The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite in two volumes ... With a Portrait |
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| III. | III
WORLDS OF MINISTRY |
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 | The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite |  |
III
WORLDS OF MINISTRY
There is no peace, no beauty in the glare
About life's low, relaxing meadow lands:
But trustfully resign thy gentle self,
And I will bear thee hence to secret hills—
From all things common, limited and base
To all uplifted, liberated, rare,
To unexplored, intelligible realms
Invested with the majesty of dream.
Across the threshold of thy glorious eyes
I gaze and see thy soul.
I gaze and see thy soul.
Exclude me not,
Nor—Mother Nature—blame a chosen priest!
Send forth innumerable voices high
From thy four quarters, multiply above
Thy solar pageants! Worshipful, I take
And minister thy worshipful sacraments.
Nor—Mother Nature—blame a chosen priest!
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From thy four quarters, multiply above
Thy solar pageants! Worshipful, I take
And minister thy worshipful sacraments.
Speak to me, world of waters! Thy fair breast—
All light, all beauty, like the face I love—
Exhales an efflorescence of thyself,
Thy grandeur, depth and mastery. Her height,
Thy deeps, thy vastness, seem as phases three
Of one unfathom'd wonder. Her I see
Who, distant in a city of darkling ways,
Will tarry, prayers upholding, till I come.
Here—in the vigour of this morning wind—
I stand, self-poised, upon a peak of rock,
While all thy glistering and gladsome pomp
Of hasty tide about me swirls and swells;
While every shallow on the shingled shore
Is like a boy's voice, meeting careful life
With blithesome laughter; but the distant tracks
Speak as with tidings of a mission'd man,
Who—from the heart and centre of all things—
Ascends with revelation. Thou art nigh
When in the haunted city of darkling ways
I stand, absorb'd in speculation deep
Before my vestal's shrine.
All light, all beauty, like the face I love—
Exhales an efflorescence of thyself,
Thy grandeur, depth and mastery. Her height,
Thy deeps, thy vastness, seem as phases three
Of one unfathom'd wonder. Her I see
Who, distant in a city of darkling ways,
Will tarry, prayers upholding, till I come.
Here—in the vigour of this morning wind—
I stand, self-poised, upon a peak of rock,
While all thy glistering and gladsome pomp
Of hasty tide about me swirls and swells;
While every shallow on the shingled shore
Is like a boy's voice, meeting careful life
With blithesome laughter; but the distant tracks
Speak as with tidings of a mission'd man,
Who—from the heart and centre of all things—
Ascends with revelation. Thou art nigh
When in the haunted city of darkling ways
I stand, absorb'd in speculation deep
Before my vestal's shrine.
Absorb'd I stand.
Grey eyes—Madonna—sacramental world—
Immeasurable main of mighty soul!
There is no sea, no sky, no fruitful earth;
That is no lark which sings, no summer breeze
That laves and censes: it is thou in each—
Thou variously, inscrutably reveal'd;
And plunged for ever in a trance of love,
I lose myself, I melt, I merge in thee.
'Tis not the moon, with spiritual beams
Some night-sea soothing: thou art moon and sun,
While in illimitable ocean thou
Assumest other majesty and form.
Thy grace is in acacia and in beech;
And when thy lover in a lane at noon,
Beneath some maple lays his languid limbs,
And the broad, rumour-full, benignant leaves
Give shadow-shelter in a torrid time,
And drooping low—with lissome whispering—
Fan fever'd forehead, or in ears adream
Recite dryadic rhymes and roundelays;
It is the providence of thy pure love
Which closes round him. On thy lap he lies—
Thy heart the moss which pillows and thy breath
The zephyrs, all leaf-messages thy voice,
And those dryadic roundelays and rhymes
A rhythmic efflorescence of thy soul,
Whose vaults are resonant with organ-odes
And stately epics of eternity.
Grey eyes—Madonna—sacramental world—
Immeasurable main of mighty soul!
There is no sea, no sky, no fruitful earth;
That is no lark which sings, no summer breeze
That laves and censes: it is thou in each—
Thou variously, inscrutably reveal'd;
And plunged for ever in a trance of love,
I lose myself, I melt, I merge in thee.
'Tis not the moon, with spiritual beams
Some night-sea soothing: thou art moon and sun,
303
Assumest other majesty and form.
Thy grace is in acacia and in beech;
And when thy lover in a lane at noon,
Beneath some maple lays his languid limbs,
And the broad, rumour-full, benignant leaves
Give shadow-shelter in a torrid time,
And drooping low—with lissome whispering—
Fan fever'd forehead, or in ears adream
Recite dryadic rhymes and roundelays;
It is the providence of thy pure love
Which closes round him. On thy lap he lies—
Thy heart the moss which pillows and thy breath
The zephyrs, all leaf-messages thy voice,
And those dryadic roundelays and rhymes
A rhythmic efflorescence of thy soul,
Whose vaults are resonant with organ-odes
And stately epics of eternity.
| The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite | |