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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  368. Slaibh Mor

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

Darrell Figgis (1882–1925)

368. Slaibh Mor

I STOOD among the ancient hills,

While all the dusk eve’s blue array

Swept round with softly rustling wings

To still the glamour of the day.

The murmur of persistent rills,

A lone thrush with his communings

Of music, folded in some trees,

A piping robin ere he flew,

And the soft touch of a calm breeze

Sighing across the heavenly view,

Were the sole voices whispering round

The slope hills with reflective sound,

So still the whole earth was:

So very still it was.

The solemn conclave of the hills,

In an erect fraternity,

Expectant of the hour to be,

Were trembling in the calm that fills

The house of Being with its peace.

A measured rhythm flowed abroad

From old Earth of the heart so strong,

That was itself a manner of song,

Bidding the day’s tame tumults cease

Before the coming of her lord.

The throstle, as he communed low,

Enchanted seemed, and tranced, and spelled,

To catch the measure of that flow

That from the mighty heart upwelled,

That his own song thereby should be

Lost in the inner immensity.

The trickling music of the rills

Along the bosom of the hills

Was to that larger rhythm bent,

And in that larger silence played.

The very winds that came and went

Were in their courses stayed,

Hushed in a mute expectancy.

The silent Earth was bent in prayer.

And I, as I stood there,

Scarce witting what my body knew,

Was hushed to adoration too.

Like a charmed cadence throbbing low

Along her scarred, mute visage so,

Flowed the Earth’s spirit thro’ the air

Emerging from its ancient lair,—

Flowed round the dusk and glooming hills

That stood in solemn peacefulness,

Flowed thro’ the shimmer of air that fills

The valleys with a shadowy tress,

Flowed up where stars began to peep,

Flowed where the hushed winds lay asleep,

And sank again while peace profound

Wrapped all the ancient hills around.

Not a breath stirred;

No voice or song was heard.

It was a silence vaster than the dead;

It was a silence where in all its power

Being raised up its mighty head an hour.

And I, tho’ I scarce knew what chanced,

Caught in the measured rhythm, and tranced,

Was yet raised to a terrible dread

Of the great hush that wrapped the hills:

That spell upon the standing hills.

I could have fled, but that the awe

Of an unfurling and strange might

Had me transfigured in its law.

And yet the fear that stirred in me

Was mingled with a wild delight

That thrilled with very ecstasy

Thro’ every nerve and vein and mesh

Building my quivering house of flesh.

Then a strange shudder shook the hills.

Some movement swayed them in eclipse,

As tho’ a dread apocalypse

Were waiting till they were unfurled

With all the travail of the world.

They were transformed, and shadowy-high

They stood there, and yet floated by;

While from some inner place of flame

A boom of distant music came

Suddenly thro’ the air,

And huge and silent chords of sound

Soared o’er the quivering hills around,

As I hung trembling there.

My house of flesh could scarce contain

The rolling chords that swept abroad

And undissolved remain,

My joy stirred in me with such pain.

Loosed on the silence that had been,

Obeying its symphonic lord,

The music rolled thro’ time and space,

Booming in changing chord on chord

Amidst a silence that seemed still

Upon the old Earth’s brooding face.

It rolled round each reverberate hill;

It crashed its high symphonic will

And floated all the vales between,

In clouds of colour mounting high,

In waves of music sweeping by,

Booming above the ancient peace

Betwixt the ancient silences.

What chanced I do not know.

How is it I should know?

Like rolling clouds before the day

The booming music rolled away;

And, like a storm of splendour past,

The silence seemed yet to outlast

The music it had ushered so.—

Then slowly the wise thrush arose

And mused away the evening’s close.