The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

In the beginning,
Ere Man grew,
The Veil was woven
Bright and blue;
Soft mists and vapours
Gather'd and mingled
Over the black world
Stretched below,
While winds of heaven
Blew from all places,
Shining luminous,
A starry snow.
Blindly, dumbly,
Darken'd under
Ocean and river,
Mountain and dale,
While over his features,
Wondrous, terrible,
The beautiful Master
Drew the Veil:
Then starry, luminous,
Rolled the Veil of azure
O'er the first dwellings
Of mortal race;
—And since the beginning
No mortal vision,
Pure or sinning,
Hath seen the Face

Yet mark me closely!
Strongly I swear,
Seen or seen not,
The Face is there!
When the Veil is clearest
And sunniest,
Closest and nearest
The Face is prest;
But when, grown weary
With long downlooking,
The Face withrawing
For a time is gone,
The great Veil darkens,
And ye see full clearly
Glittering numberless
The gems thereon.
For the lamp of his features
Divinely burning,
Shines, and suffuses
The Veil with light,
And the Face, drawn backward
With that deep sighing
Ye hear in the gloaming,
Leaveth the Night.

Thus it befell to men
Graveward they journeyed,
From waking to sleeping,
In doubt and in fear,
Evermore hoping,
Evermore seeking,
Nevermore guessing
The Master so near:
Making strange idols,
Rearing fair Temples,
Crying, denying,
Questioning, dreaming,
Nevermore certain
Of God and His grace,—
Evermore craving,
To look on a token,
To gaze on a Face.

Now an Evangel,
Whom God loved deep,
Said, ‘See! the mortals,
How they weep!
They grope in darkness,
They blunder onward
From race to race,
Were it not better,
Once and for ever,
To unveil the Face?’
God smiled.

He said—‘Not yet?
Much is to remember,
Much to forget;
Be thou of comfort!
How should the token
Silence their wail?’

And, with eyes tear-clouded,
He gazed through the luminous,
Star-inwrought, beautiful,
Folds of the Veil.