Classic Poem

XXII

Musing my way through a sombre and favourite fugue
By Bach who disburdens my soul but perplexes my fingers,
I heard, as it were in the past of my being that listened,
Echoes of antiphones chanted remotely: I visioned
Martyrs in Glory who stood upon clouds while the singers
Lifted their hearts into heaven, by music unprisoned.
It this in itself were enough, I am crowned with the best.
But the vision in silence has vanished: I know but my need
To be clearing my lofts of their lumber, to build with my breath
The litany leading me onward, the intimate creed
That must hold me enhumbled, barred out from abodes of the blest:
For my prayer must be laden with life and the patience that saith,
" In our bodies we bide, and the end of the body is death."

Praying I know not to whom in this musicless room
Where my soul like the flame of a candle in ecstasy stood,
I gaze at my life in a mirror, desirous of good.
And my solitude girds me with ghosts, with invisible words:
In the mirror I see but the face that is me, that is mine;
And the notes of the fugue that were voices from vastness divine.