Dream-Songs for the Belovèd

Chapter 13: NEVER-KNOWN

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About This Book

An intimate collection of lyrical poems that weave dreamlike imagery, devotional longing, and quiet philosophical reflection. The speaker addresses a beloved presence and considers love as both gift and transformative occupation, often finding silence and music in place of conventional expression. Imagery moves between night, pastoral meadows, classical myth, and fogbound streets to explore memory, beauty, loss, and the creative impulse. Forms vary from short lyrics and sonnet-like pieces to longer idylls and mythic narratives, shifting voice between intimate address and contemplative reportage. The overall mood balances tenderness and austerity, repeatedly returning to themes of spiritual vision and the limits of language.

NEVER-KNOWN

O Never-Known, it may be Never-to-Know,

You are the murmur of colour in the East

When upon twilit clouds faint ghosts of sunset

Sigh from the Western rose-gardens.

Or the thin rippled tune

Of imperceptible Æolian harps

Swept by a wind out of the misty sphere

Just higher than the summit of the soul—

Music half-heard, song uncontainable.

Or you are violets whispering in the dark.

You are unshapen in the eyes of me,

But in my breast I carry all the breath

And sound and colour of you, Never-Known,

It may be Never-to-Know.