Chapter 2Trance of Waiting

Trance of Waiting2 Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices

around me, Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep, Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy

flame-white for ever, Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient

deep. Distant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges Pales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy

bird. Thought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the

nerve-beat of living Stills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release. Wisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot

measure; Light that no vision can render garments the silence with

splendour. Filled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being Tremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of

repose. Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her

for vesture. Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate. Time waits, vacant, the Lightning that kindles, the Word that

transfigures; Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode. All waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal; Passion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.

hemistich of the pentameter is allowed, but this must not be made the rule. This licence, impossible in the strict cut of classical metre, comes in naturally in English and is therefore permissible.