alice meynell's poems

Irish Jesuit Province

Alice Meynell's PoemsAuthor(s): Edith PearsonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 43, No. 501 (Mar., 1915), pp. 184-193Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20503704 .

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184 THE IRISH MONTHLY

"Then why write and read about him?" observed Jull judicially, " the giants too. I wonder where they went. I can remember one good giant; and I hope he went to

Heaven." (To be continued.)

ALI CE MEYNELL'S POEMS

"It needs a very pure intention, as well as great spiritual discern

ment, always to recognise the Divine Voice "-Mgr Be-nson

HERE are some things in life that ale always kept as " the best -away from the rest of the common

wares: the latter may be dear and tender ina our heart's love and indispensable to the common weal, but these " best" are so exceedingly precious that we make a shrine for thein, and in moments of trial and weariness when we are invaded by the insidious enemy, a distaste for life's daily round, we like to rest on the thought of our possessing these " best" behind the double doors. So in the mind's treasury

we keep our best apart. Among these " best" I place Alice

Meynell's Poems-lher soul-portraits, her living prayers, tier celestial choirs, her strong organ preludes, her nature songs so full of clear beauty, her imystic visions of the supernatural

world, her tender, human toicings of the mother's heart, the perfect rendering of the lover's soul, the poet's sonnets in exquisite harmony, the treasures from religion's depths. For such are too rare and costly to be tossed in the ferry-boats of life-they travel with us only on the great seas, in the in finite calm of the soul-away and bey-ond the call of the mean

and the clamorous. Among the maniy characteristics of Alice Meynell's work,

what strikes one most is her depth; there is not one little verse without that sense of the uniderlying power in things seen and unseen-the mystery of life. That lovely poem " To the Beloved" might voice for us this inner depth



ALICE ME YNELL'S POEM1S 185

" Thou art like silence all unvexed, Though wild words pgrt my soul from thee.

Thou 'art like silence unperplexed,

A secret and a mystery

Between one footfall and the next.

Molt dear pause in a mellow lay I

Thou art inwoven with every air. With thee the wildest tempests play,

And snatches of thee everywhere Make little heavens throughout a day.

0 pause between the sobs of caresl

0 thought within all thought that is,

Trance between laughter unawares I

Thou art the shape of melodies, And thou the ecstacy of prayers I "

That one line, " 0 thought within all thought that is

expresses the aim of her reach and she seems to leani down

to lead us there. She ever maintains a reverent attitude towards thought-and she teaches with such superfine delicacy as well as profound love for it.

4C The Shepherdess"-dainty and exquisite-is a poem we

love very dearly. One cannot refrain from quoting the -whole.

"She walks-the lady of mny delight A shepherdess of sheep

Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep

She feeds them on the fragralnt height,

And folds them in for sleep

She roams maternal hills and bright

Dark valleys safe and deep

Into thlat tender heart 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 "

Mrs. Meynell often speaks of the thought-rest of sleep

the ceasing of the duty struggle of will in the daytime. One

VoL. XLIII.-No. 501 14




verse especially is remembered from that unceasingly quoted poem, " Renotincement,' the sonnet Rossetti so dearly loved; it is the most perfect rendering of this idea. After saying that the thought of the renounced "' waits in day, hidden yet

bright," she says " but it rnust never, never come in sight."

She seems to rend her restricting will-power at night and cries:

" But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,

When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,

And all my bands I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away

With the first dteam that comes with the first sleep

I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart"

'One figlly knows that

" Into that tender heart at night

The Chastest stars may peep. "

"San Lorenzo's Mother" is one~ of the tenderest, human

poems-it is the beautiful little story from the mouth of the old mother of the cloistered son, after her long years without him. One day " one of his Order" came to beg and she did

not know if it were her son: 'VM-ine eyes were veiled by

mists of tears."

I had not seen my son's dear face

(He chose the cloister by God's grace)

Since it had come to full flower-time I hardly guessed at its perfect prime

That folded flower of his dear face.

His blessing be with me for ever I

My hope and doubt were hard to severn That altered face, those holy weeds.

I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,

And lost his echoing feet for ever."

We see the divine overcoming the human, and the last

verse is particularly beautiful:

" There is One Who cannot change;

Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange,

And all I give is given to love.

I might mistake my dearest son, But never the Son Who cannot change



ALICE MEYNELL'S POEMS 187

This vesper story of the " Early Poems" is developed in ' The Modern Mother," with her passionate love of the nine

years' lad, and surprise that she should receive so great a mneed of devotionifrom him.

" She looked for gratitude, content indeed

With this much that her nine years' love had bought."

" Nay even with less,

This mother, giver of life, death, peace, distress,

Desired, ah r niot so much

Thanks as forgiveness, and the passing touch Expected, and the slight, the brief caress "

Then in " Maternity" yearning sorrow reaches the climax of expression:

One wept, whose only child was dead,

New bo+n, ten years ago.

Weep not, he is in bliss,' they said.

She answered, ' Even so.'

"'Ten years ago was born in pain

A child, not now forlorn,

But oh, ten years ago I in vain

A mother, a mother was born.'

We know Alice Meynell is the younger of two celebrated ,daughters of T. J. Thompson, the elder being Lady Butler, the battle painter. Her father devoted himself to his two

daughters and in one of her essays she pays a fine tribute to

aim.

Ruskin's encouragement induced her to publish " Pre ludes" in 1876; these were republished in 1893, with further additions, and a further collection in 1909. The " Collected Poems" of 1913 include all since written.

Her work is, like Stevenson's Essays, only given when rounded to a perfect whole, and yet we have no sensation of her attempt to " gild refined gold"; there is nothing stiff in her embroidery, nor hardness in her lines. One may in stance the quartette of exquisite verses, " Song of the Night at Daybreak ?"

" All my stars forsake me, And the dawn-winds shake me.

Where shall I betake me?



188 THE IRISH MON THLY

Whither shall I run Till the set of sun,

Till the day be done ?

To the mountain-mine, To the boughs o' the pine,

To the blind man's eyne?

To a brow that is

Bowed upon the knees, Sick with memories

? "

Then there is " Day to the Night," with the idea, "Hope and weariness kiss each other." In unison with this, is "The Mloon to the Sun." . (The Poet sings to her poet):

" I make pensive thy delight And thy strong gold silver-white Though all beauty of mine thou makest, Yet to the earth which thou forsakest I have made thee fair all night

Day all night "

"A Poet's Wife" is supremely beautiful:

" 0 Poet, more than ocean, lonelier I In inaccessible rest

And storm8remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost err, Scattered through East to West,

Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her Who locks thee to her breast."

There is an echo in Alice Meynell's love poems, with the

sub-titles, "The Poet to his Poet," "The Poet to her Poet,'> of the Brownings and their ideal love, but not even Mrs.

Browning could quite reach these two verses " At Night,"7 she would fall short of their spiritual placid beauty:

Home, home from the horizon far and clear

Hither the soft wings sweep

Flocks of the memories of the day draw near

The dovecot doors of sleep

Oh, which are they that come through sweetest light

Of all these homing birds ?

Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight'

Your words to ire, your words I"

This poem is dedicated to W.3M. One can understand



ALiCE HEYNELL'S POEMS 189

Wilfrid Meynell's " Dedication" in his little " Verses and

Reverses." To A.M.

Prophet art thou and Child as well

Thy present doth thy dead Past spell,,

Thy heavenly Future doth foretell"

Whilst speaking of her strong human love one must notice -a great predominance of the idea of separation, renouncement,

parting-all betokening the restraint and celestial purity of her soul and work. "After a Parting" is a fine instance of

This: " 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."

'There is incense breath in the next verse:

" Thou dost beset the path to every shrine, My trembling thoughts discern

Thy goodness in the good for which I tine, And if I turn from but one sin, I turn

Unto a smile of thine.

" How shall J trust 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."

Then we have " Parted" with:

I shall not hear his voice complain

But who shall stop the gentle rain?"

Though some may say her key is ever minor-yet there is

,always the saving joy of the spiritual seeker-the Way. " Via et Veritas, et Vita": this poem sums up the solemn,

yet gentle message she sings so divinely for us-three chords ,of the symphony of her theme.

" You never attained to Him" "If to attain

Be to abide, then that may be."

":ERndless the way, followed with how much pain I

"The Way was He."




This little verse to me is beyond praise. The saute note ig struck in cI am the Way."

" Thou art the Way

Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, I cannot say

If Thou hadst ever met my soul."

"The Young Neophyte" is full of the enthusiasm of the God-lover in the spring of his life:

" I dedicate ffly fields when spring is grey

I light the tapers at my head and feet,

And lay the crucifix on this silent heart."

This communing with fear for the future and his whispered dread of toil, of the young ascetic, to my mind eclipses " The Letter from a Girl to her own old Age," in wtich poem there is something of the Brontl weirdness, though the pathos clings to one, of

"Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.

Only one morning, and the day was clouded.

And one old age with all regrets is crowded."

The three masterly poems--" The Unknown God," " A

General Communion" and " Christ in the Universe"-are

a trilogy of power and majesty of thought, coming from the depth of a mystic's soul. " A General Communion" is

the reflex of her own contemplative nature, and like our " best" will be the support of the fainting ones " down the

arches of the years."

" I saw the throng, so deeply separate,

Fed at the only board

The devout people, moved, intent, elate, And the devoted Lord.

A thousand single central daisies they,

A thousand of the one:

For each the entire monopoly of the day,

For each the whole of the devoted sun."

* " Hound of Heaven."



ALICE ALEYNELL'S POEMS 191

It is almost equalled in the words of the Truth-seeker at the sight of a communicant-" The Unknown God":

" I do confess Thee here, Alive within this life I know Thee near

Within this lonely conscience closed away, Within this brother's solitary day "

"Christ in the Universe" is a wonderful conception and should be read entire. It is the joy and triumph of this planet earth, over the stars, in her knowledge of Christ's coming.

c Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous

The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet Heart-shattering secret of His way with us"

Cardinal Newman might have written this poem. There are so many poems one would like to quote from

"The Garden," " The Courts (a FigLire of the Epiphany).'

" Plain, behind oracles, it is,. and past

All uly words, simple, perfect, heavenly-wild, The song some loaded poets reach at last

The Kings that found a Child."

"The Crucifixion," " The Newer Vainglory," " The

Launch"--these are only a few of her choice flowers. " The

Visiting Sea" is exquisite. "The First Snow" with its Italian memories:

" The clouds let go, they rose, they winged away;

Snow-white the altered mountains faced the day,

As saints who keep their counsel sealed and fast,

Their anguish overpast "

The entire absence of the academic in Alice Meynell's verse makes her beloved by those who think, and yet live not

in the student's cell remote. She is human, and, like her

grand St. Catherine of Siena, fearless in her views. She isv

dainty and Dobsonesque in" Soeur Monique" with its dreams

in rondean setting. Alice Meynell edited English poets in the Red Library

and has given us a delicious anthology of the choicest-a

little green book with Emerson's words for a title, " The

Flower of the Mind"-and it is significant that the poems




cease with Wordsworth. With him she could wander over hillsides and 6ome back and write " To a Daisy," and with her last lovely verse echo his " Thoughts that lie too deep for tears"-two lines are the echo:

0 daisy mine, what will it be toflook From God's side even of such a simple thing ?

Her "Essays" all published between 1896-1903 are now collected in one' volume, and are part of our most precious treasury; they need an article by themselves. With their exquisite style they are like richly carved caskets containing the loveliest pearls-in the like manner, the thought of the poems is sung in divine numbers. To know Alice Meynell as she is in soul

" All must be mystery and hieroglyph I"

" Heaven to her alone concedes pluralities. In her alone to reconcile, agrees

The Muse, the Graces, and the Charities."

These words of the immortal Francis Thompson, that speak of " her own carved, perfect way," tell us much of this poet

and woman. In " Her Portrait" he says, " What of her

ttoughts high mark for minie own thoughts to reach?" and Ahen he has poured out his flaming phial of praise to sing her work, he continues:

" Now all is said, and all being said, aye me!

There yet remains unsaid the very She."

" So she just lighted on our frosty earth,

A sad musician of cherubic birth,

Playing to alien ears-which did not prize

The uncomprehended music of the skies."'

The world has learnt to love her-she breathes of paring Mother-hood; her similes of flock," "of fold," of "homing" recur again and again; even in " The Roaring

YFrost": " A flock of winds came winging from the North,

Strong birds with fighting pinions driving forth

With a resounding call.



LA NCASHIRE GRANXNY 193

Where will they close their wings and cease their cries Between what warming seas and conquering skies

And fold, and fall "

She helps us in our many moods. She bends down to the little children; she loves " The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark"; she soars to the Saint, " the breast where beat the heart of Chhrist." Still she is kept among the best, not in perfumed lavender, long confined in chests of memory but yet out of daily sight and sound. It would be better perhaps did one keep her on the living shelf to meet the reaching, hand. I am sure many of us shoutld turn to her when we feel, what she so adtnirably expresses, that " loneliness in loneliness."'

EDITH PEARSON.

LANCASHIRE GRAANNY

As I'm a-sitting, knitting On we're own sanded floor, I keep a-thinking, thinking on There's them cooms home no more. An' every one of they brave lads Is someone's dearest one Some poor, poor mother's son.

As I'm a-sitting knitting, And to the seam-stitdh come, I say a prayer in every round,

For them as won't coom home. O grant to all our boys that die By sickness, shot, or sword Eternal rest, 0 Lord !

AGNEs M. BLUNDBLL.



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