The Poems of Alice Meynell

								

I led thy feet before I died.

  VI


THE DAY TO THE NIGHT


The Poet sings to his Poet


From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn,

    We two are sundered always, Sweet.
A few stars shake o'er the rocky lawn

    And the cold sea-shore when we meet.

    The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet.


We are not day and night, my Fair,

    But one.  It is an hour of hours.
And thoughts that are not otherwhere

    Are thought here 'mid the blown sea-flowers,

    This meeting and this dusk of ours.


Delight has taken Pain to her heart,

    And there is dusk and stars for these.
O linger, linger!  They would not part;

    And the wild wind comes from over-seas,

    With a new song to the olive trees.


And when we meet by the sounding pine

    Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother.
And when thy sweet eyes answer mine,

    Peace nestles close to her mournful mother,

    And Hope and Weariness kiss each other.

  VII


A POET OF ONE MOOD


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.

  VIII


A SONG OF DERIVATIONS


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 throng into my breast.


Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me

    Woke long ago and far apart.

    Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.

  IX


SINGERS TO COME


No new delights to our desire

    The singers of the past can yield.

    I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,

    Poets unborn and unrevealed.


Singers to come, what thoughts will start