The Poems of Alice Meynell

								

To a golden summer you shall not see,

    And in your dying breath
There is no benison for me.


There is an autumn yet to wane,

    There are leaves yet to fall,
Which, when I kiss, may kiss again,

    And, pitied, pity me all for all,
And love me in mist and rain.

  PARTED


Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,--

    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.

    He is not banished, though, for this,--
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.


Though I shall talk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.

    He must not watch my resting-place,

    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?


I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?

    His tears must not disturb my heart,

    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?


Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;

    Joy is not gone from summer skies,

    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all these things are part of him.


He is not banished, for the showers
Yet wake this green warm earth of ours.

    How can the summer but be sweet?

    I shall not have him at my feet,
And yet my feet are on the flowers.

  "SOEUR MONIQUE"


A Rondeau by Couperin


Quiet form of silent nun,
What has given you to my inward eyes?
What has marked you, unknown one,
In the throngs of centuries
That mine ears do listen through?
This old master's melody
That expresses you;
This admired simplicity,
Tender, with a serious wit;
And two words, the name of it,

      "Soeur Monique."


And if sad the music is,
It is sad with mysteries
Of a small immortal thing
That the passing ages sing,--
Simple music making mirth
Of the dying and the birth
Of the people of the earth.


No, not sad; we are beguiled,
Sad with living as we are;
Ours the sorrow, outpouring
Sad self on a selfless thing,
As our eyes and hearts are mild
With our sympathy for Spring,
With a pity sweet and wild


For the innocent and far,
With our sadness in a star,
Or our sadness in a child.
But two words, and this sweet air.

        Soeur Monique,
Had he more, who set you there?
Was his music-dream of you
Of some perfect nun he knew,
Or of some ideal, as true?


And I see you where you stand
With your life held in your hand
As a rosary of days.
And your thoughts in calm arrays,
And your innocent prayers are told
On your rosary of days.
And the young days and the old
With their quiet prayers did meet
When the chaplet was complete.


Did it vex you, the surmise
Of this wind of words, this storm of cries,

    Though you kept the silence so

    In the storms of long ago,

    And you keep it, like a star?

    --Of the evils triumphing,
Strong, for all your perfect conquering,