Monday, December 09, 2013

The Rounded Earth, the Rounding Skies

Winter Trees on the Horizon
by Alice Meynell


O delicate! Even in wooded lands
They show the margin of my world,
My own horizon; little bands
Of twigs unveil that edge impearled.

And what is more mine own than this,
My limit, level with mine eyes?
For me precisely do they kiss—
The rounded earth, the rounding skies.

It has my stature, that keen line,
(Let mathematics vouch for it).
The lark’s horizon is not mine,
No, nor his nestlings’ where they sit;

No, nor the child’s. And, when I gain
The hills, I lift it as I rise
Erect; anon, back to the plain
I soothe it with mine equal eyes.