[BNP/E3, 31A – 47-49]

61

Elevation

I

Before light was, light's bright idea lit

     God's thought of it,

And, because through God's thought light's thought did pass,

     Light ever was,

And from beyond eternity became

     The living flame

That trembles into life and reddens with

     Our life's soul‑width.

Before light was, when yet the night was queen

     O'er what had been,

In God's realized prescience it could be

     Light from eternity,

For no time enters into God's thoughts or

     Their spaceless Hour.

Take thou therefore, my Song, from light the mood

     Of being, and brood,

Like the Dove unbegot, over the abyss

     Of consciousness,

Taking as thy true part that thought of God

     Whence light issued.

Let my words burst into that divine flame

     That lights its name

Of each thing from within with ultimate meaning.

     Though earth be screening

With fixed appearance the Sun in each Thing,

     Bear, on thy wing

High‑lifted, rays from the unrisen Sun

     Whence life is spun.

Soar out, my Song, out of despair and night

     And catch that light

Ere it appear, from neath the horizon

     Of action,

Borne out of dreams by intuition bright

     Of endless light.

Though none believe nor any understand,

     Yet feel thee fanned

With those breeze‑breaths that come up with the morn

     From the Unborn.

Soar like a lark into the coming day

     And bear thy way

Into the possibility of noon

[48r]

62

     Hid in the dawn.

No matter that none know what thy words speak.

     A day shall break

Out of eternity as each day bright

     Out of each night.

Thy wings shall touch the slanting light of dawn

     And, upwards drawn

By being light‑struck, shall to light be near

     When light's yet far.

Hope is thy ready and high‑soaring flight

     Out of the night,

Joy is thy touching of the first high rays

     That day betrays,

Life is the course thy flight sequesters from

     Earth and its nightly doom,

And these three things are one in thy belief

     That pain is brief.

II

Thou, unseen Bird, essence of spiritual light,

     That yet art bright

With the epitome of the outer shine,

     Thou that art mine

And yet not mine but general to the earth,

     Wings of rebirth,

Whose song, though in me heard, participates

     Of all that all elates,

Thou point of meeting of me with the wings

     Hidden in all things,

Thou breath, thou vapour, seen and not seen, of

     Some abstract love,

Thou exhalation of the prisoned flight

     Of all things' weight,

Thou that in me art fear, mad splendour, all

     To ache and enthral,

Attract me, take me, o pure flight, and rise

     With me in thine eyes,

Lost, cast, unpetalled and divine, up to

     What thou dost woo!

O Spirit‑Lark that wakest ere the morn

     And art reborn

At each recoming of the sun, and art

     The wiser part

Of all that message is to our low eyes

     Of what shall rise!

Life‑weightless Bird that no meads can attract,

     But that must act

[49r]

63

Its fate in air, above our marshes sad

     And meads low‑laid,

In free heights communing with the Great Horn

     As yet unborn!

O sterile Bird that hast no nest nor home

     But what shall come,

That hast no song save in the heights above

     Nests, homes and love,

Nor any thought save for the coming day,

     Though far away

It seem to those who measure yet thy flight

     But by its height

And not by its intention, that is carried

     From life and married

To those diviner hours that winged things

     Find with their wings!

O Bird of ruthless song and untold wishes,

     Whose high flight reaches

Heights not of earth, but of pure air, encumbered

     With no joys weighed and numbered!

Take all my heart in thy purpose of going

     And make the flowing

Down to earth of my song be like thy song,

     Something strange, strong

With distance, eerily half‑perishing

     From farness! Sing,

And let my heart be what thou meanst with singings

     My life with winging,

My hopes and fears with th’tone wherewith thy note

     To me doth float

And the great purpose hidden in my fate

     With thy mere height!

My heart shall thus be happy even if pained,

     Free even if strained

To keep that height of joy whence tremble down

     Thy songs to our own.

My soul may thus be happy, full and free.

     Oh, happily

Raise me from me and lift my life unto

     That thou dost woo -

The light, the sky, the distance and the morn,

     Till I be unborn

Again to pure dispersion in the seas

     Of the high breeze

That speaks to thee, ere light be born, of light,

     Till the delight

Of without being being shall make me

     Song and sky be!