Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Wilfred Rowland Childe (1890–1952)

376. Turris Eburnea

MY soul is like a fencèd tower,

And holds a secret room:

I hide me in it many an hour

Amid its dim perfume:

I have my holy bloom,

The Rose of Heaven in flower:

I hold my inner bower

In strait and dreaming gloom,

My soul my fencèd tower.

The Rose of soil angelical,

That shines not over earth,

I have its buds and petals all,

Inestimable of worth,

Its blood-red calyces

Dyed with the wine of God,

Roots earthy from that sod,

Which dews in Syon bless,

And leaves of loveliness.

Its radiant heart unfolds to me,

Its starry soul is plain

In glimmering felicity,

Dyed deep with love and pain:

And while my glad eyes gaze

Upon its petalled crown,

I hear a song come down

With thanksgiving and praise

Of the celestial town.

The moon, that torch Dianian,

Dreams ever paganly:

But I am only a simple man

In a white tower by the sea:

There comes a liturgy,

Even for a little span,

Great voices Christian,

Songs of my Lord to me,

To me, a simple man.

A tower of ivory it is

Beside a shoreless sea:

I look out of my lattices

And the saints appear to me,

A singing company

From heaven’s high palaces,

Chaunting their litanies:

White luting Cecily

Their first choir-maiden is.

The sea-wave crashes in my ears;

Again their viols cease:

I have been here for endless years.

And the room is full of peace.

Dim-sliding harmonies

And dreaming voice of seers

Come past all barriers:

With God I have no fears.

And round meroll His seas.