To Alice Meynell
I too have known my mutinies,
Played with improvident desires,
Gone indolently vain as these
Whose lips from undistinguished choirs
Mock at the music of our sires.
I too have erred in thought. In hours
When needy life forbade me bring
To song the brain’s unravished powers,
Then had it been a temperate thing
Loosely to pluck an easy string.
Yet thought has been, poor profligate,
Sin’s period. Through dear and long
Obedience I learn to hate
Unhappy lethargies that wrong
The larger loyalties of song.
And you upon your slender reed,
Most exquisitely tuned, have made
For every singing heart a creed.
And I have heard; and I have played
My lonely music unafraid,
Knowing that still a friendly few,
Turning aside from turbulence,
Cherish the difficult phrase, the due
Bridals of disembodied sense
With the new word’s magnificence.