238. The Voice of the Soul

IN Youth, when through our veins runs fast

The bright red stream of life,

The Soul’s Voice is a trumpet-blast

That calls us to the strife.

The Spirit spurns its prison-bars,

And feels with force endued

To scale the ramparts of the stars

And storm Infinitude.

Youth passes; like a dungeon grows

The Spirit’s house of clay:

The voice that once in music rose

In murmurs dies away.

But in the day when sickness sore

Smites on the body’s walls,

The Soul’s Voice through the breach once more

Like to a trumpet calls.

Well shall it be with him who heeds

The mystic summons then!

His after-life with loving deeds

Shall blossom amongst men.

He shall have gifts—the gift that feels

The germ within the clod,

And hears the whirring of the wheels

That turn the mills of God!

The gift that sees with glance profound

The secret soul of things,

And in the silence hears the sound

Of vast and viewless wings!

The veil of Isis sevenfold

To him as gauze shall be,

Wherethrough, clear-eyed, he shall behold

The Ancient Mystery.

He shall do battle for the True,

Defend till death the Right,

With Shoes of Swiftness Wrong pursue,

With Sword of Sharpness smite.

And, dying, he shall haply hear,

Like golden trumpets blown

For joy, far voices sweet and clear—

Soul-voices like his own.