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.

Alice Meynell

Alice Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. Born on September 11, 1847, she grew up in a literary family and published her first book of poems, "Preludes," in 1875. She married the editor Wilfrid Meynell in 1877 and joined him in literary and journalistic endeavors. Meynell's worked in the women's suffrage movement, advocating for her rights through her writings. She died on November 27, 1922, leaving behind a legacy of lyrical and meditative poetry.

Alice Meynell

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Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

English

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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.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

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.

Alice Meynell

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.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

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

Alice Meynell

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 hi...

Alice Meynell

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.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell