My tears, as treasures of a wreck
That in the ocean slept,
Recovered, ran without a check;
And earth was my good mother’s neck
To which I clung and wept.
I rose at length, and felt a dense
Benumbed dead weight. And now
The night air hung in deep suspense!
A singing hush that pressed my sense
And stunned me like a blow:
Through my lids clenched the living air
In gold and purple rings
Danced musically round me there,
The light it held throbbed with the glare
And beat of rapid wings.
Mine eyes I dared not try to raise;
My Lady’s beamed on me
In fixed serenity of gaze,
And were what old sunshiny days
In childhood used to be.
A gasping lapse; and I was whirled
Round the faint void of space;
In dizzy circles hugely hurled,
I saw the constellated world
With every orb embrace,
To one stupendous vortex-light,
Spinning a fiery ram,
Then fail, struck out by sudden night;
When swung adown in headlong might,
Earth’s touch shook through my brain.
The dumb sound in mine ears was burst
By her portentous voice;
As sweet as death to one accursed,
As unto one near blind for thirst
A running water’s noise.
Her voice in some translucent star,
Remote, beyond my sight,
Was singing marvellously far;
And yet so strangely near to jar,
As jars too strong a light.
She sang a song. She warbled low,
She did not sing in words;
I felt it in my spirit glow,
And knew it, as with joy I know
The morning shouts of birds.