Poem by Alice Meynell

The Young Neophyte

Who knows what days I answer for to-day?
    Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
    This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
    Give one repose to pain I know not now,
    One check to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.

O rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
    I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat

    I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
    And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

1. Free Will
2. The Two Questions
3. To Silence
4. To Tintoretto in Venice
5. In Sleep

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