Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.
Robert Buchanan (1841–1901)175. From ‘The City of Dream’
Y
Upon the pedals of dark formless suns,
His fingers on the radiant spheric keys,
His face, that it is death to look upon.
Misted with incense rising nebulous
Out of abysmal chaos and cohering
Into the golden flames of Life and Being!
And underneath his touch Music itself
Grows living, heard as far as thought can creep
Or dream can soar; or that Creation stirs,
And drinks the sound, and sings!—So far away
He sits, the Mystery, wrapt for ever round
With brightness and with awe and melody;
Yet even here, on these low-lying shores,
Lower than is the footstool of His throne,
We hear Him and adore Him, nay, can feel
His breath as vapour round our mouths, inhaling
That soul within the soul whereby we live
From that divine for-ever-beating Heart
Which thrills the universe with Light and Love.’
So far away He dwells, my soul indeed
Scarcely discerns Him, and in sooth I seek
A gentler presence and a nearer Friend.
So far? O blind, He broods beside thee now
Here in this silence, with His eyes on thine!
O deaf, His voice is whispering in thine ears
Soft as the breathing of the slumberous seas!
I see not and I hear not; but I see
Thine eyes burn dimly, like a corpse-light seen
Flickering amidst the tempest; and I hear
Only the elemental grief and pain
Out of whose shadow I would creep for ever.
Thou canst not, brother; for these, too, are God!
How? Is my God, then, as a homeless ghost
Blown this way, that way, with the elements?
He is without thee, and within thee too;
Thy living breath, and that which drinks thy breath:
Thy being, and the bliss beyond thy being.
So near, so far? He shapes the farthest sun
New-glimmering on the farthest fringe of space,
Yet stoops and with a leaf-light finger-touch
Reaches my heart and makes it come and go!
Yea; and He is thy heart within thy heart,
And thou a portion of His Heart Divine!