The Poems of Alice Meynell

								

My heart that pressed to rise and reach,
And felt the love of altering speech,

    Of frontiers, in its blood.


But O the unfolding South! the burst

    Of summer!  O to see
Of all the southward brooks the first!

    The travelling heart went free
With endless streams; that strife was stopped;
And down a thousand vales I dropped,

    I flowed to Italy.

  THE JOYOUS WANDERER


Translated from M. Catulle Mendès

  I go by road, I go by street--

      Lira, la, la!
O white highways, ye know my feet!
A loaf I carry and, all told,
Three broad bits of lucky gold--

      Lira, la, la!
And O within my flowering heart,
(Sing, dear nightingale!) is my Sweet.


A poor man met me and begged for bread--

      Lira, la, la!
"Brother, take all the loaf," I said,
I shall but go with lighter cheer--

      Lira, la, la!
And O within my flowering heart
(Sing, sweet nightingale!) is my Dear.


A thief I met on the lonely way--

      Lira, la, la!
He took my gold; I cried to him, "Stay!
And take my pocket and make an end."

      Lira, la, la!
And O within my flowering heart
(Sing, soft nightingale!) is my Friend.


Now on the plain I have met with death--

      Lira, la, la!
My bread is gone, my gold, my breath.
But O this heart is not afraid--

      Lira, la, la!
For O within this lonely heart
(Sing, sad nightingale!) is my Maid.

  THE RAINY SUMMER


There's much afoot in heaven and earth this year;

    The winds hunt up the sun, hunt up the moon,
Trouble the dubious dawn, hasten the drear

    Height of a threatening noon.


No breath of boughs, no breath of leaves, of fronds,

    May linger or grow warm; the trees are loud;
The forest, rooted, tosses in her bonds,

    And strains against the cloud.


No scents may pause within the garden-fold;

    The rifled flowers are cold as ocean-shells;
Bees, humming in the storm, carry their cold

    Wild honey to cold cells.

  THE ROARING FROST


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?

  WEST WIND IN WINTER


Another day awakes.  And who--

    Changing the world--is this?
He comes at whiles, the winter through,

    West Wind!  I would not miss
His sudden tryst: the long, the new

    Surprises of his kiss.


Vigilant, I make haste to close

    With him who comes my way,
I go to meet him as he goes;

    I know his note, his lay,
His colour and his morning-rose,

    And I confess his day.


My window waits; at dawn I hark

    His call; at morn I meet
His haste around the tossing park

    And down the softened street;
The gentler light is his: the dark,

    The grey--he turns it sweet.


So too, so too, do I confess