Cradle-Song At Twilight

The child not yet is lulled to rest.
    Too young a nurse, the slender Night
So laxly holds him to her breast
    That throbs with flight.

He plays with her and will not sleep.
    For other playfellows she sighs;
An unmaternal fondness keep
    Her alien eyes.

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

To O-, Of Her Dark Eyes

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

Song Of The Spring To The Summer

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

Sonnet - Spring On The Alban Hills

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

Sonnet

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

English

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Cradle-Song At Twilight

The child not yet is lulled to rest.
    Too young a nurse, the slender Night
So laxly holds him to her breast
    That throbs with flight.

He plays with her and will not sleep.
    For other playfellows she sighs;
An unmaternal fondness keep
    Her alien eyes.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

The Lullaby

When the long day leans to the twilight,
    When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
    I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
    My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
    Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.

Alone with no arms to enfold her,
    Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
    To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
    Is silenced my broken heart's cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
    And sing her the old lullaby.

Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
    The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
    And singing...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

By The Cradle.

The baby Summer lies asleep and dreaming--
Dreaming and blooming like a guarded rose;
And March, a kindly nurse, though rude of seeming,
Is watching by the cradle hung with snows.

Her blowing winds but keep the rockers swinging,
And deepen slumber in the shut blue eyes,
And the shrill cadences of her high singing
Are to the babe but wonted lullabies.

She draws the coverlet white and tucks it trimly,
She folds the little sleeper safe from harm;
Or bends to lift the veil, and, peering inly,
Makes sure it lies all undisturbed and warm.

And so she sits, till in the still, gray dawning
Two fairer nurses come, her place to take,
And smiling, beaming, with no word of warning,
Draw off the quilt, and kiss the babe awake.

Susan Coolidge

A Thrush Before Dawn

    A voice peals in this end of night
            A phrase of notes resembling stars,
    Single and spiritual notes of light.
            What call they at my window-bars?
                The South, the past, the day to be,
                An ancient infelicity.

    Darkling, deliberate, what sings
            This wonderful one, alone, at peace?
    What wilder things than song, what things
            Sweeter than youth, clearer than Greece,
                Dearer than Italy, untold
                Delight, and freshness centuries old?

    And first first-loves, a multitude,
            The exaltation of their pain;
    Ancestral childhood long renewed;
            And midnights of invisible rain;
                And gardens, gardens, night and...

Alice Meynell

The Two Lullabies.

    "Once songs as lullabies to thee I sung,
    To sleep hath sung thee now an angel's tongue."

    From the German of Ruckert.



A lovely babe was lying
    Upon its mother's breast;
And she, with soft, low music.
    Was hushing it to rest.

The song was sweet and gentle,
    And loving in its tone;
And in its touching tenderness
    A mother's love was shown.

And still it floated onward,
    With melody so deep,
Till closed the dark-fringed eyelids,
    The baby was asleep.

And still beside his cradle
    She sang the same low hymn,
Till he smiled, as he was sleeping,
    At angel fancies dim.

Years passed.--The helpless infant
    Was now a happy boy;
And often rang his laughter,...

H. P. Nichols

At Night

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,
    Hither the soft wings sweep;
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near
    The dovecote doors of sleep.

O which are they that come through sweetest light
    Of all these homing birds?
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?
    Your words to me, your words!

Alice Meynell