A MODERN POETESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 47, 25 February 1935, Page 10

A MODERN POETESS.

ALICE MEYNELL'S LIFE. Mrs. Una Craig delighted a largo gathering of the Spilt Ink Club members at her home on Saturday afternoon with a talk on Alice Meynell, one of the few modern poets assured of immortality. It was not generally known, said the speaker, that Alice Meynell was nominated to tho

Laureateship in 1903, when Robert Bridges was appointed. She was born in 1847 and died in 1922. Therefore she was writing at a time when women were beginning to forge ahead to a position of literary prominence. She wrote in all only 120 poems, which were contained in one small volume. She also wrote essays which were of a very tine quality, and she was regarded by many as one of the best essay wntors in English literature. Alice and her sister Elizabeth, who was an artist, spent much of their girlhood in Italy, which was responsible for the great change that came into her life. At twenty she renounced the Anglican faith, in which she had been brought up, and joined the Roman Catholic Church. At thirty she married Wilfred Mejr-ell, a Yorkshiroinon. Thf rest of her 'jfe was comparatively uneventful. She wrote for papers and magazines, but it was in her poetry she came to feel the expression of her emotional life—that intimate, sensitive life which had in it such an element ot refined beauty. Her work showed a definitely religious influence, but she was never bigoted. Her relatively small collection of poems was the result of slowly accumulated work. She was tho centre of a singularly gracious ■ social circle in London, including the Rossettis, Ruskin, Dickens. The following of her poems were read by Mrs. Craig and Miss Johnston: "To a Daisy," "I am the Way," "In Sleep," "Portugal," "Unto Us a Son is Given," "To the Body," "A Certain Rich Man," and the best known of her poems, "The Lady of the Lambs." A vote of thanks was accorded Mrs. Crsj.g for her talk, and the afternoon concluded with a literary competition quotation from the poets, the prizt being won by Miss Johnston.