Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Walter Leslie Wilmshurst (1867–1939)

284. The Mystery of Light

SOULS there be to whom ’tis given

Easily to enter heaven;

Scarce an effort on their part,

Without struggle, prayer, or art;

Sometimes utterly unknowing

Why such glory should be showing;

Wondering what the reason is

Of the inflaming ecstasies

That Christ giveth unto His.

Often they, not understanding,

Catch a rarer light expanding;

Doing but their daily task,

Falls away some filmy mask,

And before their eyes extended

Heaven with earth is interblended;

And beyond this outward strife

They see what hidden peace is rife

In God’s great reservoirs of life.

Some in that rapt state elysian

Are accorded richer vision;

Watch the thronging angels pass

To a high celestial Mass;

See a veilèd, flaming Centre,

See a Great High Priest there enter,

Whence a Host he lifteth up

And a crimson-brimming Cup,

Which He bids all eat and sup.

Or a day falls, past relating,

When a Dove, divinely mating,

Stirs the sheltering leaves apart

O’er some deeply-nested heart;

And, Himself within interning,

Lo! the very bush is burning

With the blazonry of love

Of that far-descended Dove

In His bridal-mate’s alcove.

Such things simple souls and holy

Often know, whilst men less lowly

Beat the breast and bend the brain

In their labour to attain;

Till from heaven, tired of crying,

They will turn, all heaven denying;

Seeking ways of lesser bliss

Which, in His large Mysteries,

Christ denieth not to His.

Let not me, who have no mission

Yet to see the shining Vision,

E’er forget that night and day

Are His strange vicarious way;

He by one prepares the other,

Glooming me to light my brother.

May I ever blinded be

If my disability

Help my fellow-man to see.

In this night of my unknowing

His symbol-light shall be my showing.

I’ll know that at the rise of sun

High Mass, for all, in heaven’s begun;

That when at noon-tide height it lingers

Christ lifts the Host in His pierc’d fingers;

And at its setting it shall tell

How He descendeth, loving well,

Even to me, His child in hell.