Unum est Necessarium
Yet not of them, O Gazer, know thou art:
Look further!"
Then with anxious sight astrain
I pierced the depth of space from part to part,
And lo! adrift as leaves that eddy in vain,
I watched the vacant, vagrant, aimless dance
Of Souls concentred in their bliss or pain:
Unneighboured souls, the drift of time and chance.
*****
O bright, unthrifty stars that glow and spend
Your radiance unregarding, when my glance
Fell from the fulgence where your orbits trend,
So far, I felt as men who smile in dreams
And wake, at rainy dawn, without a friend!
So bare they looked, bereft of all their beams;
Poor spheres that trail their cloudy mantles dim
Where throb and fret a few faint feverish gleams.
"Look," said the Voice, " for thou art such an one
Many are ye; the uncentred Souls are few!"
I gazed; and as we used to fix the sun
In London thro' the fogs our valleys knew.
Beneath their shrouds I saw these too were bright.
"Be thankful!" then acclaimed the Voice anew.
Adore, and learn that all men love the Light!"
And, as the motion of their muffled fires
Grew more distinct to mine undazzled sight,
I half-forgot those glad and gracious quires,
In pity of their dearth who dream and yearn.
Pent up and shrouded in their lone desires.
Aye, even as plants that grow in chambers turn
Their twisted branches towards the window space.
And languish for the daylight they discern,
So longed these spirits for the Light of Grace!
And aye their passionate yearning would attract
Some beam within their cloudy dwelling-place,
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