Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold By "F. Harald Williams"[i.e. F. W. O. Ward]. First Edition |
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THE MAGIC WAND. |
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 | Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold |  |
THE MAGIC WAND.
Through the long years I groped
Dimly, in silence utter closing me like a shutter
Round, while I vainly hoped.
All beyond me was gloom, wrath, and relentless hate
Beckoning but to doom and a predestined fate.
Feebly with foolish riving did I essay to burst
Forth with a frantic striving, far as a mortal durst.
Nothing replied but sound
Made by my own dull cry, mocking the agony
Still with a drear rebound.
Whither could I look up, into a Face Diviner?
Where, though in furnace, sup with the supreme Refiner?
How should I guide my stumbling steps that had found no track,
Save of despair and humbling, homeward from sin and wrack?
Dimly, in silence utter closing me like a shutter
Round, while I vainly hoped.
All beyond me was gloom, wrath, and relentless hate
Beckoning but to doom and a predestined fate.
Feebly with foolish riving did I essay to burst
Forth with a frantic striving, far as a mortal durst.
Nothing replied but sound
Made by my own dull cry, mocking the agony
Still with a drear rebound.
Whither could I look up, into a Face Diviner?
Where, though in furnace, sup with the supreme Refiner?
How should I guide my stumbling steps that had found no track,
Save of despair and humbling, homeward from sin and wrack?
Then lo, a prayer, though weak
Yet with a mighty shaping, dropt in unmeant escaping
From lips unframed to speak;
Shot by the shadowed heart, full as a winter well,
Hiding in tears apart from mirth or marriage bell.
But in a moment Pity came, and I knew not whence,
As on a sunless city falls day's magnificence.
Not like an empty wraith,
It met my moulding hand which grew to its command—
The magic wand of faith.
O from the dreadful Night, out of the blank past seeing,
This with its daring light called a new bourne to being;
Free beyond bars and thunder forming a bliss and clue,
It clove the clouds asunder which veiled God's rose of blue.
Yet with a mighty shaping, dropt in unmeant escaping
From lips unframed to speak;
Shot by the shadowed heart, full as a winter well,
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But in a moment Pity came, and I knew not whence,
As on a sunless city falls day's magnificence.
Not like an empty wraith,
It met my moulding hand which grew to its command—
The magic wand of faith.
O from the dreadful Night, out of the blank past seeing,
This with its daring light called a new bourne to being;
Free beyond bars and thunder forming a bliss and clue,
It clove the clouds asunder which veiled God's rose of blue.
Now master of tears and toil,
Fashioning fiery leaven, I make my hope and heaven
And hive the future spoil.
While thus the present lot, the lack and dire distress,
The unequal bane and blot, get here a rich redress.
For now I build at pleasure and make the balance right,
With fairer weights and measure correcting this sad plight.
I have whatever state
Is chosen, and poverty and pinched mortality
With worlds I compensate.
So when the lightning slays or cares bring evil fretting,
I hold above their ways my kingdom without setting.
Things round me pale or perish, but death cannot come nigh
The spaces which I cherish, my boundless peace on high.
Fashioning fiery leaven, I make my hope and heaven
And hive the future spoil.
While thus the present lot, the lack and dire distress,
The unequal bane and blot, get here a rich redress.
For now I build at pleasure and make the balance right,
With fairer weights and measure correcting this sad plight.
I have whatever state
Is chosen, and poverty and pinched mortality
With worlds I compensate.
So when the lightning slays or cares bring evil fretting,
I hold above their ways my kingdom without setting.
Things round me pale or perish, but death cannot come nigh
The spaces which I cherish, my boundless peace on high.
| Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold | |