--TO A DAISY + + + +Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide, +Like all created things, secrets from me, +And stand a barrier to eternity. +And I, how can I praise thee well and wide + +From where I dwell--upon the hither side? +Thou little veil for so great mystery, +When shall I penetrate all things and thee, +And then look back? For this I must abide, + +Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled +Literally between me and the world. +Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring, + +And from a poet's side shall read his book. +O daisy mine, what will it be to look +From God's side even of such a simple thing? + + + +SONNET--TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME + + + +Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine? +This winter of a silent poet's heart +Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art, +Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine. + +Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line? +Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee? +Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me, +And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign? + +Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow +For others of thy fragrance, secret child? +Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee? + +- Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow, +Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild? +How, my December violet, shall I name thee? + + + +FUTURE POETRY + + + +No new delights to our desire +The singers of the past can yield. +I lift mine eyes to hill and field, +And see in them your yet dumb lyre, +Poets unborn and unrevealed. + +Singers to come, what thoughts will start +To song? what words of yours be sent +Through man's soul, and with earth be blent? +These worlds of nature and the heart +Await you like an instrument. + +Who knows what musical flocks of words +Upon these pine-tree tops will light, +And crown these towers in circling flight +And cross these seas like summer birds, +And give a voice to the day and night? + +Something of you already is ours; +Some mystic part of you belongs +To us whose dreams your future throngs, +Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers, +Which will mean so much in your songs. + +I wonder, like the maid who found, +And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme +Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream. +She dreams on its sealed past profound; +On a deep future sealed I dream. + +She bears it in her wanderings +Within her arms, and has not pressed +Her unskilled fingers, but her breast +Upon those silent sacred strings; +I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest. + +For I, i' the world of lands and seas, +The sky of wind and rain and fire, +And in man's world of long desire - +In all that is yet dumb in these - +Have found a more mysterious lyre. + + + +THE POET SINGS TO HER POET +THE MOON TO THE SUN + + + +As the full moon shining there +To the sun that lighteth her +Am I unto thee for ever, +O my secret glory-giver! +O my light, I am dark but fair, +Black but fair. + +Shine, Earth loves thee! And then shine +And be loved through thoughts of mine. +All thy secrets that I treasure +I translate them at my pleasure. +I am crowned with glory of thine. +Thine, not thine. + +I make pensive thy delight, +And thy strong gold silver-white. +Though all beauty of nine thou makest, +Yet to earth which thou forsakest +I have made thee fair all night, +Day all night. + + + +A POET'S SONNET + + + +If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear, +To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping? +To the long winds of heaven? Shall these come sweeping +My songs forgone against my face and hair? + +Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear, +My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping? +No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping, +And I shall die a poet unaware. + +From me, my art, thou canst not pass away; +And I, a singer though I cease to sing, +Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe. + +Through my indifferent words of every day, +Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring +And make my poem; and I shall not know. + + + +THE MODERN POET +A SONG OF DERIVATIONS + + + +I come from nothing; but from where +Come the undying thoughts I bear? +Down, through long links of death and birth, +From the past poets of the earth. +My immortality is there. + +I am like the blossom of an hour. +But long, long vanished sun and shower +Awoke my breath i' the young world's air. +I track the past back everywhere +Through seed and flower and seed and flower. + +Or I am like a stream that flows +Full of the cold springs that arose +In morning lands, in distant hills; +And down the plain my channel fills +With melting of forgotten snows. + +Voices, I have not heard, possessed +My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed +With relics of the far unknown. +And mixed with memories not my own +The sweet streams throng into my breast. + +Before this life began to be, +The happy songs that wake in me +Woke long ago and far apart. +Heavily on this little heart +Presses this immortality. + + + +AFTER A PARTING + + + +Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee; +I never name thee even. +But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee? +For thou art so near Heaven +That heavenward meditations pause upon thee. + +Thou dost beset the path to every shrine; +My trembling thoughts discern +Thy goodness in the good for which I pine; +And if I turn from but one sin, I turn +Unto a smile of thine. + +How shall I thrust thee apart +Since all my growth tends to thee night and day - +To thee faith, hope, and art? +Swift are the currents setting all one way; +They draw my life, my life, out of my heart. + + + +RENOUNCEMENT + + + +I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, +I shun the thought that lurks in all delight - +The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height, +And in the sweetest passage of a song. + +Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng +This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; +But it must never, never come in sight; +I must stop short of thee the whole day long. + +But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, +When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, +And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, + +Must doff my will as raiment laid away, - +With the first dream that comes with the first sleep +I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. + + + +VENI CREATOR + + + +So humble things Thou hast borne for us, O God, +Left'st Thou a path of lowliness untrod? +Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden. +For we endure the tender pain of pardon, - +One with another we forbear. Give heed, +Look at the mournful world Thou hast decreed. +The time has come. At last we hapless men +Know all our haplessness all through. Come, then, +Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven, +Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Poems by Alice Meynell + diff --git a/old/pomam10.zip b/old/pomam10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c78704 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pomam10.zip |