 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
III.
Suspense how fixed and strange—
Dumb witchery of magic change!
Swift spritelike life to seeming death—and seeming
Inanimate life to deathlike animation—
The real and seeming seemed to waver, reel, and mingle!
“One of those flashes for a moment gleaming,”
Such our self-watching watcher's meditation—
“When o'er the Soul the thought will pass,
‘Is it illusion then, this whole Creation,
This outward Universe, a breath on glass?’—
One of those pauses in the rush
Of Life's phantasmagoric dreaming,
When in the hush,
The Spiritual speaks in vivid hints that tingle
Through our material framework, listening vigilant;
And as the deep-sea plummet, Consciousness,
Strikes soundings on the eternal adamant
Beneath the visionary Ocean
Whereon our frail barks ever forward press,
And rock and nod
With such unquiet motion,—
Lo! the revealing veil of God
Called Nature—as transpierced by darkling light
Divine—imprisoned splendour—on the fret
To escape for all her cunning might,
Emits keen sparkles in her own despite;
And seems one moment almost to forget
Her tantalizing trust, her mystic high vocation;
Seems for a thrilling moment, just about
To turn transparent wholly, and to let
Her awful Secret out.”
Dumb witchery of magic change!
Swift spritelike life to seeming death—and seeming
Inanimate life to deathlike animation—
The real and seeming seemed to waver, reel, and mingle!
“One of those flashes for a moment gleaming,”
Such our self-watching watcher's meditation—
271
‘Is it illusion then, this whole Creation,
This outward Universe, a breath on glass?’—
One of those pauses in the rush
Of Life's phantasmagoric dreaming,
When in the hush,
The Spiritual speaks in vivid hints that tingle
Through our material framework, listening vigilant;
And as the deep-sea plummet, Consciousness,
Strikes soundings on the eternal adamant
Beneath the visionary Ocean
Whereon our frail barks ever forward press,
And rock and nod
With such unquiet motion,—
Lo! the revealing veil of God
Called Nature—as transpierced by darkling light
Divine—imprisoned splendour—on the fret
To escape for all her cunning might,
Emits keen sparkles in her own despite;
And seems one moment almost to forget
Her tantalizing trust, her mystic high vocation;
Seems for a thrilling moment, just about
To turn transparent wholly, and to let
Her awful Secret out.”
The conscious Silence seemed to win
Its way across the fleshly dross
To some responsive sense akin
His own deep soul within;
As in the shadowy river pool
Below the rapids, still and full,
Two floating globules nearing run
Together into one.
And now a little breath of air,
That had, it seemed, been lurking there,
Itself the moonlit calm enjoying,
Along the white bright-shadowy cliffs behind him,
Stealing as if glad to find him,
Came creeping through his hair and with its clusters toying;
Then passed—and left the lonely shore,
Hushed and breathless as before.
Its way across the fleshly dross
To some responsive sense akin
His own deep soul within;
As in the shadowy river pool
Below the rapids, still and full,
Two floating globules nearing run
Together into one.
272
That had, it seemed, been lurking there,
Itself the moonlit calm enjoying,
Along the white bright-shadowy cliffs behind him,
Stealing as if glad to find him,
Came creeping through his hair and with its clusters toying;
Then passed—and left the lonely shore,
Hushed and breathless as before.
Again the haunting shy mistrust
Of Nature's simplest doings thrust
Its coy suggestive self between
The sensuous impress on his brain
And the conclusion, else so plain,
Of what it was, might be or mean.
Almost he could have held it true,
That fancy of the land he knew,
The creeping breeze must be a Spirit too
He dallied with the whim awhile;
Then with a musing smile,
His idle quest renounced as vain,
Turned his cottage to regain.
Of Nature's simplest doings thrust
Its coy suggestive self between
The sensuous impress on his brain
And the conclusion, else so plain,
Of what it was, might be or mean.
Almost he could have held it true,
That fancy of the land he knew,
The creeping breeze must be a Spirit too
He dallied with the whim awhile;
Then with a musing smile,
His idle quest renounced as vain,
Turned his cottage to regain.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |