Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Alice Mary Buckton (1867–1944)

362. The Great Response

LET me come nearer Thee,

O Perfect Soul!

Down-looking on me, whereso’er I tread,

With earnest gaze from cliff, and sky o’erhead,

From clustered leaves and buds and bowers of green—

Let me come nearer Thee!

Seeking Thine intercourse

I wander wide

O’er hills and valleys, under moon and stars,

Rapt in a secret tumult of delight

At every passing cloud, and changing light

On stream and mountain side.

I kiss thy cheek, fair rose!

Its pearly hue

Reflects the darker passion blood of mine:

Thy tender breath, responding to the lips,

Is sweeter to the soul than new-mixt wine.

Young veinèd leaf uncurled,

And tendril green,

Clinging about my finger slenderly,

Thou seëst not: what wouldst thou have of me?

What happy sense hast thou, to know the touch

Of the unseen?

Blue dome of heaven that guards

The living world

Like a green gem within a casket rare,

Fretted with brooks, and set in silver seas,

What Breast contains ye both, the moving Earth

And the free Air?

And lo! within my soul

Some happy Thing

Betrayed the secret sigh of heart’s content:

And, from the hollows of the breathless hills

There came a quiet Voice: Look round on Me,

The Presence, the Desire that moves and fills,

The whole—the part!

I rise upon the winds:

I draw the stars

Thro’ realms of night, on paths of trackless dawn!

Mine Eye contains the light of Day: mine Arm

Unfurls the cloud, and flings the grateful shade

On hill and lawn!

In glimmering regions, yet unfound,

I penetrate

The Abyss of Being, and the Springs of Thought:

I order things that be: and blamelessly

Divide the heavens and earth, reproved of nought,

Of Joy and Power, insatiate!

I linger in the twilight land of grief:

With health divine

Breathing on frozen hearts that know me not;

They lift their marred and chilly lips to me,

Swooning into my bosom dreamlessly,

For Grief and Death are mine!

I gather up the fleeting Souls that seem

All day to die:

Their beauty, melting, passeth not away!

Woven into the golden mist of Life

They ’merge again upon the teeming Strife

That worketh endlessly!

And Man, the fairest of my children! Thou

That battlest darkly with thy Destiny,

Whom I have made for god-like liberty,

And fain had lifted up to be with Me—

My son and fellow-worker! know

I only Am: unhasting, uncontrolled,

My Perfect Will

Fulfils its perfect Self, around, above!

MY HIDDEN NAME is Joy! O mortal, yield

Unto the Breath that would thy being fill,

The Breath of Love!