The Mystic. [Cale Young Rice]

There is a quest that calls me, In nights when I am lone, The need to ride where the ways divide The Known from the Unknown. I mount what thought is near me And soon I reach the place, The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim And the Sightless hides its face.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the sea, I have ridden the moon and stars. I have set my feet in the stirrup seat Of a comet coursing Mars. And everywhere Thro' the earth and air My thought speeds, lightning-shod, It comes to a place where checking pace It cries, "Beyond lies God!"~

It calls me out of the darkness, It calls me out of sleep, "Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!" It bids -- and on I sweep To the wide outposts of Being, Where there is Gulf alone -- And thro' a Vast that was never passed I listen for Life's tone.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the night, I have ridden the ghosts that flee From the vaults of death like a chilling breath Over eternity. And everywhere Is the world laid bare -- Ether and star and clod -- Until I wind to its brink and find But the cry, "Beyond lies God!"~

It calls me and ever calls me! And vainly I reply, "Fools only ride where the ways divide What Is from the Whence and Why"! I'm lifted into the saddle Of thoughts too strong to tame And down the deeps and over the steeps I find -- ever the same.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the stars, I have ridden the force that flies With far intent thro' the firmament And each to each allies. And everywhere That a thought may dare To gallop, mine has trod -- Only to stand at last on the strand Where just beyond lies God.~

I would I might forget that I am I. [George Santayana]

I would I might forget that I am I, And break the heavy chain that binds me fast, Whose links about myself my deeds have cast. What in the body's tomb doth buried lie Is boundless; 't is the spirit of the sky, Lord of the future, guardian of the past, And soon must forth, to know his own at last. In his large life to live, I fain would die.

Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food, But calling not his suffering his own; Blessed the angel, gazing on all good, But knowing not he sits upon a throne; Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood, And doomed to know his aching heart alone.

To William Sharp. [Clinton Scollard] (Fiona Macleod)

The waves about Iona dirge, The wild winds trumpet over Skye; Shrill around Arran's cliff-bound verge The gray gulls cry.

Spring wraps its transient scarf of green, Its heathery robe, round slope and scar; And night, the scudding wrack between, Lights its lone star.

But you who loved these outland isles, Their gleams, their glooms, their mysteries, Their eldritch lures, their druid wiles, Their tragic seas,

Will heed no more, in mortal guise, The potent witchery of their call, If dawn be regnant in the skies, Or evenfall.

Yet, though where suns Sicilian beam The loving earth enfolds your form, I can but deem these coasts of dream And hovering storm

Still thrall your spirit -- that it bides By far Iona's kelp-strewn shore, There lingering till time and tides Shall surge no more.

The Quiet Singer. [Charles Hanson Towne] (Ave! Francis Thompson)

He had been singing -- but I had not heard his voice; He had been weaving lovely dreams of song, O many a morning long. But I, remote and far, Under an alien star, Listened to other singers, other birds, And other silver words. But does the skylark, singing sweet and clear, Beg the cold world to hear? Rather he sings for very rapture of singing, At dawn,

or in the blue, mild Summer noon, Knowing that, late or soon, His wealth of beauty, and his high notes, ringing Above the earth, will make some heart rejoice. He sings, albeit alone, Spendthrift of each pure tone, Hoarding no single song, No cadence wild and strong. But one day, from a friend far overseas, As if upon the breeze, There came the teeming wonder of his words -- A golden troop of birds, Caged in a little volume made to love; Singing, singing, Flinging, flinging Their breaking hearts on mine, and swiftly bringing Tears, and the peace thereof. How the world woke anew! How the days broke anew! Before my tear-blind eyes a tapestry I seemed to see, Woven of all the dreams dead or to be. Hills, hills of song, Springs of eternal bloom, Autumns of golden pomp and purple gloom Were hung upon his loom. Winters of pain, roses with awful thorns, Yet wondrous faith in God's dew-drenched morns -- These, all these I saw, With that ecstatic awe Wherewith one looks into Eternity.

And then I knew that, though I had not heard His voice before, His quiet singing, like some quiet bird At some one's distant door, Had made my own more sweet; had made it more Lovely, in one of God's miraculous ways. I knew then why the days Had seemed to me more perfect when the Spring Came with old bourgeoning; For somewhere in the world his voice was raised, And somewhere in the world his heart was breaking; And never a flower but knew it, sweetly taking Beauty more high and noble for his sake, As a whole wood grows lovelier for the wail Of one sad nightingale.

Yet if the Springs long past Seemed wonderful before I heard his voice, I tremble at the beauty I shall see In seasons still to be, Now that his songs are mine while Life shall last. O now for me New floods of vision open suddenly . . . Rejoice, my heart! Rejoice That you have heard the Quiet Singer's voice!