Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
    Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
    The good we love, and sleep--our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills!    And higher than they,

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
    Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
    Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
    Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,

My angel falls not short.    They greet each other.
    Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,
    Like all created things, secrets from me,
    And stand a barrier to eternity.
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide?

From where I dwell--upon the hither side?
    Thou little veil for so great mystery,
    When shall I penetrate all things and thee,
And then look back?    For this I must abide,

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled
    Literally between me and the world.
            Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,

And from a poet's side shall read his book.
    O daisy mine, what will it be to look
            From God's side even of such a simple thing?

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?
    This winter of a silent poet's heart
    Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?
    Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee?
    Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,
And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign?

Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow
    For others of thy fragrance, secret child?
            Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?

--Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,
    Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?
            How, my December violet, shall I name thee?

    Behold,
The time is now! Bring back, bring back
Thy flocks of fancies, wild of whim.
Oh lead them from the mountain-track--
    Thy frolic thoughts untold.
Oh bring them in--the fields grow dim--
    And let me be the fold.

    Behold,
The time is now! Call in, O call
Thy posturing kisses gone astray
For scattered sweets. Gather them all
    To shelter from the cold.
Throng them together, close and gay,
    And let me be the fold!

The Lady Poverty was fair:
But she has lost her looks of late,
With change of times and change of air.
Ah slattern, she neglects her hair,
Her gown, her shoes. She keeps no state
As once when her pure feet were bare.

Or--almost worse, if worse can be--
She scolds in parlours; dusts and trims,
Watches and counts. Oh, is this she
Whom Francis met, whose step was free,
Who with Obedience carolled hymns,
In Umbria walked with Chastity?

Where is her ladyhood? Not here,
Not among modern kinds of men;
But in the stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear;
In delicate spare soil and fen,
And slender landscape and austere.

    Oh what a kiss
With filial passion overcharged is this!
    To this misgiving breast
The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest
Upon the light heart and the unoppressed.

    Unhoped, unsought!
A little tenderness, this mother thought
    The utmost of her meed
She looked for gratitude; content indeed
With thus much that her nine years' love had bought.

    Nay, even with less.
This mother, giver of life, death, peace, distress,
    Desired ah! not so much
Thanks as forgiveness; and the passing touch
Expected, and the slight, the brief caress.

    Oh filial light
Strong in these childish eyes, these new, these bright
    Intelligible stars! Their rays
Are near the constant earth, guides in the maze,
Natural, true, keen in ...

I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
    Down, through long links of death and birth,
    From the past poets of the earth.
My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
    Awoke my breath i' the young world's air.
    I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
    In morning lands, in distant hills;
    And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
    With relics of the far unknown.
    And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams...

As the full moon shining there
To the sun that lighteth her
Am I unto thee for ever,
O my secret glory-giver!
O my light, I am dark but fair,
    Black but fair.

Shine, Earth loves thee!    And then shine
And be loved through thoughts of mine.
All thy secrets that I treasure
I translate them at my pleasure.
I am crowned with glory of thine.
    Thine, not thine.

I make pensive thy delight,
And thy strong gold silver-white.
Though all beauty of nine thou makest,
Yet to earth which thou forsakest
I have made thee fair all night,
    Day all night.

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 ba...

A flock of winds came winging from the North,
Strong birds with fighting pinions driving forth
    With a resounding call!

Where will they close their wings and cease their cries--
Between what warming seas and conquering skies--
    And fold, and fall?

She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
    She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
    And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
    Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
    The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
    Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
    She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

    Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long West did this wild wind come--
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
    Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.

    Two memories,
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
    The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart--embraced, embraced at last.

    "Whose is the word?
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?"
"Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!"
"Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
    Thou visitant divine."
"O thou my Voice, the word was thine."
    "Was thine."

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?...

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

Oh, not more subtly silence strays
    Amongst the winds, between the voices,
Mingling alike with pensive lays,
    And with the music that rejoices,
Than thou art present in my days.

My silence, life returns to thee
    In all the pauses of her breath.
Hush back to rest the melody
    That out of thee awakeneth;
And thou, wake ever, wake for me.

Full, full is life in hidden places,
    For thou art silence unto me.
Full, full is thought in endless spaces.
    Full is my life.    A silent sea
Lies round all shores with long embraces.

Thou art like silence all unvexed
    Though wild words part my soul from thee.
Thou art like silence unperplexed,
    A secret and a mystery
Between one footfall and the next.

Most dear...

Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
    Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
    But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul?    Thou liest i' the wind and rain.

Even as to him who plays that idle air,
    It seems a melody,
For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,
    Dead, thou dost live in me,
And all this lonely soul is full of thee.

Thou song of songs!--not music as before
    Unto the outward ear;
My spirit sings thee inly evermore,
    Thy falls with tear on tear.
I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.

Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,
    Is there no pulse to move thee,
At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,
    And falling tears above thee,
O ...

    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.

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
    Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember! whose warm pulses beat
    With love of thine own kind;

Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
    Unshrined on this high-way,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
    Thou rood of every day!