Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REVELATION, by JAMES HERVEY HYSLOP


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REVELATION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Far down the moonlight dim of memory
Last Line: That brings us life forever and forever.
Subject(s): Dreams; God; Life; Memory; Soul; Nightmares


FAR down the moonlight dim of memory,
The gleaming lights of childhood's sunny ways,
In floating islands linger lazily,
And brighten all of manhood's autumn days.

The azure mystic deeps of sky and sea,
That meet and kiss on the horizon's bar,
Whence sunset's golden hues pour o'er the lea,
Illume old Phoebus' bright flamboyant car.

The clouds that gathered round the splendid throne
Of western glory and its flaming light,
To sail the vaulted blue, in silence lone,
Must vanish far within the shades of night.

Those winged messengers of God and man,
Lit up by moonlight's silver radiance,
Stir e'en the icy heart to worship Pan,
And bring the soul into obedience.

The winds and storms that lashed with fury wild,
The plains and forests and the fields of grain,
Were watched with tender wakeful eyes and mild,
Until the earth was quenched in falling rain.

The wild sublimity of sky and earth,
Of cloud and wind and storm and sun and stars,
To reverence and ecstasy gave birth,
The worship pure of all God's avatars.

'Twas there the brilliant waking dreams of youth
Seized all the passions of the mind and will,
To turn them, roaming, to the path of truth,
That they the ways of Providence fulfil.

And then came doubt, the pall of troubled minds,
To blight the passion for eternal life,
And wildered every spring of hope that finds,
Mid pain and grief, a rest from earthly strife.

The grave did seem to close the sacred door
Of faith, when man reclines beneath the sod,
And where the cypress and the pine watch o'er
The gates of immortality and God.

The Sarsar wind of death that swept the field
Of nature and her joys, in plaintive song,
Bemoaned the withered hopes that ne'er would yield
Again the cheer that saves the human throng.

I keenly felt the sharp and painful rod
Of doubt, that held me clad in death's cold shrouds,
While watching the immortal name of God
Sublimely setting there in thunder clouds.

As night began to settle o'er the soul,
A moment came when, in the gloaming bright,
The beacon fire of life, in flaming role,
Lit up the darkness with its beaming light.

Again the earth and sky and storm and star
Burst forth afresh in songs of jubilance,
To lume the path that leads across the bar,
And cheer the days with all God's radiance.

Henceforth I stood upon the shores of time,
"Of that immortal sea that brought us hither."
And now I calmly wait the call sublime
That brings us life forever and forever.





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