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 gray 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 gray 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.

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.

O hush, O hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.

O 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 gray hair caresses,

With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.

Alice Meynell

A Poet of One Mood

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 made 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, clapsed, like a child in tears.

Alice Meynell

The Shepherdess

SHE walks-the lady of my delight-

A shepherdess of sheep.

Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;

She keeps them from the steep;

She feeds them on the fragrant height,

And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,

Dark valleys safe and deep.

Into that tender breast at night

The chastest stars may peep.

She walks-the lady of my delight-

A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,

Though gay they run and leap.

She is so circumspect and right;

She has her soul to keep.

She walks-the lady of my delight-

A shepherdess of sheep.

Alice Meynell

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 awaits, 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.

Alice Meynell

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 talk 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 any 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 of 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.

Alice Meynell

Builders of Ruins

WE build with strength and 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 color 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 frscoes of our inward wall.

And when some midsummer shall be,

Hither shall 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 color, 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, shall make it clear,

Undoing our work; we are children chidden

With pity and smiles of many a year.

We 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 labors, 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!

Alice Meynell

Your Own Fair Youth

YOUR own fair youth, you care so little for it--

Smiling toward Heaven, you would not stay the advances

Of time and change upon your hapiest 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 guard all joys of yours from Time's estranging,

I shall then be a treasury where your gay,

    Happy, and pensive past unaltered is.

I shall then be a garden charmed from changing,

In which your June has never passed away.

    Walk there awhile among my memories.

Alice Meynell

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 sad 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 heard the 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?

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.

Alice Meynell

The Lover Urges the Better Thrift

M Y Fair, no beauty of thine will last

Save in my love's eternity.

Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,

Are lost forever--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, O 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.

Alice Meynell

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 in 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.

Alice Meynell

An Unmarked Festival

THERE'S a feast undated, yet

Both our true lives hold it fast,--

Even the day when we first 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 hand 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.

Day 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 fulfills.

Now, how dearly would we treasure

Something from its fields, its rills,

And its memorable hills.

Alice Meynell

A Song of Derivations

I COME from nothing; but from where

Come the undying thoughts I bear?

Down, through the 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 in 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.

Alice Meynell