Oracles

76 THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE Marvellous eddies in its wild caress ; And there the solemn echoes caught the stress, The strain of that impassive tide, Shook it and flung it high and wide, Till all the air took fire from that melodious roar ; All the mute mountains heard, Bowed, laughed aloud, concurred, And passed the word along, the signal of wide war. All earth took up the sound, And, being in one tune securely bound, Even as a star became the soul of silence most profound. IV Thus there, the centre of that death that darkened, I sat and listened, if God’s voice should break And pierce the hollow of my ear that hearkened, Lest God should speak and find me not awake— For his own sake. No voice, no song might pierce or penetrate That enviable universal state. The sun and moon beheld, stood still. Only the spirit’s axis, will, Considered its own soul and sought a deadlier deep, And in its monotone mood Of supreme solitude Was neither glad nor sad because it did not sleep ; But with calm eyes abode Patient, its leisure that galactic load, Abode alone, nor even rejoiced to know that it was God.