Flower o' the thorn A book of wayside verse: By John Payne |
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THE SPIRIT-HOUR. |
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 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
THE SPIRIT-HOUR.
THE hour that's to me most dear
Of the hours of the day and night, the most of ease and cheer,
Is the hour when it draws to the middle night and all is quiet without,
When, alone, for the folk around me sleep, I sit by the hearthside gleam,
Whilst silent, for very weariness fallen, is London's restless rout,
The hour when the task of the day is done and I turn to the fire and dream.
Of the hours of the day and night, the most of ease and cheer,
Is the hour when it draws to the middle night and all is quiet without,
When, alone, for the folk around me sleep, I sit by the hearthside gleam,
Whilst silent, for very weariness fallen, is London's restless rout,
The hour when the task of the day is done and I turn to the fire and dream.
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Too fast asleep to purr,
The cats in the fitful glow lie still and never stir.
There is never a bird on the bough awake; there is never a step in the street;
The silence so tense is, it seems its chord must surely snap and break:
The roar of the daylong ways is dumb and hushed is the fall of the feet:
Old London sleeps with a sleep as sound as if it should never wake.
The cats in the fitful glow lie still and never stir.
There is never a bird on the bough awake; there is never a step in the street;
The silence so tense is, it seems its chord must surely snap and break:
The roar of the daylong ways is dumb and hushed is the fall of the feet:
Old London sleeps with a sleep as sound as if it should never wake.
There is nothing about me heard,
Save the chirp of the crackling logs, that is as a spoken word:
There is nought to be seen but the leaping tongues of versicoloured flame,
That glimmer and flicker, red, blue, green, o'er the salt-soaked oak and beech.
But the voidness is full for me of shapes that have no earthly name,
The silence sweet is with tones that pass the bounds of earthly speech.
Save the chirp of the crackling logs, that is as a spoken word:
There is nought to be seen but the leaping tongues of versicoloured flame,
That glimmer and flicker, red, blue, green, o'er the salt-soaked oak and beech.
But the voidness is full for me of shapes that have no earthly name,
The silence sweet is with tones that pass the bounds of earthly speech.
My eyes are full of ghosts;
I am companied round about with a band of spirit-hosts:
The loved ones, that loved me passing well in the days that are no more,
They hover about me everywhere, with a mute unfelt caress:
Their eyes into mine look deep and dear, as they looked in times of yore:
Their hands upon mine are laid in love, though I feel not the spirit-press.
I am companied round about with a band of spirit-hosts:
The loved ones, that loved me passing well in the days that are no more,
They hover about me everywhere, with a mute unfelt caress:
Their eyes into mine look deep and dear, as they looked in times of yore:
Their hands upon mine are laid in love, though I feel not the spirit-press.
No shapes are they of fear;
They are emanations all of the dead that held me dear.
They bid me with silent speech grieve not, for Love can never die:
Such love as was ours, they say, will live, though Life itself turn Death.
They bid me be strong 'gainst Life accurst, for the end of Time is nigh:
There's nothing but love in their looks and speech; there's nothing but balm in their breath.
They are emanations all of the dead that held me dear.
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Such love as was ours, they say, will live, though Life itself turn Death.
They bid me be strong 'gainst Life accurst, for the end of Time is nigh:
There's nothing but love in their looks and speech; there's nothing but balm in their breath.
They whisper me such songs,
If I could sing them, the world were healed of its woes and wrongs;
The best of my rhymes are echoes faint of the dreams of the spirit-hour.
They show me such heaven-high thoughts clear-writ in the lambent deeps of the fire,
If I could think them again, o'er Heaven and earth 'twould give me power;
The best of my thoughts are dreams by these of unfulfilled desire.
If I could sing them, the world were healed of its woes and wrongs;
The best of my rhymes are echoes faint of the dreams of the spirit-hour.
They show me such heaven-high thoughts clear-writ in the lambent deeps of the fire,
If I could think them again, o'er Heaven and earth 'twould give me power;
The best of my thoughts are dreams by these of unfulfilled desire.
With eyes on the blazing coals
I sit; but my heart's afar in the shadow-world of souls,
The world that billows our world about, as the darkness rounds the day.
My feet in the asphodel meadows fare, the Paradisal streets;
The almonds of Eden I scent and hear the stars' supernal lay;
My soul of the seraphs' nectar drinks, of Heaven's honey eats.
I sit; but my heart's afar in the shadow-world of souls,
The world that billows our world about, as the darkness rounds the day.
My feet in the asphodel meadows fare, the Paradisal streets;
The almonds of Eden I scent and hear the stars' supernal lay;
My soul of the seraphs' nectar drinks, of Heaven's honey eats.
But hark! The bell tolls One:
The end of my day it knells; the hour of the dreams is done.
The ghosts are faded and fared away; there is nothing to see or hear
But the cats that waken and stretch and purr in the glow of the embers red.
Good night to you, cats and dreams! The air is waxing cold and drear:
The hour of the spirit's overpast and the body must to bed.
The end of my day it knells; the hour of the dreams is done.
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But the cats that waken and stretch and purr in the glow of the embers red.
Good night to you, cats and dreams! The air is waxing cold and drear:
The hour of the spirit's overpast and the body must to bed.
| Flower o' the thorn | |