Poem by Alice Meynell

The Poet to the Birds

You bid me hold my peace,
    Or so I think, you birds; you'll not forgive
My kill-joy song that makes the wild song cease,
    Silent or fugitive.

Yon thrush stopt in mid-phrase
    At my mere footfall; and a longer note
Took wing and fled afield, and went its ways
    Within the blackbird's throat.

Hereditary song,
    Illyrian lark and Paduan nightingale,
Is yours, unchangeable the ages long;
    Assyria heard your tale;

Therefore you do not die.
    But single, local, lonely, mortal, new,
Unlike, and thus like all my race, am I,
    Preluding my adieu.

My human song must be
    My human thought. Be patient till 'tis done.
I shall not hold my little peace; for me
    There is no peace but one.

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

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