Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/389

The rapture that is sacrifice.

What miracle was wrought on him,
So that each leaden-freighted limb
Seemed lit with fire, seemed light as air?
How came upon him dying there,
Amid the city's burning piles,
The vision of the mystic isles?
For underneath and through the smoke
A glint of golden waters broke;
And floating on that phantom tide,
With fiery wings expanded wide,
A bark of bronze and crystal wrought
Drawn forth by the enchanter, Thought.
And noble faces glowed above,
Faces of ecstasy and love,
And eyes whose shining calm and pure
Was in eternity secure,
And lofty forms of burnished air
Stood on the deck by Michael there.
And spirit upon spirit gazed,
And one to Michael's lips upraised
A cup filled from that Holy Well
On which the Nuts of Wisdom fell.
And as he drank there reeled away
Vision of earth and night and day,
And he was far away from these,
Afloat upon the heavenly seas.

I do not know if such a band
Came from the Many-Coloured Land:
Or whether in our being we
Make such a magic phantasy
Of images which draw us hence
Unto our own magnificence.
Yet many a one a tryst has kept
With the immortal while he slept,
Woke unremembering, went his way,
Life seemed the same from day to day,