The Poems of Alice Meynell

								

The open sea-shore of my soul.


But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places

    Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,

    --The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.


You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed

    Rivers your coming floods and fills,

    The little pools 'mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.


What!  I have secrets from you?  Yes.
But, visiting Sea, your love doth press

    And reach in further than you know,

    And fills all these; and, when you go,
There's loneliness in loneliness.

  AFTER A PARTING


Farewell  has long been said; I have foregone thee;

    I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?

    For thou art so near Heaven
That Heavenward meditations pause upon thee.


Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;

    My trembling thoughts discern
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;

    And, if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine.


How shall I thrust thee apart

    Since all my growth tends to thee night and day--
To thee faith, hope, and art?

    Swift are the currents setting all one way;
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.

  BUILDERS OF RUINS


We build with strength the deep tower wall

    That shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,

    But how fair--this is not for us,
Who know the lack that lurks in all.


We know, we know how all too bright

    The hues are that our painting wears,
And how the marble gleams too white;--

    We speak in unknown tongues, the years
Interpret everything aright,


And crown with weeds our pride of towers,

    And warm our marble through with sun,
And break our pavements through with flowers,

    With an Amen when all is done,
Knowing these perfect things of ours.


O days, we ponder, left alone,

    Like children in their lonely hour,
And in our secrets keep your own,

    As seeds the colour of the flower.
To-day they are not all unknown,


The stars that 'twixt the rise and fall,

    Like relic-seers, shall one by one
Stand musing o'er our empty hall;

    And setting moons shall brood upon
The frescoes of our inward wall.


And when some midsummer shall be,

    Hither will come some little one
(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he),

    Sit on a ruin i' the late long sun,
And think, one foot upon his knee.


And where they wrought, these lives of ours,

    So many-worded, many-souled,
A North-west wind will take the towers,

    And dark with colour, sunny and cold,
Will range alone among the flowers.


And here or there, at our desire,

    The little clamorous owl shall sit
Through her still time; and we aspire

    To make a law (and know not it)
Unto the life of a wild briar.


Our purpose is distinct and dear,