Sir Lewis Morris: Verses about Soul

MY soul is as a bird
Singing in fair weather,
Deep in shady woodlands through the evening's dewy calm ;
Every glossy feather
On her full throat stirred,
As she pours out, rapt, unconscious, all the sweetness of her psalm ;
Mounting high, and higher, higher,
Soaring now, now falling, dying ;
Now through silvery pauses sighing;
Throbbing now with joyous strife,
And rushing tides of love and life,
Till some ray of heavenly fire
Shot obliquely through the shade,
Pierces her ; and lo ! the strain
Of the music she has made
Fills her with a sudden pain.

Then she forgets to sing
Her former songs of gladness ;
Sitting mute in silence sweeter than the old forgotten lays ;
Till anon some note of sadness,
Long-drawn, languishing,
Faint at first, swells onward slowly to a subtler depth of praise,
As the low, wild, minor, broken
By the ghosts of gayer fancies,
Like a rippling stream advances,
Till the full tide grown too deep,
Whispers first, then falls asleep.
Then, as souls with no word spoken
Grow together, she, mute and still,
Thrills through with a secret voice,
Which the farthest heaven can fill,
And constrains her to rejoice.

And the passer-by who hears,
Not the burst of pleasure,
Swelling upward, sweet, spontaneous, to the portals of the sky,
But a chastened measure,
Low and full of tears ;
And anon the voiceless silence, when the last notes sink and die,
Deems some influence malign,
Checks the current of her song ;
For that none are happy long.
Nay ; but to the rapt soul come
Sounds that strike the singer dumb,
And the silence is Divine ;
For when heaven gives back the strain,
All its joyous tones are o'er ;
First the low sweet notes of pain,
Then, the singer sings no more.

THE PEAKS, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the fathomless seas,
Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these.

The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of Man,
Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can?

The love of the Right, tho' cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,
All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent Will.

Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined,
Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind.

Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time,
Ere Life or Death began was this changeless Essence sublime.

In the core of eternal calm He dwelleth unmoved and alone
'Mid the Universe He has made, as a monarch upon his throne.

And the self-same inscrutable Power which fashioned the sun and the star
Is Lord of the feeble strength of the humblest creatures that are.

The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day,
The weak souls that falter and faint, as feeble and futile as they;

The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man's purblind eye
That beleaguer our House of Life, and compass us till we die;

All these are parts of Him, the indivisible One,
Who supports and illumines the many, Creation's Pillar and Sun!

Yea, and far in the depths of Being, too dark for a mortal brain,
Lurk His secrets of Evil and Wrong, His creatures of Death and of Pain.

A viewless Necessity binds, a determinate Impetus drives
To a hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberless lives.

The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim,
Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issue of Him.

And Man's spirit that spends and is spent in mystical questionings,
Oh, the depths of the fathomless deep, oh, the riddle and secret of things,
And the voice through the darkness heard, and the rush of winnowing wings!

THOUGH they may crowd
Rite upon rite, and mystic song on song;
Though the deep organ loud
Through the long nave reverberate full and strong ;
Though the weird priest,
Whom rolling clouds of incense half conceal,
By gilded robes increased,
Mutter and sign, and proudly prostrate kneel ;
Not pomp, nor song, nor bended knee
Shall bring them any nearer Thee.

I would not hold
Therefore that those who worship still where they,
In dear dead days of old,
Their distant sires, knelt once and passed away,
May not from carven stone,
High arching nave and reeded column fine,
And the thin soaring tone
Of the keen music catch a breath divine,
Or that the immemorial sense
Of worship adds not reverence.

But by some bare
Hill- side or plain, or crowded city street,
Wherever purer spirits are,
Or hearts with love inflamed together meet,
Rude bench and naked wall,
Humble and sordid to the worlddimmed sight,
On these shall come to fall
A golden ray of consecrating light,
And Thou within the midst shall there
Invisible receive the prayer.

In every home,
Wherever there are loving hearts and mild,
Thou still dost deign to come,
Clothed with the likeness of a little child ;
Upon the hearth Thou still
Dwellest with them at meat, or work, or play ;
Thou who all space dost fill
Art with the pure and humble day by day ;
Thou treasures! the tears they weep,
And watchest o'er them while they sleep.

Spirit and Word !
That still art hid in every faithful heart,
Indwelling Thought and Lord-
How should they doubt who know
Thee as Thou art ?
How think to bring Thee near
By magic words, or signs, or any spell,
Who art among us here,
Who always in the loving soul dost dwell,
Who art the staff and stay indeed
Of the weak knees and hands that bleed ?

Then let them take
Their pagan trappings, and their lifeless lore;
Let us arise and make
A worthy temple where was none before.
Each soul its own best shrine,
Its priesthood, its sufficient sacrifice,
Its cleansing fount divine,
Its hidden store cf precious sanctities.
Those only fit for priestcraft are
From whom their Lord and King is far.

DEAR friend, who, two long centuries ago,
Didst tread where since my grandsires trod,
Along thy devious Usk's untroubled flow,
Breathing thy soul to God.

I seek, I, born in these our later days,
Using the measure thou didst love,
With halting tribute of too tardy praise,
A poet throned above.

I in the self-same venerable halls
And gray quadrangles made my home,
Which heard, new-built, within their recent walls,
Thy youthful footsteps come.

A little grayer now and stiller grown,
The tranquil refuge now, as then,
Where our dear country glories in her own,
Apart from alien men.

There, on thy musings broke the painful sound
Of arms ; the long-plumed cavaliers
Clanged thro the courts the low fat fields around
Were filled with strife and tears.

Constrained by promptings of thy ancient race,
Thy gown and books thou flungst away,
To meet the sturdy Roundhead face to face
On many a hard-fought day,

Till thy soft soul grew sick, and thou didst turn
To our old hills ; and there, ere long,
Love for thy Amoret, at times, would burn
In some too fervid song.

But soon thy wilder pulses stayed, and, life
Grown equable, thy sweet muse mild,
Sobered by tranquil love of child and wife,
Flowed pure and undefiled.

A humble healer thro' a life obscure,
Thou didst expend thy homely days ;
Sweet Swan of Usk ! few know how clear and pure
Are thy unheeded lays.

One poet shall become a household name
Into the nation's heart ingrown ;
One more than equal miss the meed of fame,
And live and die unknown.

So thou, surviving in thy lonely age,
All but thy own undying love
Didst pour upon the sympathetic page,
Words which all hearts can move;

So quaintly fashioned as to add a grace
To the sweet fancies which they bear,
Even as a bronze delved from some ancient place
For very rust shows fair.

'They all are gone into the world of light !'
It is thy widowed muse that sings,
And then mounts upwards from our dazzled sight
On heavenward soaring wings.

'He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know '
'At first sight if the bird be flown ;'
' But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,'
'' That is to him unknown.'

' And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams '
' Call to the soul when man doth sleep,'
' So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,'
' And into glory peep.'

' O father of eternal life and all '
' Created glories under Thee !'
' Resume Thy Spirit from this world of thrall'
' Into true liberty.'

* * * *

Thou hast rejoined thy dear ones now, and art,
Dear soul, as then thou wouldst be, free.
I, still a prisoner, strive to do my part
In memory of thee.

Thou art so high, and yet unknown: shall I
Repine that I too am obscure ?
Nay, what care I, though all my verse shall die,
If only it is pure ?

So some new singer of the days to be,
Reading this page with soft young eyes,
Shall note the tribute which I pay to thee
With youth's sweet frank surprise.

And musing in himself, perchance shall say,
' Two bards whom centuries part are here
One whose high fame and name defy decay,
And one who held him dear,'