We do not touch the texture of the light.
But one may see with a secret eye
The things that are.
Then we divine that we need not die
To win our heritage of sight.
As well this earth as any other star.
Waking from dream there trails an alien air,
A residue of other suns than these;
We know that we have walked an inner way,
Have met familiars there
And kept our step in exquisite concord
The while we spoke some unremembered word.
And over all there lay
Light whose vibrations ran to other keys
Than those we woke upon. Light whose long play
Was dappled colour delicately kissed.
Strange fires rayed from strange regions of the Lord.
Light from the sun behind the sun fell where
We went to keep our tryst.
In sleep and in the solitary dusk there come
Fine lines of light upon the lowered lids,
A flush that lets us in the heart of night
And hints dear wonders to be there at home;
As if the universal fabric bids
Its human pattern know that all is light.
In snow
Have we not seen the whiteness smitten through
With sudden rays of glory, vague with veils,
Of some beloved hue that pales
To earthly rose and violet and blue?
Oh you
Who pulse within that light—we know, we know!
Soon
From without transition night
We would come into this, our own.
Then the dim tune
The which we almost hear,
The low-keyed colour and the word
We have not heard,
All these we shall be shown,
And infinitely near
To God, breathe for our breath his light.
HALF THOUGHT
I close my eyes and on the night
A face looks in at me.
It speaks a word like burning light,
I answer joyfully.
It dims away. The word is sped.
I know not what we two have said.
The old dark sparkles like a star.
And when shall we be touched with sight
To find the things that are?
CONTOURS
I am glad of the straight lines of the rain;
Of the free blowing curves of the grain;
Of the perilous swirling and curling of fire;
The sharp upthrust of a spire;
Of the ripples on the river
Where the patterns curl and quiver
And sun thrills;
Of the innumerable undulations of the hills.
But the true line is drawn from my spirit to some infinite outward place ...
That line I cannot trace.