Unto Us A Son Is Given

    Given, not lent,
    And not withdrawn - once sent -
This Infant of mankind, this One,
Is still the little welcome Son.

    New every year,
    New-born and newly dear,
He comes with tidings and a song,
The ages long, the ages long.

    Even as the cold
    Keen winter grows not old;
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green;

    Sudden as sweet
    Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, Whom we have by heart.

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

A Thrush Before Dawn

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

Free Will

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

To A Lost Melody

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

The Divine Privilege

Alice Meynell, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Unto Us A Son Is Given

    Given, not lent,
    And not withdrawn--once sent--
This Infant of mankind, this One,
Is still the little welcome Son.

    New every year,
    New-born and newly dear,
He comes with tidings and a song,
The ages long, the ages long.

    Even as the cold
    Keen winter grows not old;
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green;

    Sudden as sweet
    Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, Whom we have by heart.

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

San Lorenzo Giustiniani's Mother

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
    Since it had come to full flower-time.
    I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears
When on a day in many years
    One of his Order came. I thrilled,
    Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled.
I doubted, for my mists of tears.

His blessing be with me for ever!
My hope and doubt were hard to sever.
    -That altered face, those holy weeds.
    I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,
And lost his echoing feet for ever.

If to my son my alms were given
I know not, and I wait for Heaven.
    He did not plead for child of mine,
    But for another Child divine,
And unto Him it was...

Alice Meynell

To . Upon The Birth Of Her First-Born Child, March 1833

"Tum porro puer, ut saevis projectus ab undis
Navita, nudus humi jacet, etc." Lucretius.



Like a shipwrecked Sailor tost
By rough waves on a perilous coast,
Lies the Babe, in helplessness
And in tenderest nakedness,
Flung by labouring nature forth
Upon the mercies of the earth.
Can its eyes beseech? no more
Than the hands are free to implore:
Voice but serves for one brief cry;
Plaint was it? or prophecy
Of sorrow that will surely come?
Omen of man's grievous doom!

But, O Mother! by the close
Duly granted to thy throes;
By the silent thanks, now tending
Incense-like to Heaven, descending
Now to mingle and to move
With the gush of earthly love,
As a debt to that frail Creature,
Instrument of struggling Nature

William Wordsworth

To A Young Mother On The Birth Of Her First-Born Child.

Young mother! proudly throbs thine heart, and well may it rejoice,
Well may'st thou raise to Heaven above in grateful prayer thy voice:
A gift hath been bestowed on thee, a gift of priceless worth,
Far dearer to thy woman's heart than all the wealth of earth.

What store of deep and holy joy is opened to thy thought -
Glad, sunny dreams of future days, with bliss and rapture fraught;
Of hopes as varied, yet as bright, as beams of April sun,
And plans and wishes centred all within thy darling one!

While others seek in changing scenes earth's happiness to gain,
In fashion's halls to win a joy as dazzling as 'tis vain -
A bliss more holy far is thine, far sweeter and more deep,
To watch beside thine infant's couch and bend above his sleep.

What joy for thee to ling'...

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The Child In Our Soul

Toward God in heaven spacious
With artless faith a boy looks free,
As toward his mother gracious,
And top of Christmas-tree.
But early in the storm of youth
There wounds him deep the serpent's tooth;
His childhood's faith is doubted
And flouted.

Soon stands in radiant splendor
With bridal wreath his boyhood's dream;
Her loving eyes and tender
The light of heaven's faith stream.
As by his mother's knee of yore
God's name he stammers yet once more,
The rue of tears now paying
And praying.

When now life's conflict stirring
Leads him along through doubtings wild,
Then upward points unerring
Close by his side his child.
With children he a child is still
And whatsoe'er his heart may chill,
Prayer for his son is warming,

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

Olive

I
Who may praise her?
Eyes where midnight shames the sun,
Hair of night and sunshine spun,
Woven of dawn's or twilight's loom,
Radiant darkness, lustrous gloom,
Godlike childhood's flowerlike bloom,
None may praise aright, nor sing
Half the grace wherewith like spring
Love arrays her.

II
Love untold
Sings in silence, speaks in light
Shed from each fair feature, bright
Still from heaven, whence toward us, now
Nine years since, she deigned to bow
Down the brightness of her brow,
Deigned to pass through mortal birth:
Reverence calls her, here on earth,
Nine years old.

III
Love's deep duty,
Even when love transfigured grows
Worship, all too surely knows
How, though love may cast out fear,
Yet the debt divine...

Algernon Charles Swinburne