| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 1541. From “Taliesin: a Masque” |
| | | By Richard Hovey |
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Voices of Unseen Spirits
HERE falls no light of sun nor stars; | |
| No stir nor striving here intrudes; | |
| No moan nor merry-making mars | |
| The quiet of these solitudes. | |
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| Submerged in sleep, the passive soul | 5 |
| Is one with all the things that seem; | |
| Night blurs in one confusëd whole | |
| Alike the dreamer and the dream. | |
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| O dwellers in they busy town! | |
| For dreams you smile, for dreams you weep. | 10 |
| Come out, and lay your burdens down! | |
| Come out; there is no God but Sleep. | |
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| Sleep, and renounce the vital day; | |
| For evil is the child of life. | |
| Let be the will to live, and pray | 15 |
| To find forgetfulness of strife. | |
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| Beneath the thicket of these leaves | |
| No light discriminates each from each. | |
| No Self that wrongs, no Self that grieves, | |
| Hath longer deed nor creed nor speech. | 20 |
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| Sleep on the mighty Mother’s breast! | |
| Sleep, and no more be separate! | |
| Then, one with Nature’s ageless rest, | |
| There shall be no more sin to hate. | |
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Taliesin
Spirits of Sleep, | 25 |
| That swell and sink | |
| In the sea of Being | |
| Like waves on the deep, | |
| Forming, crumbling, | |
| Fumbling, and tumbling | 30 |
| Forever, unseeing, | |
| From brink to brink! | |
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| Perishing voices, | |
| That call and call | |
| From the coves of dream | 35 |
| With hollow noises! | |
| I hear the sweep | |
| Of the tides of sleep, | |
| The ocean stream | |
| Where the ages fall. | 40 |
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| But not for these | |
| Will I let me die, | |
| Though my heart remembers | |
| The calling seas; | |
| For the cycles fought | 45 |
| Till form was wrought | |
| And Might had members | |
| And I was I. | |
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| Yet still to you, | |
| O Dreams, I turn; | 50 |
| Not with a prayer | |
| But a bidding to do! | |
| I surmount and subdue you; | |
| Not without you but through you | |
| I shall forge and fare | 55 |
| To the chosen bourne. | |
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Voices
We are ware of a will | |
| Cries “Peace, be still!” | |
| And our waters cease | |
| To a troubled peace. | 60 |
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Taliesin
Lo, star upon star! | |
| They dwell alone | |
| Sirius, Altair, | |
| Algebar! | |
| Their ways are asunder,— | 65 |
| Aloof, in thunder | |
| They march and flare | |
| From zone to zone. | |
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| But the formless ether | |
| Far and far | 70 |
| Enfolds their places. | |
| Therein together | |
| At one they sweep | |
| From deep to deep, | |
| And over its spaces | 75 |
| Star calls to star. | |
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| Through its waves they reach | |
| Beyond their spheres | |
| To their fellow fires. | |
| Each yearns to each, | 80 |
| And the straight wills swerve | |
| To a yielding curve, | |
| And a moth’s desires | |
| Deflect the years. | |
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| And with urge on urge | 85 |
| Of the rippling wave | |
| Light speeds through space; | |
| The domes emerge; | |
| And the halls of Night | |
| Behold each light | 90 |
| Reveal his face | |
| To the vast conclave. | |
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| The centred Soul | |
| By these is known. | |
| Its will it wreaks | 95 |
| At its own control; | |
| But dumb, unseeing, | |
| The sea of Being | |
| Washes the peaks | |
| Where it strives alone. | 100 |
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Voices
As the dawn awaits | |
| The recoiling gates | |
| Of the eastern air, | |
| We are calm and hear. | |
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