The Poems of Alice Meynell

"O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise

In the young children's eyes.

But I have learnt the years, and know the yet

Leaf-folded violet.

Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell

The cuckoo's fitful bell.

I wander in a grey time that encloses

June and the wild hedge-roses.

A year's procession of the flowers doth pass

My feet, along the grass.

And all you wild birds silent yet, I know

The notes that stir you so,

Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear

Beginnings of the year.

In these young days you meditate your part;

I have it all by heart.

I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers

Hidden and warm with showers,

And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall

Alter his interval.

But not a flower or song I ponder is

My own, but memory's.

I shall be silent in those days desired

Before world inspired.

"