| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 331. The Night Obscure of the Soul |
| By Rachel Annand Taylor (b. 1876) |
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| WHEN the Soul travails in her Night Obscure, | |
| The nadir of her desperate defeat, | |
| What heavenly dream shall help her to endure, | |
| What flaming Wisdom be her Paraclete? | |
| No curious Metaphysic can withhold | 5 |
| The heart from that mandragora she craves:— | |
| Unreasonable, old as Earth is old, | |
| The blind ecstatic miracle that saves. | |
| Far off the pagan trumpeters of Pride | |
| Call to the blood.—Love moans.—Some fiery fashion | 10 |
| Of rapture like the anguish of the bride | |
| Leaps from the dark perfection of the Passion, | |
| Crying: ‘O beautiful God, still torture me, | |
| For if thou slay me, I will trust in Thee.’ | |
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