No Transcendental Impulse but then Invaded, sense by sense, and sense by sense again! Confused, harassed, stammering, half-mad, I arrived at a mountain stream's small source alone 5 Whose each mere moment of dropping flowing By dropping more intensely flows. Heart's-blood Stuttered along the tongue of solvent air Following out the stream's wanderings apace As if my liquid's hush through every cataract 10 And canyon-enhancing rivulet did move; What weariness then penetrated every limb Which had flung itself the whole blue morning through Like a ceaseless wheel! I lay a lonesome hour Upon a table of stone spined just so long 15 As myself from dead heel to skull-top Imagining its travel! By my veins The moss-indentured rock with iron force Is cracked, a hammering flow enveloping the mass With pale empurplings and smooth-prompting bulbs of glass 20 That maturer nature had given a more rugged touch. So I lay sun-warmed upon that human stone, Neither foot nor head beyond its grating cradle, Until all that made me I un-made Then wove again together in eye and ear; 25 As if sunlight spoke and sound gave voice in light, All these before me in hazeless dazzle floated free And I consigned them to their Liberty! My rushing emerging blood swept past Cochlea and ear-drum in bird-like thrum: 30 Stream on stream ascended purer air in song Til all was bathed by part, the unaccustomed whole Of oceans leaping from my spring! each martlet that sang Told some note of me; myself had stained Sky's unstarred majesty with pinks, and in a wink 35 Sent each sense sharpened as it spread From azure zones of whispered fire To the old pond's own cool shadow of repose Til every busy sound was somewhat tinged with red And every shifting leaf, dew-shadowed as they were, 40 Burned outlined by that bright delight Their own laughing motion shucked from them in sound. Then a purple rain, it seemed, descended In answering haloes shaken from the sun And broke in its descent to mist, hallowing all. 45 No part of the under-sky receded From that pursuant touch,-- but rather Rose to its own undoing in erotic rapture As drones to their honey-loving maiden-queen Lift translucent wings in flight; 50 Leaf and leaf in murmuring applause Stretched on each twig-end toward that sky! The stone that held my casing seemed more up-raised And the low appearance of the swimming sun Took on a duskier and a closer tone 55 As if it wished to immerse itself again! Strange mist was everywhere, endowing each Glowing glen that lay as little as a lens. Strange mist had wrapped the very bowsprit of the rock! My own skin was mist-engrafted! 60 Within, my own departing heart,--- So whirled with-in and -out with the luminous,--- As pulsant globe and center now resolved. And on this thought my mind no longer moved, By spells of rapt intransigence inly held, 65 Til all that had its faultless action once impelled Conjoined to conjure pause; sweet was the wind That kissed my aching lungs with such sweet breath! All piny, with some sunny hawthorne scenting mixed, ---Even still that air is fresh within me, 70 Even still do I desire the clearness I had then!--- For one hour's welter of such unwon wealth!--- For then I had found out-- in clearness still Do I see it!-- motive of moon and sun and sincerer stars, Our perpetual guest, the unsullied source of glory 75 That limned my out-flowing veins in rivers'-light! Out, out of the very center where my spirit slept Flood called out to flood and flood responded Out-pouring Life! there, there are the harmonies! There the endless systems counted back to One! 80 There the measureless Space contented To a water-drop! There echoings on echoings By their velvet source are hushed! Anguish and insistence vanquished by a touch! Nightmares and chimeras chastized by a love 85 The soul's own shaping power makes animate!
From the collection "Ascent"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.