Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.
Victor James Daley (18581905)238. The Voice of the Soul
I
The bright red stream of life,
The Soul’s Voice is a trumpet-blast
That calls us to the strife.
And feels with force endued
To scale the ramparts of the stars
And storm Infinitude.
The Spirit’s house of clay:
The voice that once in music rose
In murmurs dies away.
Smites on the body’s walls,
The Soul’s Voice through the breach once more
Like to a trumpet calls.
The mystic summons then!
His after-life with loving deeds
Shall blossom amongst men.
The germ within the clod,
And hears the whirring of the wheels
That turn the mills of God!
The secret soul of things,
And in the silence hears the sound
Of vast and viewless wings!
To him as gauze shall be,
Wherethrough, clear-eyed, he shall behold
The Ancient Mystery.
Defend till death the Right,
With Shoes of Swiftness Wrong pursue,
With Sword of Sharpness smite.
Like golden trumpets blown
For joy, far voices sweet and clear—
Soul-voices like his own.