THE VOICE
(An Ecstasy)
I
The Prelude
I saw the regal sun look down
And crown the earth with a golden crown:
I saw his bright embraces fill
The valley and assail the hill;
I saw him kiss the hill I knew
Where matted gorse and heather grew.
I heard a child go whistling by
To school—I heard the ploughmen cry
To their horses—in the yard
A bantam-cock was crowing hard—
A pensive and complacent hen
Began to drawl .. drawl ... drawl .... and then
A puppy yapping with delight
Chased and hustled her in flight.
I took me to a tangled lane
Hoping for quietness—in vain;
I only in the world was mute.
The blackbird laughed upon his flute,
And starlings talked in wayward wise
On creaking boughs, and up the skies
The trembling, quick, delirious lark
Sang until my soul was dark.
So morning, noon and all day long
The world was multiplied with song
And I, distracted, could not sing;
At length, toward the evening,
I climbed the little hill I knew
Where matted gorse and heather grew.
Slowly,
Slowly,
Slowly at last the evening fell;
Slowly beneath her drowsy spell
The teeming brain of the world was quieted:
The noise of day was dead.
Now might a single human thought
Flying out, keen-wrought,
Usurp dominion of the sky, and fill
The void of the world with a chant of love, and move it to one will.
So from my ingathered soul
Softly sang I to my Love—
Softly, yet I heard the whole
Shining world, beneath, above,
Echo me and ring and ring
Through the quiet evening.
First I sang how she doth dwell
Carven so within my mind
That her tokens I do spell
And her vital beauty find
Paining me, oh everywhere
Phantom-bright upon the air.
Morning winds with liquid tune
Her abounding joy express;
Azure-folded deeps of June
Tell me of her tenderness;
Laughingly the waterbrooks
Mirror her untainted looks.
Trembling shadows wake in me
Sense of the outflowing tide
Of her hidden rarity,
Till I dream her at my side,—
And her prayed-for kisses rain
Through and through me, sharp with pain.
Hushed the melody I sang,
Earth around me rang and rang.
II
The Ecstasy
Quick a current of delight
Through my body laughed and leapt,
Took the dazzle from my sight,
From the earth my senses swept;
Through the ringing air I sped,
Loosened as from bars of lead.
And my singing soul became
Infinite; the sea, the sky,
Were my flesh, the mighty frame
Of the Universe was I;
Mystic voices in me stirred,
And I cried, and I heard.
Crying how my Lady shone
Fairer than the dawn upon
Snowy-crested Himalay;
How she fed with golden fire
Red lamps of the Earth’s desire,
White lamps of the Milky Way.
Crying how, if she must die,
Sudden from the naked sky
Star and sun must fade and fall,
And from every naked tree
Foliage drop, and her death be
Earth’s and Heaven’s funeral.
So did I her glory sing
Through the quiet evening.
Every note and echo fell
Crystal as a chiming bell,
Strong and singular of beat,
Gay and simple, clear and sweet,
Gentle, yet with even sound
Calling to the southern bound
Of the world, and crying forth
Undiminished to the north.
And in those harmonious skies
All tempestuous energies
To such equipoise were wrought
Never a jarring atom fought.
There was neither jolt nor strain,
Shock, nor weight, nor clash, nor pain,
But I saw great Saturn float
Buoyant as a wandering mote
On a sunbeam, or like down
Of thistle indolently blown.
And I felt the deepening night
Saturated so with light
That the very darkness seemed
Light that more intensely dreamed;
And the light was filled with sense
Of Being and Omnipotence,—
Gathered now at instant will
To a single point, until
I was conscious of each bird,
Beast or creeping thing that stirred
In a lane or covert. Then
Consciousness would flow again
Evenly, and life would be
From all separation free:
Only my Belovèd shone,—
She and I, complete, alone.
And looking down with happy eyes
From my kingdom of the skies,
I saw my lady stoop and give
Glorious life for the world to live.
I saw how from the lullèd earth
Meeting her gaze the darkness fell
And light celestial sprang to birth,
And flowers changed the path of hell;
And to her lips she lifted up
Th’ essential world, created new,
And drank and drained the sacred cup
As sunfire drinks the morning dew.
From meadows of the noble dead,
From fields where baffled and forlorn
The conqueror lays his uncrowned head,
The very life of peace was born:
And in my lady’s heart of love
So soft, so dim that peace was felt
As when dusk enters a deep grove
Where, all day long, shadows have dwelt.
From lives of sick men, clean with pain,
She drew a virtue like the rare
Odour of windflowers washed with rain
Afloat upon the sensitive air;
And sick men felt in their hot room
The cooling garden-breezes blow,
And heaven pierce the fading gloom
With javelins of silver snow.
I saw the sere ungarnished tree
A treasury of green unlock,
And pastures crown the foaming sea,
And flame enliven the dull rock;
And frozen rivers were unsealed,
And waters through the desert ran,
And like a meteor shone revealed
The mystic in the common man;
Whose soul enchanted, winged with dream
And eyed with splendour, thrust her course
Rapid upon the darkling stream,
Sped by her own unconscious force,—
Content at last, content to ride
Free from the well-loved daily bond
Of time and place, on the full tide
Of Oceans unexplored beyond.
And there was song from every land,
In every tongue, in every key,
And every tiny lyric spanned
The chasms of infinity:
Yet I the Lover sang alone
To my Belovèd: all the throng
Of praising voices made but one
Hushed undercurrent of my song:
“O thou Belovèd of the Lover, thou,
Health-giver, Purifier, Strengthener,
Fountain, and spring, and river of the Sun.
O thou Belovèd of the Lover, strong
As morning or the full inflowing tide,
Calm as the evening sky above a lake.
Thou who art one and changeless, O Belovèd,
O thou Belovèd who art calm and strong.
O calm Belovèd, where all passion lies
Too deep to stir, and strong, O thou Belovèd
In frailty that shatters force. O Love!
Belovèd of the Lover, everlasting,
Beyond all Death, all Change, O Love Belovèd,
Be with the Lover always, calm and strong.”
III
The Return
So did I in Heaven sing,
And the lilac evening
Deeper, deeper, deeper shone.
Fairer yet and yet more fair
Burned my kingdom of the air.
So I sang—or did I sing?
I, who still was listening.
So I sang—yet was it mine,
The Song, the Singing Voice divine?
Sudden, in a fit of mirth,
I that was so mighty grown
Bent me low to see the Earth
And the little hill I knew
Where the gorse and heather grew.
Then I cried and Heaven cried
Loud with laughter, for I spied
How my puny body lay
In a coat of sombre grey
Six foot long amid the heather
With its two arms locked together,
With its pinpoint eyes that burned
Motionless and solemn turned
In a brave unconscious stare
On the diamonded air.
Still I looked, and in a while
Saw the growing of a smile
On the lips and then a yawn,
Then a difficult breath long-drawn—
One deep breath, and then an arm
Stretched out, and, as if alarm
Seized it, the whole body shook.
Then could I no longer look,
For I felt my limbs and knew
I was narrowed down again
To my body, and I grew
Quiet, fearing the disdain
Of the stars who looked on me
Fallen from their company.
But I heard no sound of scorn,
Only a far echo borne
Of the Voice whose singing moves
And quickens every thing that loves.