Alice Meynell
1847-1922 19th century
Prayer held inside a crowded life, and renunciation that does not put out tenderness.
Who was Alice Meynell?
Raised in Italy by a father who taught her everything, she became a Catholic at twenty and published her first collection at twenty-eight. Mother of eight, she ran journals with her husband and wrote between household tasks, campaigned for women's suffrage, and took homeless poets into her house. She published little, and very slowly.
In their own words
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight.
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
But not a star of all the innumerable host of stars has heard how He administered this terrestrial ball.
O be prepared, my soul, to read the inconceivable, to scan the million forms of God those stars unroll.