A Father of Women: And Other Poems |
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28 Orchard Street abject Alice Meynell BURNS Ancestral birth blood bound in Buck bread breast BURNS & OATES Calvary cherished child childhood Christ clasp clearer crippled world dark Darkling dawn dead death delicate DIVINE PRIVILEGE dread dream dust earth ESSAYS eyes FATHER OF WOMEN fear finely printed Forgive fright gardens garner GEORGE MEREDITH glory hast heart Higher Powers Ignoble Immortal implored innocent kiss know thy LENGTH OF DAYS lies light looked Ltd 28 Orchard MEYNELL One Volume Moon multitude mystery mystical Nature New-made thy night noon OATES Ltd 28 Occluded Orchard Street London pain past POEMS by Alice poet Postage 4d PRAYER prized rose sermons shadow SHAKESPEARE silence single sleep solemn Sombre Speak Stanford University Libraries Stripling SUMMER IN ENGLAND tear terror thee thine things thou shalt THRUSH thy face Tintoretto's TREASURE trespasses Twas untold Venice vigil Walked wilder wind young
Popular passages
Page 13 - No man hath greater love than this, To die to serve his friend " ? So these have loved us all unto the end. Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed ! The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, The very kiss of Christ.
Page 16 - The South, the past, the day to be, An ancient infelicity. Darkling, deliberate, what sings This wonderful one, alone, at peace? What wilder things than song, what things Sweeter than youth, clearer than Greece, Dearer than Italy, untold Delight, and freshness centuries old? And first first-loves, a multitude, The exaltation of their pain; Ancestral childhood long renewed; And midnights of invisible rain; And gardens, gardens, night and day, Gardens and childhood all the way. What Middle Ages passionate,...
Page 17 - ... of invisible rain; And gardens, gardens, night and day, Gardens and childhood all the way. What Middle Ages passionate, O passionless voice! What distant bells Lodged in the hills, what palace state Illyrian! For it speaks, it tells, Without desire, without dismay Some morrow and some yesterday. All-natural things! But more — Whence came This yet remoter mystery? How do these starry notes proclaim A graver still divinity? This hope, this sanctity of fear? O innocent throat! O human...
Page 12 - twixt apples and their leaves. And while this rose made round her cup. The armies died convulsed. And when This chaste young silver sun went up Softly, a thousand shattered men, One wet corruption, heaped the plain, After a league-long throb of pain. Flower following tender flower; and birds. And berries; and benignant skies Made thrive the serried flocks and herds — Yonder are men shot through the eyes. Love, hide thy face From man's unpardonable race. Who said "No man hath greater love than this,...
Page 7 - Our father works in us, The daughters of his manhood. Not undone Is he, not wasted, though transmuted thus, And though he left no son. Therefore on him I cry To arm me: 'For my delicate mind a casque, A breastplate for my heart, courage to die, Of thee, captain, I ask. 'Nor strengthen only; press A finger on this violent blood and pale, Over this rash will let thy tenderness A while pause, and prevail. 'And shepherd-father, thou Whose staff folded my thoughts before my birth, Control them now I am...
Page 9 - What have you then forgone? A history? This you had. Or memories? These, too, you had of your far-distant dawn. No further dawn seems his, The old man who shares with you, But has no more, no more. Time's mystery Did once for him the most that it can do: He has had infancy. And all his dreams, and all His loves for mighty Nature, sweet and few, Are but the dwindling past he can recall Of what his childhood knew. He counts not any more His brief, his present years. But O he knows How far apart the...
Page 30 - EASTER NIGHT ALL night had shout of men and cry Of woeful women filled His way ; Until that noon of sombre sky On Friday, clamour and display Smote Him ; no solitude had He, No silence, since Gethsemane. Public was Death ; but Power, but Might, But Life again, but Victory, Were hushed within the dead of night, The shutter
Page 8 - O liberal, constant, dear ! Crush in my nature the ungenerous art Of the inferior ; set me high, and here, Here garner up thy heart." Like to him now are they, The million living fathers of the War — Mourning the crippled world, the bitter day — Whose striplings are no more. The crippled world ! Come then, Fathers of women with your honour in trust ; Approve, accept, know them daughters of men, Now that your sons are dust.
Page 23 - Meynell,4 on the other hand, who is known as a poet of deep religious sincerity, tells that "1 dreamt (no 'dream' awake— a dream indeed) A wrathful man was talking in the park: 'Where are the Higher Powers who know our need And leave us in the dark? There are no Higher Powers; there is no heart In God, no love' — his oratory here Taking the paupers' and the cripples' part Was broken by a tear."• GravesS (pp.