The Veil, and Other Poems

Chapter 48: THE CATECHISM

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About This Book

The collection assembles short lyric and narrative poems that blend pastoral observation, eerie wonder, and quiet melancholy. Many pieces evoke nighttime or liminal settings, where imagination and memory animate ordinary scenes into encounters with fairies, spectres, or uncanny beauty. Voices range from whimsical to mournful, moving through snapshots of nature, domestic objects, and human regret, while formal restraint and vivid sensory detail create dreamlike moods. Recurring concerns include the power of perception, the edge between waking and dreaming, and the consolation or peril found in remembrance and fancy.

THE CATECHISM

'HAST thou then nought wiser to bring

Than worn-out songs of moon and rose?'

'Cracked my voice and broken my wing,

God knows.'

'Tell'st thou no truth of the life that is;
Seek'st thou from heaven no pitying sign?'
'Ask thine own heart these mysteries,
Not mine.'

'Where then the faith thou hast brought to seed?
Where the sure hope thy soul would feign?'
'Never ebbed sweetness—even out of a weed—
In vain.'

'Fool. The night comes.... 'Tis late. Arise:
Cold lap the waters of Jordan stream.'
'Deep be their flood and tranquil thine eyes
With a dream.'