WHAT THE SOUL DESIRES
by: Augusta Theodosia Drane
(1823-1894)
- HERE is a rapture that my soul
desires,
- There is a something that I cannot name;
- I know not after what my soul aspires,
- Nor guess from whence the restless longing came;
- But ever from my childhood have I felt it,
- In all things beautiful and all things gay,
- And ever has its gentle, unseen presence
- Fallen, like a shadow-cloud, across my way.
-
- It is the melody of all sweet music,
- In all fair forms it is the hidden grace;
- In all I love, a something that escapes me,
- Flies my pursuit, and ever veils its face.
- I see it in the woodlands summer beauty,
- I hear it in the breathing of the air;
- I stretch my hands to feel for it, and grasp it,
- But ah! too well I know, it is not there.
-
- In sunset-hours, when all the earth is golden,
- And rosy clouds are hastening to the west,
- I catch a waving gleam, and then tis vanished,
- And the old longing once more fills my breast.
-
- It is not pain, although the fire consumes me,
- Bound up with memories of my happiest years;
- It steals into my deepest joys--O mystery!
- It mingles, too, with all my saddest tears.
-
- Once, only once, there rose the heavy curtain,
- The clouds rolled back, and for too brief a space
- I drank in joy as from a living fountain,
- And seemed to gaze upon it, face to face:
- But of that day and hour who shall venture
- With lips untouched by seraphs fire to tell?
- I saw Thee, O my Life! I heard, I touched Thee,--
- Then oer my soul once more the darkness fell.
-
- The darkness fell, and all the glory vanished;
- I strove to call it back, but all in vain:
- O rapture! to have seen it for a moment!
- O anguish! that it never came again!
- That lightning-flash of joy that seemed eternal,
- Was it indeed but wandering fancys dream?
- Ah, surely no! that day the heavens opened,
- And on my soul there fell a golden gleam.
-
- O Thou, my Life, give me what then Thou gavest!
- No angel vision do I ask to see,
- I seek no ecstasy of mystic rapture,
- Naught, naught, my Lord, my Life, but only Thee!
- That golden gleam hath purged my sight, revealing,
- In the fair ray reflected from above,
- Thyself, beyond all sight, beyond all feeling,
- The hidden Beauty, and the hidden Love.
-
- As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,
- And seeks the shades whence cooling fountains burst;
- Even so for Thee, O Lord, my spirit fainteth,
- Thyself alone hath power to quench its thirst.
-
- Give me what then Thou gavest, for I seek it
- No longer in Thy creatures, as of old,
- I strive no more to grasp the empty shadow,
- The secret of my life is found and told!
"What the Soul Desires"
is reprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. |
MORE POEMS BY AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE |
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