IN SUMMER FIELDS
by: Christina Fraser-Tytler
(1848-1927)
- OMETIMES,
as in the summer fields
- I walk abroad, there comes to me
- So strange a sense of mystery,
- My heart stands still, my feet must stay,
- I am in such strange company.
-
- I look on high--the vasty deep
- Of blue outreaches all my mind;
- And yet I think beyond to find
- Something more vast--and at my feet
- The little bryony is twined.
-
- Clouds sailing as to God go by,
- Earth, sun, and stars are rushing on;
- And faster than swift time, more strong
- Than rushing of the worlds, I feel
- A something Is, of name unknown.
-
- And turning suddenly away,
- Grown sick and dizzy with the sense
- Of power, and mine own impotence,
- I see the gentle cattle feed
- In dumb unthinking innocence.
-
- The great Unknown above; below,
- The cawing rooks, the milking-shed;
- Gods awful silence overhead;
- Below, the muddy pool, the path
- The thirsty herds of cattle tread.
-
- Sometimes, as in the summer fields
- I walk abroad, there comes to me
- So wild a sense of mystery,
- My senses reel, my reason fails,
- I am in such strange company.
-
- Yet somewhere, dimly, I can feel
- The wild confusion dwells in me,
- And I, in no strange company,
- Am the lost link twixt Him and these,
- And touch Him through the mystery.
"In Summer Fields" is
reprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. |
MORE POEMS BY CHRISTINA FRASER-TYTLER |
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