THE PARADOX
by: Gertrude M. Hort
I
- HEN I have gained the Hill
- Where beats the clear and rigid light of God
- Full on the path by fearless comrades trod;
- When I have tuned to theirs my will and word,
- And by my prompting voice their ranks are stirred
- To hail each height with Higher! Higher still!
- That luring glow which from the Valley streams
- Warns me I am not what my spirit seems.
-
II
But when my life descends
- Into the Hollow, where no wild thoughts reach,
- And all that lawful yearning can beseech
- Sits at my hearth, or in my garden grows;
- When I need match no more with noble foes,
- Nor share the yoke with unrelenting friends,
- That strange veiled star which oer the Hill-top beams,
- Shows me I am not what my body dreams!
"The Paradox" is reprinted
from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Ed. Nicholson
& Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. |
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POEMS BY GERTRUDE M. HORT |
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