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