SOUL OF SONG

I have been quiet a long while

To fill my singing smile

With a magic beyond the lips of man

And very quiet will I be

After the burst of minstrelsy

To find at the close

The light with which my tune began.

Glowing behind

The singer's mind,

A mystery journeys forth to meet

Across the rapture of rhyming feet

Its own unplumbed repose.

Come then, O listeners, with a tranquil mood

To feel far more than the loud heart knows;

Or else the King who moves through the common word

Shall never be heard

And keep unseen the strange infinitude

He bears above our mortal woes,

The purple of his dream divine.

Look deep for his true royalty's sign:

Haloed with hush he enters, coronaed with calm he goes!

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