She roams maternal hills and bright, Dark valleys safe and deep. Into that tender breast at night The chastest stars may peep. She walks--the lady of my delight-- A shepherdess of sheep. She holds her little thoughts in sight, Though gay they run and leap. She is so circumspect and right; She has her soul to keep. She walks--the lady of my delight-- A shepherdess of sheep. CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE BY ALICE MEYNELL With this ambiguous earth His dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all The innumberable host of stars has heard How He administered this terrestrial ball. Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word. Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave, Nor, in our little day, May his devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to tread the Milky Way Or His bestowals there be manifest. But in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. O, be prepared, my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of God those stars enroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. “I AM THE WAY” BY ALICE MEYNELL Thou art the Way. Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, I cannot say If Thou hadst ever met my soul. I cannot see-- I, child of process--if there lies An end for me, Full of repose, full of replies. I’ll not reproach The road that winds, my feet that err. Access, approach Art Thou, Time, Way, and Wayfarer. VIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA BY ALICE MEYNELL “You never attained to Him.” “If to attain Be to abide, then that may be.” “Endless the way, followed with how much pain!” “The way was He.” UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN BY ALICE MEYNELL Given, not lent, And not withdrawn--once sent, This Infant of mankind, this One, Is still the little welcome Son. New every year, New born and newly dear, He comes with tidings and a song, The ages long, the ages long; Even as the cold Keen winter grows not old, As childhood is so fresh, foreseen, And spring in the familiar green. Sudden as sweet Come the expected feet. All joy is young, and new all art, And He, too, Whom we have by heart. TO A DAISY BY ALICE MEYNELL