My friend Barbara Loots and I have been exchanging thoughts about Alice Meynell, and have concluded she is one of the neglected poets of the early 20th century, and could use a revival. Now that formalism is back in fashion (at least in our little set), maybe her time has come.

Meynell was Catholic, but her religious thoughts are often strikingly original (one poem ties St. Catherine of Siena to Votes for Women). She is too often represented in anthologies by her sentimental side - chiefly the sonnet RENOUNCEMENT ("I must not think of thee...") or THE SHEPHERDESS. Here are two examples of the stronger Meynell.

"I AM THE WAY"

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.


CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE

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 innumerable 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 thread 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 unroll,
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

Gail,

Much thanks for this thread. I very much like Meynell's work. I first read it in George Macbeth's wonderful anthology "Victorian Verse". Penguin has allowed it to go out of print and has replaced it with an, I think, inferior selection. She is a tough writer, not at all sentimental at her best. Macbeth could be cranky, and I in no way endorse his view, but he seems to prefer Meynell to Christina Rossetti. Still, that much indicates Meynell should be far, far better known.

Best,
Michael Slipp

A neglected thread on a neglected poet...

But I like these too. The idea of the first one is very good & original as far as I know & subtly worked out. The 2nd stanza is wonderful. "Christ in the Universe" is perhaps a bit pat in the way it assimilates modern data (millions of other worlds) to the traditional religious sensibility, but no doubt clever, & musters some real feeling. The 3rd stanza is amazing in a way:

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.

The piling-up of emotionally charged adjectives is like a "special effect" -- thrilling, but not quite to be taken seriously, perhaps. Has an impressive impact in any case. The poem also suffers from having 2 endings. The "forsaken grave" line is a beautiful ending (& a brilliant trope for Christ), but then the poem has to work up the other side of the story & ends up with "show to them a Man" -- another excellent ending, but emotionally redundant-- it's like double-dipping from the same emotional pool.

Another curious item in the poem is line 8:

Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.

which crosses up 2 familiar idioms: "keep a secret" and "keep one's word." Alice evidently picked up on this herself since she makes "secret" the keyword of the ensuing stanza. What's left hanging is the problematical notion that our race has kept its word, has been faithful, has not been abysmally irresponsible.

Good stuff, anyway.

[This message has been edited by AE (edited June 11, 2006).]