I THOUGHT that I was ravished to a height Whence earth was lost with all I once had known; I saw the stars flash dwindling thro' the night, Like sparklets from a blackening yule-log thrown; And nothing else remained of all that is Save the essential life of souls alone. Behold! Like flowers of light against the abyss I watched them move and shine -- how soft and clear! With trailing rays of light, with streams of bliss, With haloes of a heavenly atmosphere: Like flowers at dusk, when first the froth and bloom Of blond immense chrysanthemums appear To shake a loose, fresh aureole o'er the gloom (If human sense and common vision might Divine the splendours of that Upper Room Where motion, joy, and life are one with light) -- Like flowers made meteors, then, or meteors flowers, The radiant spirits circled holy-bright. And lo! I heard a voice from Heaven, not ours, "This is the Race," it cried, "this is the Race Of Radiating Souls, the large in heart, And where they circle is a holy place! Yet not of them, O Gazer, know thou art: Look further!" Then with anxious sight astrain I pierced the depth of space from part to part, And lo! adrift as leaves that eddy in vain, I watched the vacant, vagrant, aimless dance Of Souls concentred in their bliss or pain: Unneighboured souls, the drift of time and chance. O bright, unthrifty stars that glow and spend Your radiance unregarding, when my glance Fell from the fulgence where your orbits trend, So far, I felt as men who smile in dreams And wake, at rainy dawn, without a friend! So bare they looked, bereft of all their beams; Poor spheres that trail their cloudy mantles dim Where throb and fret a few faint feverish gleams. "Look," said the Voice, "for thou art such an one Many are ye; the uncentred Souls are few!" I gazed; and as we used to fix the sun In London thro' the fogs our valleys knew, Beneath their shrouds I saw these too were bright. "Be thankful!" then acclaimed the Voice anew, Adore, and learn that all men love the Light!" And, as the motion of their muffled fires Grew more distinct to mine undazzled sight, I half-forgot those glad and gracious quires, In pity of their dearth who dream and yearn, Pent up and shrouded in their lone desires. Aye, even as plants that grow in chambers turn Their twisted branches towards the window space, And languish for the daylight they discern, So longed these spirits for the Light of Grace! And aye their passionate yearning would attract Some beam within their cloudy dwelling-place, Some dewy star-beam to their parch'd contact; But, even as dew or raindrop, when they fall Upon the insatiate earth, are changed in the act, Cease to be water, and no more at all Are either dew or rain -- but only mire! -- So the benignant rays of Heaven would pall And faint into a maze of misty fire At touch of these concentred spirits aye Locked in their long ungenerous desire. Thus, shrouded each alone, nor far nor nigh Their shine was shed, nor shared by any mate; Secret and still each burned, a separate I, Lost in no general glory, penetrate With no sweet mutual marvels of the sky, And bitter isolation was their state. "Unjust Eternity!" I mourned aghast. "O dread, unchanging, predetermined Fate, Shall evermore the Future ape the Past?" "Thou seest nor Past nor Future," cried the Voice. "Such is the life thou leadest, such thou wast, Art, shalt be; such thy bent is and thy choice, O centre-seeking Soul that cannot love, Nor radiate, nor relinquish, nor rejoice! Know, they are wise who squander: Look above!" And lo! a beam of their transcendent bliss Who, ever giving, ever losing, move In self-abandoned bounty through the abyss, Pierced to my soul with so divine a dart, I swooned with pain, I wakened to a kiss: "Blessed," I sang, "are ye the large in heart Irradiate with the light in alien eyes; For ye have chosen indeed the brighter part, And where ye circle is our Paradise." |