Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

J. C. Squire, ed. A Book of Women’s Verse. 1921.

By Alice Meynell (1847–1922)

In Manchester Square

THE PARALYTIC man has dropped in death

The crossing-sweeper’s brush to which he clung,

One-handed, twisted, dwarfed, scanted of breath,

Although his hair was young.

I saw this year the winter vines of France,

Dwarfed, twisted, goblins in the frosty drouth,

Gnarled, crippled, blackened little stems askance,

On long hills to the South.

Great green and golden hands of leaves ere long

Shall proffer clusters in that vineyard wide.

And oh! his might, his sweet, his wine, his song,

His stature, since he died!