Alice Meynell

West Wind in Winter

Another day awakes. And who—
    Changing the world—is this?
He comes at whiles, the winter through,
    West Wind! I would not miss
His sudden tryst: the long, the new
    Surprises of his kiss.

Vigilant, I make haste to close
    With him who comes my way,
I go to meet him as he goes;
    I know his note, his lay,
His colour and his morning-rose,
    And I confess his day.

My window waits; at dawn I hark
    His call; at morn I meet
His haste around the tossing park
    And down the softened street;
The gentler light is his: the dark,
    The grey—he turns it sweet.

So too, so too, do I confess
    My poet when he sings.
He rushes on my mortal guess
    With his immortal things.
I feel, I know, him. On I press—
    He finds me 'twixt his wings.