I.
1
IT was a fever, they tell me: to me ’twas a sleep and a waking;
Yet not a sleep without dreams: if indeed they were dreams that I saw.
Never, I think, shall I call it a dream: but the truth and the breaking
Up of all dreams, and a glimpse of superlative being and law.
2
Sweet, passing sweet, is this light of the morning, by green leaves made tender,
Tender and mellowed on lids fever-folded, yet sick of repose;
Even as this leaf-mellowed glow to the flood of meridian splendour,
So is the life that we live to the life that such visions disclose.
3
Sweet is this dance of the shadows of leaves on my coverlet, ever
Shifting and changing, yet silent, impalpable, fretting no fold;
Even as this shadowy dance to the forest’s tumultuous quiver,
So is the life that we live to the life that in vision is told.
4
As I lie here on the dubious bank betwixt waking and slumber,
Life on earth seems but a window that straitens our view of the skies;
And all our fluttering joys and life’s things of desire without number
Are but the lattice-leaves, tempering God’s light to our infantile eyes.
5
I have beheld what hath changed me, I know not in body or spirit,
Far in a region where leagues are no measure, and time is no bound;
Up in the realms imperturbable, which the high spirits inherit;
Out of the reach of all seasons; beyond the last echo of sound.
6
First there came one like a storm-cloud, and bore me high up on the mountain,
Showed me the kingdoms of earth, and the glory thereof, and the power;
Ope’d me the well-springs of Love, drew the wine of Desire from its fountain:
“Bow down and worship,” it said, “and all this will I give for thy dower.”
7
Then came, all star-girt, another, and caught me away, and I know not
Whither he bore me, because of the pure inaccessible ray,
Save that it was in the land where the beams of eternity flow not
From any sun, and no morning or evening divideth the day.
8
As in a chrysolite sea I beheld the great cycles of story,
Circling and widening afar at each pulse of the will of the King:
But where I stood there was darkness that marred the immaculate glory;
Shadowed therein I beheld me, a guilty and shuddering thing.
9
And while I stood all estranged, without welcome, or greeting, or token,
There was a voice in my soul, “Thou must weep, if thy spirit would live.”
Came a great longing for tears, and the spell of the vision was broken,
And on my bed I lay tremulous, weeping, and crying “Forgive.”
10
Lo, by my side, all in white! it was Hyacinth, fair as the morning;
And on her face were the meekness and peace of an angel of heaven.
Keener than anger is pity, and love than the weapons of scorning!
Lifting her finger, she smote me with – “Hush! All is known, and forgiven.”
II.
1
LITTLE by little the tale of the stroke and the fever I gather,
As I lie bridging oblivion, and weaving her words into form;
How I was found as one dead, on a hill-side, by Hyacinth’s father,
Struck by the uppermost boughs of a tree that was wrecked in the storm.
2
How, after days of the semblance of death, there came fever and raving;
How the brain’s anarchy loosened the tongue from its wonted control;
How I spoke wildly and darkly of Raymond and Hyacinth, craving
Death for my body because of them, uttermost death for my soul.
3
How it was deemed as a duty to one whom no care could recover,
Freely to search for some token of kindred, or trace of a friend;
How in the scrutiny Hyacinth chanced on the words of her lover,
Read and knew all, yet forbore to add woe to my imminent end.
4
How, too, at length I had rest, and the burden of heavy complaining
Changed to the sighing of rapturous vision, and tranc
(James Brunton Stephens)
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