Song

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
    Save in my love's eternity.
    Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever-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, oh, 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

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 A Lost Melody

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

The Shepherdess

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

To The Beloved

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

A Poet's Sonnet

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

English

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Song

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
    Save in my love's eternity.
    Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever--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, oh, 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 Christiana Thompson 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

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 dead 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 have heard cuckoos sing.
And I w...

Alice Meynell

To A Lost Melody

Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody,
    Sung beyond memory,
When golden to the winds this world of ours
    Waved wild with boundless flowers;
Sung in some past when wildernesses were,-
    Not dead, not dead, lost air!
Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou,
    And what soul knows thee now?
Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind
    From that o'erburdened mind
That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue
    By which thou first wert sung?
Was not the holy choir the endless dome,
    And nature all thy home?
Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast.
    Lulling thy storms to rest?
And is the June air laden with thee now,
    Passing the summer-bough?
And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea
    Balmy with thoughts of thee?<...

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...

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

After A Parting

Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;
    I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?
    For thou art so near Heaven
That heavenward meditations pause upon thee.

Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;
    My trembling thoughts discern
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;
    And if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine.

How shall I thrust thee apart
    Since all my growth tends to thee night and day-
To thee faith, hope, and art?
    Swift are the currents setting all one way;
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.

Alice Meynell