Soul, thou hast lived before. Thy wing Hath swept the ancient folds of light Which once wrapt stilly everything, Before the advent of a Night.
O thou art blind and thou art dead Unto the knowledge that was thine. A longing and a dreamy dread Alone oft shadow the divine.
Full loud calls past eternity, But Lethe's murmur stills its roar, The one vague truth that reaches thee Is this — that thou hast lived before.
Home often comes some voice of eld Confused and low — a broken surge By fate and distance half withheld — Rich in linked sadness like a dirge.
The muffled, great bell Silence clangs His solemn call, and thou, O soul! Dost stir in sense's torpid fangs, Like the blind magnet, toward a pole.
The deep, vast, swelling organ-sound; The cadence of an evening flute, Bring oft those ancient joys around To linger till the notes are mute.
And when thy hushéd breathing fills The shrine of quiet reverence, Then, too, a freeing angel stills The clanking of the chains of sense.
But nearest to that former life Another power calleth thee, Away from care, away from strife, Toward what thou wast — infinity.
And in thee, soul, the deepest chord Thrills to a strain rung from above; That strain is bound within a word, A sole, sweet word, and it is — Love.
Love — yet it cannot set thee free To sweep again those folds of light, It torches but a part to thee And dim, though fair. The rest is night.
As the fine structure of a man Fits into life's great world, foremade, So too it shadoweth the plan Of ages hidden in the shade.
And thou hast lived before; hast known The depth of every mystery, Has dwelt in Nature, hid, alone And winged the blue ætherial sea;
Hast looked upon the ends of space; Hast visited each rolling star,— Before Time measured forth his pace, Scythe-armed, on a terrestrial war.
Cookies on Poetry Cove