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Vigil and vision

New Sonnets by John Payne

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96

LUX IN ANIMÂ.

THE sage, sole-sitting in the forest hoar,
Moveless and mute, beneath the banyan-tree,
The world forsworn and all its vanity,
Fixeth his thought upon the unknown shore
Whereto our lives, returning evermore,
Are merged again in the unbottomed sea,
The shoreless ocean of Eternity,
That round our little day doth plash and roar.
Still through the years he sitteth, stark and dumb,
Till there a light ariseth in his soul,
Which, waxing aye, as in a flaming scroll
Graven, discov'reth him Life's secret sum,
Concentred in this word ineffable,
“In thee alone are Gods and Heaven and Hell.”