Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929)

200. The World-Spirit

LIKE soundless summer lightning seen afar,

A halo o’er the grave of all mankind,

O undefinèd dream-embosomed star,

O charm of human love and sorrow twined:

Far, far away beyond the world’s bright streams,

Over the ruined spaces of the lands,

Thy beauty, floating slowly, ever seems

To shine most glorious; then from out our hands

To fade and vanish, evermore to be

Our sorrow, our sweet longing sadly borne,

Our incommunicable mystery

Shrined in the soul’s long night before the morn.

Ah! in the far fled days, how fair the sun

Fell sloping o’er the green flax by the Nile,

Kissed the slow water’s breast, and glancing shone

Where laboured men and maidens, with a smile

Cheating the laggard hours; o’er them the doves

Sailed high in evening blue; the river-wheel

Sang, and was still; and lamps of many loves

Were lit in hearts, long dead to woe or weal.

And, where a shady headland cleaves the light

That like a silver swan floats o’er the deep

Dark purple-stained Aegean, oft the height

Felt from of old some poet-soul upleap,

As in the womb a child before its birth,

Foreboding higher life. Of old, as now,

Smiling the calm sea slept, and woke with mirth

To kiss the strand, and slept again below.

So, from of old, o’er Athens’ god-crowned steep

Or round the shattered bases of great Rome,

Fleeting and passing, as in dreamful sleep,

The shadow-peopled ages go and come:

Sounds of a far-awakened multitude,

With cry of countless voices intertwined,

Harsh strife and stormy roar of battle rude,

Labour and peaceful arts and growth of mind.

And yet, o’er all, the One through many seen,

The phantom Presence moving without fail,

Sweet sense of closelinked life and passion keen

As of the grass waving before the gale.

What art Thou, O that wast and art to be?

Ye forms that once through shady forest-glade

Or golden light-flood wandered lovingly,

What are ye? Nay, though all the past do fade

Ye are not therefore perished, ye whom erst

The eternal Spirit struck with quick desire,

And led and beckoned onward till the first

Slow spark of life became a flaming fire.

Ye are not therefore perished: for behold

To-day ye move about us, and the same

Dark murmur of the past is forward rolled

Another age, and grows with louder fame

Unto the morrow: newer ways are ours,

New thoughts, new fancies, and we deem our lives

New-fashioned in a mould of vaster powers;

But as of old with flesh the spirit strives,

And we but head the strife. Soon shall the song

That rolls all down the ages blend its voice

With our weak utterance and make us strong;

That we, borne forward still, may still rejoice,

Fronting the wave of change. Thou who alone

Changeless remainest, O most mighty Soul,

Hear us before we vanish! O make known

Thyself in us, us in Thy living whole.