A Song of Derivations

Alice Meynell 1847 (London) – 1922



I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through the long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth,
My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air;
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
With relics of the far unknown.
And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams throng in my breast.

Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me
Woke long ago and far apart.
Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
53

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBA CCAAC DDEED FFGGF HHIIH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 860
Words 166
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Alice Meynell

Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. more…

All Alice Meynell poems | Alice Meynell Books

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