[BNP/E3, 49A3 – 17]
To that of me which to my soul does vouch
Of God as of a self and of a home!
Dissolve me to thy notes! Make me become
An outside of myself, and have in me
Nought but a selfless sense of hearing thee!
Let me pertain to the sounds thou dost voice!
Let me be other than I and rejoice
Hearing time like a breeze pass by the place
Thy singing imprisons in its halcyon grace!
Thy song compels to parapets from heaven
Dim winged happinesses whence is woven
To our souls such a glamour, spirit‑fair,
That feeling it all life becomes despair
And all the sense of life to wish to die.
Sing on! Between the music's human cry
And thy song's meaning there is interposed
Some third reality, less life‑enclosed,
Some subtler tenderness than music makes,
Or words, and its moonless moonlight takes
Our visionary moods by their child‑hand
And our tired steps begin to understand.
Sing, nor stop singing till bliss ache too much!
Oh that I could, with moving my hand,
Stretch forth some hand imaginary and touch
That body of thine thy singing giveth thee.
That kiss‑like touch would wake eternity
Again in my soul, and like a great morn
All that my body makes of me were torn
Away from being and my unbodied shape
Would like a ship doubling the final cape
Come to that sight of port and shiver of coming
That God allows to those whose bliss of roaming
Is no more than the wish to find His peace
And mingle with it as a scent with the breeze.
24-XI-1912
(corrected 29-7-1915)
[17v]
Many rivers run
Down to many seas.
All my cares are one:
On what river of these
Could my soul have peace?
Two banks to each river.
None where I can stay
Hearing the rushes shiver
And seeing the river ever
Run yet seem to stay.
Maybe there is another
River, but far in me.
There I may meet the Brother
Of mine eternity
God is the river and the sea.
And God the distant sea.
I am {…}
1-3-1913.
-------------------
Song.
O voice the angels kissed when unbreathed yet!
O lips made spiritual with uttering it!
O eyes wild with the love of the divine
In thy felt presence, making thee its shrine!
O that this moment of thee were thyself!
That thou ne’er fell'st from this Thou, and the pelf
Of gathered days with avarice of living,
Touched not thee from this moment of God's giving!
O eternal actuality of thee!
O by thy voice sculptured immutably
In some stone‑flesh of spirit! O set free
From being all contained in being seen!
O firmament of joy, purely serene,
With spaciousness of soul and stars of song
Above thyself, God's better dreams among!
Sing on, and let thy singing be a couch
