The Poems of Alice Meynell

								

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.



      O 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 this dusk of days.

  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And not withdrawn--once sent,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.

  VENI CREATOR


So humble things Thou hast born for us, O God,
Left'st Thou a path of lowliness untrod?
Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden.
For we endure the tender pain of pardon,--
One with another we forbear.  Give heed,
Look at the mournful world thou hast decreed.
The time has come.  At last we hapless men
Know all our haplessness all through.  Come, then,
Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven,
Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven.

  TWO BOYHOODS



        Luminous passions reign
High in the soul of man; and they are twain.
Of these he hath made the poetry of earth--
Hath made his nobler tears, his magic mirth.



        Fair love is one of these,
The visiting vision of seven centuries;
And one is love of Nature--love to tears--
The modern passion of this hundred years.



        O never to such height,
O never to such spiritual light--
The light of lonely visions, and the gleam
Of secret splendid sombre suns in dream--



        O never to such long
Glory in life, supremacy in song,
Had either of these loves attained in joy,
But for the ministration of a boy.



        Dante was one who bare
Love in his deep heart, apprehended there
When he was yet a child; and from that day
The radiant love has never passed away.



        And one was Wordsworth; he
Conceived the love of Nature childishly
As no adult heart might; old poets sing
That exaltation by remembering.



        For no divine
Intelligence, or art, or fire, or wine,
Is high-delirious as that rising lark--
The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark.



        And Letters keep these two
Heavenly treasures safe the ages through,