Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO BOYHOODS, by ALICE MEYNELL


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TWO BOYHOODS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Luminous passions reign
Last Line: These two high childhoods in the heart of man.
Alternate Author Name(s): Meynell, Wilfrid, Mrs.; Thompson, Alice Christina
Subject(s): Dante Alighieri (1265-1321); Poetry & Poets; Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)


LUMINOUS passions reign
High in the soul of man; and they are twain.
Of these he hath made the poetry of earth --
Hath made his nobler tears, his magic mirth.

Fair Love is one of these,
The visiting vision of seven centuries;
And one is love of Nature -- love to tears --
The modern passion of this hundred years.

O never to such height,
O never to such spiritual light --
The light of lonely visions, and the gleam
Of secret splendid sombre suns in dream --

O never to such long
Glory in life, supremacy in song,
Had either of these loves attained in joy,
But for the ministration of a boy.

Dante was one who bare
Love in his deep heart, apprehended there
When he was yet a child; and from that day
The radiant love has never passed away.

And one was Wordsworth; he
Conceived the love of Nature childishly
As no adult heart might; old poets sing
That exaltation by remembering.

For no divine
Intelligence, or art, or fire, or wine,
Is high-delirious as that rising lark --
The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark.

And Letters keep these two
Heavenly treasures safe the ages through,
Safe from ignoble benison or ban --
These two high childhoods in the heart of man.





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