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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  220. Inspirations

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

William James Dawson (1854–1928)

220. Inspirations

SOMETIMES, I know not why, nor how, nor whence,

A change comes over me, and then the task

Of common life slips from me. Would you ask

What power is this which bids the world go hence?

Who knows? I only feel a faint perfume

Steal through the rooms of life; a saddened sense

Of something lost; a music as of brooks

That babble to the sea; pathetic looks

Of closing eyes that in a darkened room

Once dwelt on mine: I feel the general doom

Creep nearer, and with God I stand alone.

O mystic sense of sudden quickening!

Hope’s lark-song rings, or life’s deep undertone

Wails through my heart—and then I needs must sing.