334. A Ballade of the Centre

WHEN all the shores of knowledge fade

Beyond the realms of night and day,

When the quick stir of thought is stayed

And, as a dream of yesterday,

The bonds of striving fall away:

There dawns sometimes a point of fire

Burning the utter dark, that may

Fulfil our desperate desire.

Into the darkness, unafraid,

Wherein soft hands of silence lay

Their veil of peace upon the blade

Of too bright thought, we take our way.

In changing of desire we pay

Whatever price the gods require,

Knowing the end is theirs—and they

Fulfil our desperate desire.

Upon the stillness we have made

Between our working and our play

A deeper stillness yet is laid.

Like some white bird above the sway

Of summer waves within the bay

Peace lights upon us ere we tire,

And does (yet how, we cannot say)

Fulfil our desperate desire.

Envoi

God of the world, to Whom we pray,

Thou Inmost God to Whom aspire

All hopes that Thou wilt not betray—

Fulfil our desperate desire!