Explore "Poems: TO THE BELOVED DEAD -- A LAMENT" by Alice Meynell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers / Play on a window-pane. / The time is there, the form of music lingers; / But O thou sweetest strain, / Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the wind and rain.
Even as to him who plays that idle air, / It seems a melody, / For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair, / Dead, thou dost live in me, / And all this lonely soul is full of thee.
Thou song of songs! -- not music as before / Unto the outward ear; / My spirit sings thee inly evermore, / Thy falls with tear on tear. / I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.
Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme, / Is there no pulse to move thee, / At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time, / And falling tears above thee, / O music stifled from the ears that love thee?
Oh, for a strain of thee from outer air! / Soul wearies soul, I find. / Of thee, thee, thee, I am mournfully aware, / -- Contained in one poor mind, / Who wert in tune and time to every wind.
Poor grave, poor lost beloved! but I burn / For some more vast To be. / As he that played that secret tune may turn / And strike it on a lyre triumphantly, / I wait some future, all a lyre for thee.