Dream-Songs for the Belovèd

Chapter 21: UNDERWORLD

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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.

UNDERWORLD

Here lie I in the underworld of trees,

Over my head I have a wave of leaves

Through whose loose shimmering weave of mysteries

The rays of heaven come in yellow sheaves

Till every leaf is like an amber lamp

Lit at the very source of golden light;

The netted green has drawn the sun's own stamp

And myriad tiny suns are in my sight,

While such a radiant harmony, on wings

I hear but see not, seems my world to throng

I could believe the only voice that sings

Is of the leafage sparkling into song.

To-day within my soul I may contain

As much melodic light as one fine leaf

Receives from heaven and gives out again

Into an underworld grown dim with grief.