Three from Nicholson & Lee II

Selections from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.

Pebbles in the Stream

Here on this little bridge in this warm day
We rest us from our idle sauntering walk.
   Over our shadows its continuous talk
The stream maintains, while now and then a stray
Dry leaf may fall where the still waters play
   In endless eddies, through whose clear brown deep
   The gorgeous pebbles quiver in their sleep.
The stream still hastes but cannot pass away.

Could I but find the words that would reveal
   The unity in multiplicity,
And the profound strange harmony I feel
   With those dead things, God's garments of to-day,
The listener's soul with mine they would anneal,
   And make us one within eternity.

William Bell Scott (1812–1890)

Sibylline

There is a glory in the apple boughs
   Of silver moonlight; like a torch of myrrh,
Burning upon an altar of sweet vows,
   Dropped from the hand of some wan worshipper:
And there is life among the apple blooms
   Of whisp'ring winds; as if a god addressed
The flamen from the sanctuary glooms
   With secrets of the bourne that hope hath guessed,
Saying: "Behold! a darkness which illumes,
   A waking which is rest."

There is a blackness in the apple trees
   Of tempest; like the ashes of an urn
Hurt hands have gathered upon blistered knees,
   With salt of tears, out of the flames that burn:
And there is death among the blooms, that fill
   The night with breathless scent,—as when, above
The priest, the vision of his faith doth will
   Forth from his soul the beautiful form thereof,—
Saying: "Behold! a silence never still;
   The other form of love."

Madison Julius Cawein (1865–1914)

Intimations

I think that in the savour of some flowers
God hides the loveliness we fain would know;
And that He makes it poignant with His showers
To lure us on toward what He longs to show.
I know He seeks in tiny wistful airs
To give my soul bright gleams of what shall be,
And that in plainsong endings quick despairs
Glitter like angels o'er a shadowed sea.
There is no thing God may not make His own
That smelleth sweet and is of good report....
The leastest thing that we have longest known
May truth reveal beyond the range of thought.
And so each tiniest act and merest ploy
May grow instinct with sacramental joy!

R. A. Eric Shepherd

The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917), ed. D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee, pp. 201, 477, 613.

See also Three from Nicholson & Lee: Selections from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 08/24/03 10:21:48 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.