Poem by Alice Meynell

The Two Poets

         Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long west did this wild wind come—
O strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
        Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.

            Two memories,
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.

                "Whose is the word?
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."

1. A Poet's Wife
2. Beyond Knowledge
3. The Launch
4. To the Body
5. Nurse Edith Cavell

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