Alice Meynell (1847–1922)

WHOSE is the speech

That moves the voices of this lonely beech?

Out of the long west did this wild wind come—

Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,

Ready and dumb, until

The dumb gale struck it on the darken’d hill.

Two memories,

Two powers, two promises, two silences

Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves

Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves

The purpose of the past,

Separate, apart—embraced, embraced at last.

‘Whose is the word?

Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?’

‘Thine earth was solitary, yet I found thee!’

‘Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,

Thou visitant divine.’

‘O thou my Voice, the word was thine.’ ‘Was thine.’