Later Poems

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Title: Later Poems
Author: Alice Meynell
Release Date: July 9, 2007 [eBook #22032]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LATER POEMS***
Transcribed from the 1902 John Lane, The Bodley Head edition by David Price, email [email protected]
Later Poems
By Alice Meynell?Author of "Poems"
London and New York?John Lane, The Bodley Head?1902
_Copyright_, 1901?BY JOHN LANE?_All rights reserved_
UNIVERSITY PRESS--JOHN WILSON?AND SON--CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO
1. T.
Contents:
The Shepherdess?"I am the Way"?Via, et Veritas, et Vita?Why wilt Thou Chide??The Lady Poverty?The Fold?Cradle-song at Twilight?The Roaring Frost?Parentage?The Modern Mother?West Wind in Winter?November Blue?Chimes?Unto us a Son is given?A Dead Harvest?The Two Poets?A Poet's Wife?Veneration of Images?At Night
THE SHEPHERDESS
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.?Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
She guards them from the steep.?She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.
She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.?Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.?She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.?She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.?She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
"I AM THE WAY"
Thou art the Way.?Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,
I cannot say?If Thou hadst ever met my soul.
I cannot see--?I, child of process--if there lies
An end for me,?Full of repose, full of replies.
I'll not reproach?The way that goes, my feet that stir.
Access, approach,?Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer.
VIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA
"You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
Be to abide, then that may be."?"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
"The way was He."
"WHY WILT THOU CHIDE?"
Why wilt thou chide,?Who hast attained to be denied?
Oh learn, above?All price is my refusal, Love.
My sacred Nay?Was never cheapened by the way.?Thy single sorrow crowns thee lord?Of an unpurchasable word.
Oh strong, Oh pure!?As Yea makes happier loves secure,
I vow thee this?Unique rejection of a kiss.
I guard for thee?This jealous sad monopoly.?I seal this honour thine. None dare?Hope for a part in thy despair.
THE LADY POVERTY
The Lady Poverty was fair:?But she has lost her looks of late,?With change of times and change of air.?Ah slattern, she neglects her hair,?Her gown, her shoes. She keeps no state?As once when her pure feet were bare.
Or--almost worse, if worse can be--?She scolds in parlours; dusts and trims,?Watches and counts. Oh, is this she?Whom Francis met, whose step was free,?Who with Obedience carolled hymns,?In Umbria walked with Chastity?
Where is her ladyhood? Not here,?Not among modern kinds of men;?But in the stony fields, where clear?Through the thin trees the skies appear;?In delicate spare soil and fen,?And slender landscape and austere.
THE FOLD
Behold,?The time is now! Bring back, bring back?Thy flocks of fancies, wild of whim.?Oh lead them from the mountain-track--
Thy frolic thoughts untold.?Oh bring them in--the fields grow dim--
And let me be the fold.
Behold,?The time is now! Call in, O call?Thy posturing kisses gone astray?For scattered sweets. Gather them all
To shelter from the cold.?Throng them together, close and gay,
And let me be the fold!
CRADLE-SONG AT TWILIGHT
The child not yet is lulled to rest.
Too young a nurse, the slender Night?So laxly holds him to her breast
That throbs with flight.
He plays with her and will not sleep.
For other playfellows she sighs;?An unmaternal fondness keep
Her alien eyes.
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?
PARENTAGE
"When Augustus Caesar legislated against the unmarried citizens of Rome, he declared them to be, in some sort, slayers of the people."
Ah no, not these!?These, who were childless, are not they who gave?So many dead unto the journeying wave,?The helpless nurslings of the cradling seas;?Not they who doomed by infallible decrees?Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave.
But those who slay?Are fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs,?The death of innocences and despairs;?The dying of the golden and the grey.?The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay.?And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.
THE MODERN MOTHER
Oh what a kiss?With filial passion overcharged is this!
To this misgiving breast?The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest?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.
Oh filial