Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Preludes (1875). II. Builders of Ruins

Alice Meynell (1847–1922)

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 dimly feel the want of all.

We know, we know how all too bright

All hues of ours though dimmed through tears,

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.

We have a perfect purpose, dear,

Though from our consciousness ’tis hidden.

Thou, time to come, shalt make it clear,

Undoing our work; we are children chidden

With pity, and smiles of many a year.

Who shall allot the praise, and guess

What part is yours and what is ours?—

O years that certainly will bless

Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with flowers,

With ruin all our perfectness.

Be patient, Time, of our delays,

Too happy hopes, and wasted fears,

Our faithful ways, our wilful ways.

Solace our labours, O our seers

The seasons, and our bards the days;

And make our pause and silence brim

With the shrill children’s play, and sweets

Of those pathetic flowers and dim,

Of those eternal flowers my Keats

Dying felt growing over him.