 | Vigil and vision |  |
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ANIMAE VIGILIUM.
WHENAS the spirit's vigil, in clear dreamAnd solemn vision shrined, anights I keep,
What while the world is sanctified with sleep,
Thought, over all the troubled, surging stream
Of darkling life casting its searching beam,
Bids, with its ruthless radiance, from the deep
Into full light the things eternal leap
And strips from those the splendour which but seem.
Then many a thing, which in men's sight is good
And fair, unblest and foul to us is shown
And many a God and many a Holy Rood
In that dread hour resolves to wood and stone;
Nay, when the sun returneth with the day,
Meseems that light with night hath past away.
| Vigil and vision | |