Classic Poem

The Old Soul came from far,
Beyond the unlit bound;
There had gone out a star
And a great world was drowned,
Since birth and death and birth
Were hers, upon the earth.

For she had robed anew
Time and time out of mind;
And, as the sphere of dew
Unshapes into the wind,
Her raiment oft had cast
Into the wasting past.

There was no dizzying height
She had not sometime trod,
No dungeon known of night
But she had felt its rod;
The saint, assoiled from sin —
And saint's arch-foe — had been!

At cruel feasts she sate,
Where heartless mirth ran high;
Through famine's portal strait
Had fled her wailful cry;
All human fates had proved,
And those from man removed.

Yea, she had worn the guise
Of creatures lashed and spurned —
Even of those whose eyes
May not on heaven be turned;
No house too dark or base
To be her tarrying place!

The Old Soul came from far;
And, all lives having known,
She nowhere touched a bar,
But all was as her own:
And this could none forget
Who once her look had met!

The Old Soul came from far,
Moving through days and ways
That are not — and that are!
She turned on all her gaze —
Illumed, — deceived, — illumed;
Yet still the road resumed.

The Old Soul came from far,
And toward the far she drew.
" Turn home, mine avatar! "
That voice, long lost, she knew;
She heard, she turned — was free —
No more to dream, but Be!