Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The Two PoetsAlice Meynell (18471922)
W
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long west did this wild wind come—
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darken’d hill.
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart—embraced, embraced at last.
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?’
‘Thine earth was solitary, yet I found thee!’
‘Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
Thou visitant divine.’
‘O thou my Voice, the word was thine.’ ‘Was thine.’