A Poet's Wife

I saw a tract of ocean locked in-land
    Within a field's embrace -
The very sea! Afar it fled the strand
    And gave the seasons chase,
And met the night alone, the tempest spanned,
    Saw sunrise face to face.

O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier!
    In inaccessible rest
And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost stir,
    Scattered through east to west, -
Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her
    Who locks thee to her breast.

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

The Lords Prayer

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

The Two Questions

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

An Unmarked Festival

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

Parentage

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

English

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A Poet's Wife

I saw a tract of ocean locked in-land
    Within a field's embrace--
The very sea! Afar it fled the strand
    And gave the seasons chase,
And met the night alone, the tempest spanned,
    Saw sunrise face to face.

O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier!
    In inaccessible rest
And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost stir,
    Scattered through east to west,--
Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her
    Who locks thee to her breast.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

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

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 l...

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 Meynell

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.

Alice Meynell

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 ...

Alice Meynell