Dedication of “Poems”
To Wilfrid and Alice Meynell
If the rose in meek duty
May dedicate humbly
To her grower the beauty
Wherewith she is comely;
If the mine to the miner
The jewels that pined in it;
Earth to diviner
The springs he divined in it;
To the grapes the wine-pitcher
Their juice that was crushed in it;
Viol to its witcher
The music lay hushed in it;
If the lips may pay Gladness
In laughters she wakened,
And the heart to its sadness
Weeping unslakened;
If the hid and sealed coffer
Whose having not his is,
To the loosers may proffer
Their finding—here this is;
Their lives if all livers
To the Life of all living,—
To you, O dear givers,
I give your own giving!