Poem by Alice Meynell

A Comparison in a Seaside Field

'Tis royal and authentic June
    Over this poor soil blossoming;
Here lies, beneath an upright noon,
    Thin nation for so wild a king.

Far off, the noble Summer rules,
    Violent in the ardent rose,
His sun alight in mirroring pools,
    Braggart on Alps of vanquished snows;

Away, aloft, true to his hour,
    Announced, his colour, his fire, his jest.
But here, in negligible flower,
    Summer is not proclaimed:—confessed.

A woman I marked; for her no state,
    Small joy, no song. She had her boon,
Her only youth, true to its date,
    Faintly perceptible, her June.

1. Spring on the Alban Hills
2. Summer in England, 1914
3. The Two Questions
4. In Honour of America, 1917
5. The October Redbreast

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