mine, The heat and dust, the jostling and the noise, The kindly challenge and the neighbour-talk, All these may claim me, so that I forget To lift my eyes and see the far-off peaks, And the eternal splendour of the stars. 

 So be it; let the tide of men's affairs Carry me back and forward; let the rub Of greasy ha'pence passed from hand to hand, In humble traffic of a bunch of herbs Not pass me by; let me jog arm in arm, Or cheek by jowl, the shady side o' the street, With friends and neighbours, glad to know them there, Imperfect, human, kind, and tolerant. 

 So may the years go. Yet, when the call comes, And the world's colours fade before the eye That turns for spiritual vision on itself; When, from the four walls of the silent room, The noises of the world fall back and fail In that great silence which enrings the last Ecstatic moment of experience, Here on this earth—ah, then indeed I know That I shall find you. All that lies behind (The years of trivial experience) Shall open and fall back from off my soul, As falls the brown sheaf from the opening bud; And in that poignant moment, that mere breath Of temporal time, that aeon of the soul, I shall reach out and know you, mix with you As flame with flame, as ray with ray of light, Be perfectly yourself, as you are me, With all else fallen, gone, dispersed away Save the pure drop of spiritual essence—Then Let come what may, light or oblivion. 

 

 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh. 

 

 

 

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